TORONTO — It’s unusual for one expansion team to have the chance go up against another in their first year of existence, making Saturday’s contest ripe with opportunities for comparison.
The Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire have largely been touted as foils of each other — the first, a team that used free agency to build a winning group for year one; the other, a team revitalizing a previous rendition of the WNBA in Portland that appears willing to wait a few seasons before rising to relevance.
The two narratives have become so commonplace that even Fire head coach Alex Sarama referred to these alternate approaches in his pre-game remarks.
However, after a game that remained close through three quarters before the Tempo fell 99-80 to the Fire at Coca-Cola Coliseum on Saturday evening, these two expansion franchises showed they offer more similarities than they do differences.
Both squads are just two weeks into a long journey of realizing their identities, and with their second loss in as many games, head coach Sandy Brondello explained how the Tempo have mistaken theirs.
“I just think we got away from our identity; our defence is very average at the moment. We’ve got to find solutions for that, just finding a little bit more trust there,” she said. “We’re facing some adversity, and sometimes you need to get slapped in the face to make some changes and be better.”
Chemistry seemed to come more easily for the visitors. The Fire totalled 24 assists compared to just 19 from the Tempo.
With a younger squad and less free-agency moves made, the Fire have successfully depended on their depth to add help on the offensive end. Portland built its lead from the bench, with 42 coming from its reserves. The Tempo, on the other hand, got only 18 points off the bench.
When in trouble, the Tempo looked to their big names to take over with isolation opportunities that didn’t often work.
Brittney Sykes entered the game as Toronto’s leading scorer, but the Fire’s effective trap defence ended up stymieing her. So far, there’s been a direct correlation between big scoring nights for Sykes and wins for the Tempo — in each of their last two wins she dropped over 30 points.
On Saturday, the offence had to come from somewhere else.
“Our best part was transition. We got out and ran, pushing, getting easy baskets in the half court,” Brondello said.
Toronto rookie Kiki Rice agreed: “I think just getting out, being ready to run, I think that’s something we really do well as a team. Getting out in transition, getting stops and pushing, but that, obviously, starts with getting stops. So, if we’re better defensively, we’re going to have more opportunities to play in the area that we want to play in.”
Marina Mabrey and Rice were the offensive highlights for Toronto. The pair scored a game-high 19 each and connected on a couple momentum-shifting, full-court transition plays. On back-to-back trips, Mabrey fed Rice a long pass that beat the defence and set her up for an easy layup – the second forced Portland to take a timeout.
“There are times in the last couple of games that we’ve played where we’ve gotten a lot of really good shots, open shots,” said Tempo guard Kia Nurse, who had four points and missed all five attempts she took from three. “We just haven’t knocked them down, so it’s about us understanding when we get those ones, you’ve gotta believe that the one that you’re letting out of your hands is going in.”
Both the Tempo and Fire have asked a lot of their veteran expansion-draft selections and free-agent signings early. The expansion environment facilitates the space for players who might not have always been considered the biggest stars — such as Sykes, Mabrey and Bridget Carleton — to expand their game in new ways. It’s no coincidence that just two weeks into the season both Sykes (38 points) and Carleton (26 points) have already achieved new single-game career scoring highs.
“I think she’s doing some really unique things in terms of obviously being very aggressive and finding ways we can generate high-value shots for her within the offence,” Sarama said of Carleton before the game. “And then not just the offence but her also being one of our best defenders.”
Carleton, a native of Chatham, Ont., leads the league in total steals this season with 12. The Tempo’s Sykes has 11.
Defence is an important factor in any expansion team’s identity as the Golden State Valkyries showed last season when their grittiness launched them into the playoffs, and the Fire found the same to be true again in Saturday’s win.
“Portland, they exploited us all over the floor,” Brondello said. “We know our pick-and-roll defence wasn’t very good, our one-on-one defence, our rotations. And then, you saw, they were very active and scrambling.”
One contest between the two expansion teams doesn’t write the winner and loser of Year 1, however it does reveal the gaps Toronto must take care of, especially if it wants to establish a winning identity.