LOS ANGELES -- They were dancing and singing along to Aretha's "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" in the Los Angeles Sparks locker room Saturday afternoon. Well, that and a couple of other songs with the word "respect" in them, but I'm not hip enough to know what those were.

And the first thing I thought, honestly, was, "Why on earth are they playing those?"

Respect? Does any Spark player actually think that she was "earning respect" by beating New York 69-66 in Game 2 and winning the WNBA championship again?

After all, this is the team that everybody in the league said was the best. That would be everybody. OK?

Before the finals, New York's Sue Wicks said of the Sparks, "They have the talent, and we can't run with them." After the finals ended, Liberty coach Richie Adubato said, "I think they have the greatest collection of athletes, from top to bottom, that I have seen."

The Sparks already had the respect, a tractor-trailor full of it. Everybody knows how good they are, and everybody saw how good they are.

So we'll have to write off the "respect" thing to an unimaginative song selection or this desire so many athletes seem to have to want to paint themselves as underdogs in a self-motivational ploy.

Or, with the Sparks, maybe it's also something else. This is a team that doesn't have a former NCAA champion on its roster.

Of the Sparks who went to college in the United States -- Lisa Leslie (Southern California), DeLisha Milton (Florida), Latasha Byears (DePaul), Tamecka Dixon (Kansas), Nikky McCrimmon (Southern Cal), Sophia Witherspoon (Florida) and Nikki Teasley (North Carolina) -- none even played in the Final Four.

Leslie has won two gold medals with the U.S. Olympic team. But you could still say that, until last year's WNBA-title breakthrough, this was a championship-starved group.

And maybe that's what really brings up this "respect" thing. I think the disappointments some of the Sparks had in college really ate away at them. Perhaps it created this feeling that they have to keep proving themselves, even so many years after the fact.

But it's really unnecessary. There isn't any doubt that the Sparks have been the best team in the league the last two years, and you might as well start looking out for a three-peat.

Saturday's game, though, was one of those you can't really explain.

When it was 18-4 in the first half, the Liberty looked dead. We braced for a blowout of embarrassing proportions. At one point, the smart-aleck comment on press row was, "OK, was that my imagination, or did the Liberty actually just score?"

And then, all of sudden, New York was back in the game. It didn't seem as if Los Angeles was really doing anything wrong, just that the Liberty kept on catching up.

In the second half, the Sparks looked as if they had dealt the death blow at least three times. They led by nine with a little over 2 minutes left.

But the Liberty went on a 9-0 run to tie it. It was nuts.

"We could have folded up," New York coach Richie Adubato said. "Because they have beaten people unmercifully when they have gotten off to a start like that. But our heart and desire to win just showed up."

Tari Phillips hit a 15-footer to tie the game at 66, and then L.A. called time out. The Sparks had to be going to Leslie, right?

"It was a set play for Lisa," Teasley confirmed. "We wanted to go to our bread and butter; it was diagrammed."

Teasley, meanwhile, wasn't feeling good about her shot, neither Saturday nor in Thursday's first game, when she had 11 assists. The Liberty could tell, so it cheated off Teasley for much of the afternoon. She had made 3 of 10 shots coming into those finals seconds, so it was a sensible cheat.

"It was not great-looking in the stat sheet," Teasley said.

Teresa Weatherspoon -- who is 13 years older than Teasley -- backed off her as the clock wound down, readying to help on Leslie. Weatherspoon described it as playing cat and mouse.

And Teasley was the cat. She hit a 21-footer and then had the presence of mind to know there was enough time on the clock that predicated defending Weatherspoon.

Everyone's seen Spoon's halfcourter to beat Houston in Game 2 three years ago, and Teasley wasn't going to watch her tie the Sparks. She got a piece of Spoon's shot, which fizzled away like a faulty bottlerocket.

"Well, I wasn't too excited once I made the shot, because the first thing I did was look at the clock. I wanted to see if they had time to score," said Teasley, and remember, this is a rookie who did that. "So, in case everybody didn't notice, I did get my hands on that ball when Teresa Weatherspoon got it at halfcourt."

You know, it was good to see all this happen for Teasley. Everything that went down on draft day back in April worked out well for her.

Washington didn't pick her because the Mystics and Teasley really didn't seem the best fit. I don't think it was unfair for people to wonder how Teasley would adjust when she came to the WNBA, considering depression and anger issues interrupted her career at North Carolina for a season.

There were realistic questions. At the same time, though, was it wise for Portland to pick her and then trade her for Ukari Figgs?

Well, Figgs had her moments with the Fire. She can bring a lot to that team. But Teasley is amazingly talented, and she played with a ton of maturity this season.

Let's just say this: Regardless of what it meant to the Fire, the trade was certainly the right thing for Teasley.

She benefited from having veterans around. There was pressure on her, but not too much pressure. She needed to be with a more talented, polished group, because that allowed her the freedom to just play, to be herself. Having an NBA veteran such as Michael Cooper as a coach also has helped Teasley.

Saturday, he made another reference to her as a Magic Johnson-type player, comparing what she did as a rookie this season to the way Johnson helped the Lakers in his first season.

"I could never be spoken in the same sentence as Magic Johnson," Teasley said. "He's done way, way too much for the game of basketball. A lot more than I could ever do."

Sure, considering Magic in many ways "saved" the NBA when it was at a very low point, it would be hard for anyone to have a similar impact. And Teasley's being realistic about where women's basketball rates on the impact scale nationwide. But ...

She still may be underestimating herself. Players such as Teasley and Indiana's Tamika Catchings, and -- at the college level -- UConn's Diana Taurasi and Duke's Alana Beard are setting new boundaries in many ways for women's hoops.

Because they are not only extremely skilled individually, they play with a panache and a confidence that makes people want to watch them. If Teasley's career continues to develop in the direction this first season has, watch 15 or 20 years from now how many point guards will say they patterned their game after her.

"I have never hit a game-winning shot. I won an AAU Tournament maybe when I was 10 years old, but nothing ever big," Teasley said. "Nothing in college, didn't get to play in the state championship in high school. But tell you what, I am not disappointed, because this is the one to get."

And her teammates, similarly deprived of ultimate NCAA glory, maybe can feel the same way now. The Sparks have two titles in row. They swept all three of their playoff opponents.

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T" isn't a song that needs any airtime in L.A.'s locker room.

Mechelle Voepel of the Kansas City Star is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. She can be reached at mvoepel@kcstar.com.