Sparks stun Lynx in Game 1 on Alana Beard's buzzer-beater

— -- MINNEAPOLIS -- Alana Beard the businesswoman will be opening a Mellow Mushroom pizza restaurant in Roanoke, Virginia, on Oct. 22 with her good friend, Indiana guard Marissa Coleman.

But Beard the basketball player is still hard at work at her hoops job too. On Sunday in Game 1 of the WNBA Finals at the Target Center, she made the kind of defensive plays we expect from her, with those Inspector Gadget-like long arms and the quick hands that have flummoxed so many foes.

But she made something else that wasn't so expected: a jump shot at the buzzer, which gave Los Angeles a 78-76 victory over Minnesota.

"Obviously, you want the ball in certain people's hands," Beard said of the game-ending possession, though she wasn't referring to herself. "Then it came to my side, and you gotta take the shot. There's no time for a pass in that situation."

The reality is, the Lynx actually preferred Beard take the shot, if anyone did. She's not the scorer she once was, and that's not her primary role with the Sparks.

Los Angeles needs her defensively and as an emotional leader for the team.

"She brings so much," said Sparks forward Nneka Ogumike, who was the WNBA's MVP this season. "She's a big part of the glue to this team, on and off the court. For her to have a moment like that is special for her career. It's something she'll remember, and we'll remember.

"But it also goes to show that she is always in the moment. That's just how she always is, and she capitalized on it."

Beard, 34, is the second-oldest player for the Sparks. She was part of what proved to be a talented WNBA draft class of 2004. Three other players from that draft are playing in this series, all with Minnesota: Lindsay Whalen, Rebekkah Brunson and Jia Perkins. Phoenix's Diana Taurasi was the No. 1 pick that season, followed by Beard at No. 2 by Washington.

Beard played her first six seasons with the Mystics, and she was a pretty big scorer then, averaging 16.2 points for her Washington career. But severe ankle problems sidelined Beard for the 2010 and 2011 seasons. Even then, the Duke grad was planning her eventual business career, and she knew she could survive without basketball.

She just wasn't ready to do that at that point.

"It's the love that I have for the game," Beard said about what pushed her to recover and keep playing. "But I think one huge motivation was when a doctor told me that I would never play again. And another was the Mystics believing I would never play again.

"I kept going. It was hard at times; I'm not going to lie. But you just never know where life will take you, and I've developed a mindset of staying open to anything."

When Beard went cross-country to join the Sparks in 2012, she understood her role would change in regard to offense. But she has remained a fierce and feared defender, along with being a mentor for younger players.

"Nobody wants to be guarded by her," teammate Kristi Toliver said. "Luckily, she's always on my team in practice."

Beard dealt with plantar fasciitis last year and was limited to 14 games in the regular season. But this year, she has started every game and been an invaluable resource to second-year guard Chelsea Gray, who also went to Duke.

Beard and Gray, who turned 24 on Saturday, played a decade apart for the Blue Devils and for different coaches. But Beard reached out while Gray was still in college, including giving her encouragement when Gray went through knee injuries that hampered her Duke career.

"She emailed me and we texted a few times then," said Gray, who was drafted by Connecticut in 2015 but came to Los Angeles in an April trade. "And from the first day I was here, she was in my ear and was happy I was with the Sparks."

Gray has become a more important part of the Los Angeles offense, especially in the past month. She played 30 minutes on Sunday off the bench, scoring 12 points. But it was the last of her four assists that will stand out.

The Sparks and Lynx had been battling all game, just as expected. In the fourth quarter, Los Angeles made some very big defensive stops, including two consecutive forced turnovers by Beard on a blocked shot and a steal in the last 2 minutes, 20 seconds of the game.

After a layup by Minnesota's Maya Moore with 24.7 seconds left tied the score at 76, the Sparks put the ball in Gray's hands to orchestrate the final shot. The top option was Toliver, who finished tied with Ogwumike with a game-high 19 points. The Lynx defense had that covered, though, and Gray was left with one choice: passing to Beard on the right side, in front of the Sparks' bench, and just inside the arc.

Moore left Beard alone to help on defense, which was understandable when you consider the Sparks' other scoring threats. Moore adjusted and tried to contest Beard's shot. But Beard swished it, and she fell down after she followed through, soon to be covered with overjoyed teammates.

Women's basketball fans might go back in their memory vaults to a somewhat similar shot that Beard's Duke teammate Jessica Foley hit to beat UConn in Hartford, Connecticut, during Beard's senior season in 2004. That one was a 3-pointer, but a lot else about Sunday's shot was the same, including Foley falling down as the ball went through the net.

"I was probably the first one to get to her," Beard said of that celebration. "In this case, Chelsea was the first one to get to me."

Beard has been a pro basketball player for 13 years, counting her injured period, but this is her first time appearing in the WNBA Finals. She knows that the Sparks still have a lot of work to do to try to win the title, but she's grateful to at least have the chance.

"I'm happy to be healthy now," Beard said. "This is the best I've felt in maybe five or six years, and you can see it with the way I move. That last shot, that play, is a great example of who we've been all season, just the resilience. These are the moments you kind of live for."