diff --git a/python/pyspark/mllib/linalg.py b/python/pyspark/mllib/linalg.py
index e96c5ef87df86..52d0dafd43d28 100644
--- a/python/pyspark/mllib/linalg.py
+++ b/python/pyspark/mllib/linalg.py
@@ -586,13 +586,19 @@ def dot(self, other):
 
         assert len(self) == _vector_size(other), "dimension mismatch"
 
-        if type(other) in (np.ndarray, array.array, DenseVector):
+        if type(other) == array.array:
             result = 0.0
-            for i in xrange(len(self.indices)):
-                result += self.values[i] * other[self.indices[i]]
+            for i, ind in enumerate(self.indices):
+                result += self.values[i] * other[ind]
             return result
 
-        elif type(other) is SparseVector:
+        elif isinstance(other, np.ndarray):
+            return np.dot(other[self.indices], self.values)
+
+        elif isinstance(other, DenseVector):
+            return np.dot(other.array[self.indices], self.values)
+
+        elif isinstance(other, SparseVector):
             result = 0.0
             i, j = 0, 0
             while i < len(self.indices) and j < len(other.indices):
@@ -635,7 +641,7 @@ def squared_distance(self, other):
         AssertionError: dimension mismatch
         """
         assert len(self) == _vector_size(other), "dimension mismatch"
-        if type(other) in (list, array.array, DenseVector, np.array, np.ndarray):
+        if type(other) in (list, array.array):
             if type(other) is np.array and other.ndim != 1:
                 raise Exception("Cannot call squared_distance with %d-dimensional array" %
                                 other.ndim)
@@ -650,6 +656,18 @@ def squared_distance(self, other):
                     result += other[i] * other[i]
             return result
 
+        elif type(other) in (np.array, np.ndarray, DenseVector):
+            if type(other) == DenseVector:
+                other = other.array
+            sparse_ind = np.zeros(other.size, dtype=bool)
+            sparse_ind[self.indices] = True
+            dist = other[sparse_ind] - self.values
+            result = np.dot(dist, dist)
+
+            other_ind = other[~sparse_ind]
+            result += np.dot(other_ind, other_ind)
+            return result
+
         elif type(other) is SparseVector:
             result = 0.0
             i, j = 0, 0