Rae Burrell set to play in Wings clash after brief injury scare

The Los Angeles Sparks received a double-dose of good news on Thursday with Kelsey Plum set to make her injury return against the Dallas Wings on Friday, and with Rae Burrell not appearing on the injury report after a brief scare at the very end of the team’s loss to the Las Vegas Aces on Tuesday.

As the clock reached zero in the fourth quarter of the Sparks’ loss to the Aces, Rae Burrell had seemingly suffered an injury as she was down under the team’s basket. Unable to walk on her own, she was whisked away off the court and to the locker room under her teammates’ power.

Following the loss, Sparks’ head coach Lynne Roberts didn’t have an immediate update on what happened, but after Thursday’s practice, the team breathed a sigh of relief as it was revealed that Burrell did not suffer any major injury and would not have to be sidelined at all.

“I’m good. I’m feeling good, a little tweak, but I’m fine,” Burrell told reporters after Thursday’s practice.

Amid the injury scare, Burrell was coming off her best game of the season, dropping a career-high 22 points while shooting 8-of-14 from the field and 2-of-4 from 3-point range. It’s been an upward trend for the five-year veteran amid a shuffling spot in the rotation going from starting to coming off the bench to starting again amid the Plum injury.

No matter what position she finds herself in, Burrell has always played with aggressiveness and energy and that’s what she credits to her uptick in play as of late.

“Just being aggressive and getting downhill,” Burrell said. “My teammates making the right reads with screening angles, cutting and everything. So just taking advantage of what the defense was giving me and my team opening me up.”

Burrell has played in all nine games for the Sparks to this point, including seven starts, at a little over 27 minutes per game, a career-best. She’s averaging 10.4 points, 2.6 rebounds and 1.4 assists with splits of 45.3 percent shooting from the field, 33.3 percent shooting from the 3-point line and 78.9 percent shooting from the free-throw line. Her points, rebounds, assists and field goal percentage are all career-highs.

She began the season as one of the starters, but in an effort to allow Plum to get a quicker start offensively, the Sparks opted to go with another ball-handler in Erica Wheeler in the starting backcourt. That shifted Ariel Atkins to small forward and moved Burrell to the second unit.

Roberts was certain Burrell would continue to make an impact no matter what was asked of her, and to this point she’s been proven right. Burrell is one of the team’s major X-factors, crucial to whatever success they hope to have.

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