Hello, hoopheads! The one and only Elliedonna didn’t see fit to include the best Madonna song in her halftime routine at last night’s New York Liberty Pride Night, and the team couldn’t mostly make a shot to save its life, but Bestie and I still went home happy last night as part of a four-game Friday WNBA slate that you can catch up on here. Today’s schedule features three games, two of which include teams who played last night, and only one of which is between teams with winning records (or a combined winning record, for that matter). Score one for the programming execs at my former employer, because the clear best game on the schedule also happens to be the only one with a national platform as the Indiana Fever (4-3) visit the Portland Fire (5-4) (8:00 ET, CBS/Paramount+).
This will be Indiana’s first visit to Portland in 24 years, since its last time there to face the original Fire, who were the Fever’s expansion sisters as both franchises entered the league in 2000. Tonight’s matchup will, however, be the second between the rekindled Fire and the Fever, the first one a 90-73 home win for Indiana in a game probably best remembered as “that one Caitlin Clark missed and a bunch of people freaked the fuck out.” Aliyah Boston led the way with 24 points in that game while going 8-for-11 from the field and adding 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals a block, 5 turnovers and a partridge in a pear tree in her return from the first missed game of her WNBA career, which caused quite a bit less hysteria than Clark’s 32nd missed WNBA game in the last 13 months. Kelsey Mitchell also scored 21 points on 6-for-11 from the field. The Fire got 16 points from Bridget Carleton, but their second-leading scorer in that game was since-released Sug Sutton with 14 points.
Clark and the Fever have played twice since the first meeting with Portland, both times against Golden State. The first, last Friday, was a 90-82 Fever home win, their third straight at the time, but the second game against Golden State was a 90-88 Valkyries home win to snap that streak two nights ago. The common thread in Indiana’s losses has been shoddy defense, as the Fever allowed Golden State to score at a rate of 108.4 points per 100 possessions and fell to 0-3 when giving up triple-digit ratings (of which Golden State’s was the lowest). They’re 4-0 when holding opponents under 100 points per 100 possessions. Clark tied Raven Johnson for the team-high with 16 points in the loss on Thursday, but went 3-for-12 from the field with 6 assists and 5 turnovers, her first time being held under 20 points or 7 assists this season. Her first five games tied her own WNBA record for consecutive 20/7 games while the last four games in that streak set a new standard for consecutive 20/9 games, breaking a mark she had shared with several other players. Relatively quiet game aside, Clark is third in the league averaging 22.5 points per game and leads the way with 8.5 assists per game. It’s still early, but only two players have finished a WNBA season as the league leader in assists per game while finishing in the top five in points per game: Becky Hammon in 2007 and Candace Parker in 2015 (when she missed 18 of 34 games).
Portland is playing for the fifth time since its loss in Indiana, having had a whole three-game win streak and seen it snapped during the span in which the Fever have played twice. The Fire’s streak came to an end last night in an 86-66 loss to the Atlanta Dream (my picks to win it all, if you’ve forgotten), although the game really didn’t become one-sided until the fourth quarter. Portland was within 6 points at the end of the third (59-53) before Atlanta sprinted to the finish with a 27-13 edge in the fourth quarter. Last night’s final frame aside, Portland has thrived in fourth quarters, averaging 23.7 points (tied for the third-most in the WNBA) with an average fourth-quarter margin of +2.8 points (second-best). The biggest problem last night was that Atlanta leads the league in both of those categories. It also didn’t help that the Fire’s best player, Bridget Carleton, didn’t play due to back spasms, and I can’t imagine that the back-to-back does them any favors here although the Fire haven’t officially updated her status as of late Friday night.
Only six of the WNBA’s 15 teams have records at .500 or worse entering today’s games, and three of those six are among the four teams taking the floor prior to the Fever and Fire. First up among those two games, the Seattle Storm (3-5) visit the Toronto Tempo (4-4) (1:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass) for the second time this month looking to avenge the Tempo’s first win in franchise history. Marina Mabrey led Toronto to that historic win with 26 points while Dominique Malonga was Seattle’s high scorer with 21. Malonga unfortunately will miss a sixth straight game as she remains sidelined with her second diagnosed concussion this year. The Storm are 2-3 without her, most recently losing 78-64 on Wednesday in their second straight game against the Washington Mystics and while looking for a third straight win. Toronto is coming off of a 111-104 win at Chicago on Wednesday after losing its previous two games. Nyara Sabally led the way with 29 points while Mabrey scored 24 and Brittney Sykes had 20, making them the first trio of expansion teammates to score 20+ points in a game in league history.
The second team on a back-to-back are the Los Angeles Sparks (4-3), who visit the Connecticut Sun (1-8) (6:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass). LA held off the Mystics for a 92-87 win last night behind 21 points from Erica Wheeler, who scored 14 in the fourth quarter, in the Sparks’ first game since losing Kelsey Plum for the time being (“at least a week”) to an ankle injury suffered in practice this week. Last night’s win was LA’s fourth in five games since an 0-2 start, and it had an offensive rating of at least 110 points per 100 possessions in all five of those games. I sense Sparksmentum building! The Sun exist, unfortunately, but that’s all I really feel compelled to say about them.