KEY STAT:
• Los Angeles shot 13-for-16 (81 percent) from the field and outscored the Fever 33-16 in the first quarter.
• The Fever matched the Sparks’ scoring output over the final three quarters, but were held to just 31 percent shooting in the second half as Los Angeles earned an 87-70 win at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

KEY RUN:
• The Fever went on an 11-2 run midway through the third quarter to cut a 16-point deficit down to seven, 51-58, with 3:41 left in the period, but the Sparks answered with an 9-2 burst to end the quarter and extend their advantage back to 67-53 entering the final period. Indiana never trailed by fewer than 10 points in the fourth quarter.

INDIANA NOTES:
• The Fever fell to 0-3 to begin the season for the first time since the 2015 campaign.
• Rookie guard Kelsey Mitchell posted her highest totals of her young career as she led the Fever with 20 points and four assists. She has now totaled 36 points over her last two games after scoring just five points on 2-for-8 shooting in her WNBA debut Saturday against Chicago.
• Tiffany Mitchell scored in double figures for the first time this season with 14 points as she shot 6-for-12 from the field.
• Indiana’s bench combined to score 38 points as five of the six reserves who saw action scored.

LOS ANGELES NOTES:
• The Sparks opened the 2018 campaign with their second road victory in as many tries.
• Los Angeles followed its buzzer-beating win at Minnesota Sunday by shooting 51 percent from the field in a wire-to-wire victory over Indiana tonight.
• Nneka Ogwumike, the 2016 WNBA Most Valuable Player, led all players in tonight’s game with 25 points and 10 rebounds. She scored 17 of her points in the first half.
• Guard Odyssey Sims scored nine of her 17 points in the second half to help the Sparks seal the victory.
• The Sparks totaled 21 assists on 34 field goals while only committing 10 turnovers.

Quoting Fever Head Coach Pokey Chatman

“We can’t start the way we started and ever expect to have success. We started to sub with some of our youth and energy, and started to see things happen.”

“If you can remove the first quarter, it was a pretty damn close game. Now, I’m not looking for any moral victories. Those don’t count against anybody in this league. But that’s where we hurt ourselves. We rebounded well after we fell so far behind.”

“[Los Angeles] went to the head of their snake early and often. They went to Nneka, Nneka, Nneka; then went Gray, Gray, Gray. They had success so they kept on pounding it. What I didn’t like was we never made her adjust and do anything different.”

Quoting the Fever’s Kelsey Mitchell

(What happened in the first quarter?)

“It’s grind. Of course it’s a marathon. The people that are new here just try to give energy where we can. We look up to the first group that starts up the game. So whatever needs to happen to continually grind it out and win some games is going to have to happen.”

(On what helped the Sparks pull away late in the game)

“A lot of 50/50 balls in that area. We got down seven, missed block out and the next thing you know they took from seven up to 12. So it’s all about grinding it out and finishing plays real quick.”

Quoting the Fever’s Candice Dupree

(On the tough start in the first quarter)

“First quarter did us in. We just have to have more energy. We can’t keep getting off to bad starts game after game after game. It’s killing us. I think at one point it was like 25 to 8. We were able to climb out of the hole a little bit and bring it within 10 and then from there we just couldn’t get over the hump.”

(How do you feel this team is starting to meshing these younger players?)

“The young players are doing well. They’re coming in and doing their jobs and giving us energy off the bench. Kelsey Mitchell had a hell of a game today. I think if anything, we have to take a look at the older players, figure out how to get the older ones to play harder and get us off to a better start.”

Quoting Sparks Head Coach Brian Agler

“First of all, I think Indiana really competed. I liked how they played against Washington and I liked how they played against us after about the first eight minutes or so. I still think they are trying to figure out their combinations, who can play what and do what. I was just telling our coaches that they are going to be a team that really improves this year. They’ll get things figured out and they’ll really improve. Young teams, it’s really difficult in this league. I was really happy with how we moved the ball, shot the ball better tonight than we did (Sunday) night. And defensively, when we’re active and we keep good ball pressure at the point of attack, then good things happen.”

Quoting the Sparks’ Nneka Ogwumike

“We were just trying to roll off of that first win. It’s a challenge but we still have a lot to work on and we still have some missing pieces. But we want to be able to do the best that we can do. We want to be able to do the best that we can on this road trip. It’s important to come out of this road trip with as many wins as we can. Indiana is a very aggressive team, very downhill team. It was difficult to contain at times. Obviously, they have Kelsey Mitchell and for us we wanted to contain the post with Candice Dupree inside. I think that we did a pretty good job of responding to the tempo of their game.”

Quoting the Sparks’ Odyssey Sims

“Great team win. Looking forward to traveling to Connecticut and trying to get another one on the road on Thursday.”

(On the difference between the first and second half)

“We got a little lazy in the first half, kind of took our foot off the gas. We picked it up and managed to stay within each other and managed to keep lead.”