Hello, hoopheads! While most Americans have today off from work/school, the world of sports stops for no holiday, and thus the WNBA season rolls on. Yesterday wasn’t my favorite day of the season so far, given my favorite team sucked again, but hey at least they get to play again tonight, Wednesday and Friday, right? That should give them plenty of time to figure things out!
The first of tonight’s two games sees my beloved New York Liberty (3-3) square off against the Portland Fire (3-3) (8:00 ET, Peacock/whatever the hell NBC Sports Now is/local affiliates) for the third time in a two-week span. The Libs routed the rekindled Fire in the second of their two meetings in the Pacific Northwest after Portland won the first on a Sarah Ashlee Barker putback at the buzzer, but things have been absolutely miserable for the seafoam squad since then. New York returned from a week off following its trip to Portland with a 17-point loss to the Golden State Valkyries on Thursday and followed that up with a 15-point loss to the Dallas Wings yesterday, their first time suffering consecutive home losses by at least 15 points since August 2021.
The Liberty were pretty bad at both ends of the floor in both losses, giving up offensive ratings of at least 110 points per 100 possessions (they’re 0-3 when that happens and 3-0 when it doesn’t) and, more concerning to me, had their first two offensive ratings below that threshold this season with marks of 89.7 against Golden State and 96.2 against Dallas. In both cases the games featured prolonged stretches where the Liberty ran what I have come to think of over the last two seasons as their “what the fuck?” offense, because that is the question I find myself asking possession after possession. There’s no question that the Liberty have talent — and some amount of it will be on the floor tonight, although the availability of Leonie Fiebich, Sabrina Ionescu and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton is up in the air — but at some point, they also need to have a plan and execute it, because talent alone doesn’t take you very far in this league. Just ask the 2025 Liberty.
The Fire have won two of three games since the Liberty left town, most recently pulling away from the Toronto Tempo north of the border for a 99-80 win in the first meeting of the 2026 expansion twins. Portland should theoretically be an ideal opponent for the Liberty to get their offense going against, given it ranks 14th in defensive rating allowing 111 points per 100 possessions. The Fire’s play on defense has improved over the three games since they last saw the Liberty, however, as they held those three opponents to offensive ratings under 105 points per 100 possessions after giving up ratings of 121, 120 and 119 in their first three games. It probably didn’t hurt that the opponents included Connecticut (15th in offensive rating) and Indiana without Caitlin Clark, but it was an improvement nonetheless. Emily Engstler led a balanced Fire attack at Toronto with 16 points on 5-for-8 from the field while adding 7 rebounds, 2 steals and 4 blocks, but the day’s biggest star was probably Chatham-Kent, Ontario’s Bridget Carleton, who had 15 points, 3 assists and 2 steals in her first WNBA game in her native country. Three other Fire players scored in double figures, led by Carla Leite’s 15-point, 9-assist performance while one of this publication’s favorite players, the aforementioned Barker, had 12 points on 5-for-6 from the field. I can’t say I love the fact that her minutes have been gradually decreasing as the season goes on, though, given my lone request of the Fire has been “more Sarah Ashlee Barker, please.”
Carleton has been a thorn in the Liberty’s side over the years, with her three highest-scoring games all coming against New York including a career-best 26 in the Fire’s win two weeks ago. That’s her only 20-point game of the season so far (and one of two in her career), but Carleton has been performing well in her first opportunity to play a featured role in the W, averaging 16.5 points and 2.3 steals per game (2nd in the WNBA) while hitting 45.8% from the field including 40% of her 7.5 attempts per game from beyond the arc (4th-most in the WNBA). Carleton obviously has a very long way to go to join this list, but only seven players have made at least 35% from deep with at least 7 attempts per game over the course of a WNBA season: Diana Taurasi (seven times), Kelsey Plum, Katie Smith (twice each), Rhyne Howard, Sabrina Ionescu, Jewell Loyd and Arike Ogunbowale.
The second half of tonight’s doubleheader sees the lowly Connecticut Sun (1-6) visit the Golden State Valkyries (3-2) (10:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass), who return home from a quick road trip through New York (the aforementioned win) and Indiana (an 8-point loss the following night). The Valks have been the WNBA’s least accurate team so far from the field, hitting just 39.2%, but one of its most accurate from long range (35.9% 3-pt FG, 4th in the WNBA) and one of its toughest to score against (4th in defensive rating). They’re 3-0 in the early going when they make at least 10 shots from deep, but were held to single-digit makes in both losses. Truth be told, that’s a pretty arbitrary threshold. They were held to exactly 7 makes in the losses and hit 15, 13 and 13 triples in the wins, so 10 felt like a fine way to split the difference in addition to being, ya know, 10. Connecticut remains awful in just about every way and I continue to cherish every second of it, but there’s no need to drag the players through the mud. Just know that this team is really, really bad.