Hello, hoopheads! Tuesday’s lone WNBA game went back and forth for a little over three quarters before the visiting Toronto Tempo took control and beat the Phoenix Mercury by a 98-90 margin. That was the Tempo’s second straight win, bringing their record to 3-2 and giving the twin expansion teams a third straight win overall, with last night’s Portland Fire win over the Connecticut Sun in between Toronto’s. Brittney Sykes scored 31 points, her second straight 30-point game after scoring a career-high 38 in the Tempo’s previous win. Slim is the 16th player to have consecutive 30-point games at least twice in their WNBA career (she also did it last season), and while I won’t list all 15 of the other names, it’s a who’s who of the league’s greats including the likes of Tina Charles, Napheesa Collier, Elena Delle Donne, Brittney Griner, Maya Moore, Diana Taurasi and A’ja Wilson, among others. Sykes was joined in the 30-point club by Marina Mabrey, who had 30 on the nose, making them the first pair of teammates to score 30+ points in a game for an expansion team. They were also the first pair of teammates to do so in the WNBA this season, with both of last season’s instances being authored by Wilson and Jackie Young (once in the regular season and once in the playoffs, the only such playoff game in league history). The Mercury suffered their third loss in four games since throttling the Las Vegas Aces on their ring day, falling to 1-2 at home in the process.
The pace picks back up today with three games, the first of five straight days with exactly that number before a pair on Monday and a league-wide off-day on Tuesday (the day after Memorial Day, when W hoopers will have the run of their nearest beaches). Tonight’s tripleheader starts with a meeting of 2-2 teams in one of the last places in this country that I’d associate with the beach, as the Portland Fire visit the Indiana Fever (7:00 ET, USA Network/local affiliates). In addition to sitting on .500, both teams are looking to win their second straight game after 1-2 starts. The Fire are coming off of a one-point win over the Connecticut Sun on Monday night behind 18 points each from Sarah Ashlee Barker (who scored eight in the fourth quarter) and Bridget Carleton (who scored 10 in the third). Each of Portland’s wins has come by a one-possession margin while its two losses have been by 15 and 18 points, but the common thread in all four games has been that the Fire are really struggling on defense. They’re 14th out of 15 teams in defensive rating allowing 115.7 points per 100 possessions, dead last with an opponent effective field goal percentage of 58.4% and 14th allowing 1.04 points per opponent play according to Her Hoop Stats. They can be competitive when they — wait for it — catch fire, but this kind of defense definitely lends itself to blowout losses.
Indiana has been better than Portland defensively, but it’s 10th in defensive rating (103.4 points per opponent possession), 11th in opponent effective field goal percentage (54.6%) and 12th in opponent points per play (0.98). Those rankings also got at least some amount of superficial boost by facing not only the tanking rebuilding Seattle Storm last game, but a version of the Storm without the centerpiece of the rebuild, Dominique Malonga, as she recovers from a concussion. Indiana will hope to build on that season-best defensive outing (also its least efficient offensive game so far), in which it held Seattle to an offensive rating of 88.6 points per 100 possessions, but the Fever allowed marks of at least 111.8 in both losses so far against significantly more competitive Dallas and Washington teams. Caitlin Clark led the way with 21 points against Seattle on 5-for-10 from the field and 2-for-4 from deep while adding 7 rebounds, 10 assists, a pair of blocks and 5 turnovers, her second straight double-double. The Fever were also notably without Aliyah Boston for the first time in her WNBA career due to a leg injury, but she was absent from Tuesday’s status report and appears ready to return.
The second game in the national TV doubleheader features two more teams looking to stack consecutive wins, as the Dallas Wings (2-2) visit the Chicago Sky (3-1) (9:00 ET, USA Network/local affiliates). The Wings responded to consecutive losses and a public challenge from their head coach by taking the visiting Washington Mystics to the woodshed on Monday in a 92-69 thumping which felt more like a 30-point win than a 20-point win despite being closer to the latter. Dallas finished with 30 assists on 33 buckets, the 16th time a team has had an assist rate of 90% or better on 30+ field goals, led by Paige Bueckers’ 18-point, 7-assist effort. Fellow No. 1 overall pick Azzi Fudd also had the best game of her young career with 12 points, 3 assists and a steal to go with a nice 6-for-9 line from the field. Chicago’s also coming off of a bounce-back win, having overcome both the Minnesota Lynx by an 86-79 margin, and yet another injury to a key player on Sunday evening. The latest setback was by far the worst and genuinely crushing to read last night, as the team’s top scorer in the first three games Rickea Jackson was lost to a torn ACL. Chicago’s Tuesday injury report did include a bit of good news in that Skylar Diggins is set to return from the eye injury that caused her to miss Sunday’s win, but DiJonai Carrington, Azurá Stevens and Courtney Vandersloot remain out for a fifth straight game.
Last up on tonight’s schedule, two of the bottom three teams in the standings collide when the Connecticut Sun (0-5) visit the Seattle Storm (1-3) (10:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass). The Sun made the Fire work on Monday night before ultimately taking their fifth loss in a row to open the season, led by 16 points and a couple blocks from Griner while Aneesah Morrow added 12 points and 12 boards off the bench. For all of the shit that I talk about the Sun — and I do hate that franchise — I will admit that I’m grateful there’s a team giving BG a chance to play a prominent role after a less-than-stellar season (for her) in Atlanta. Several other young Sun players also played well against Portland, but I can only say nice things about Connecticut for so long (two sentences). Seattle still won’t have Malonga, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the Sun get one of their last wins before becoming the Houston Fauxmets tonight, but I hope they don’t.