The Portland Fire are back. 600 days since the announcement was made, Portland hosted a professional women’s basketball game with a home-town team, and with a massive, sellout hometown crowd. Signs of greatness poked through a hard-fought loss, but nothing could stymie the wonderful energy of the night.

Let’s talk ball.

These are an old set of standardized “only stats that matter”. Here’s a fun explainer video from Molly Brown on Instagram, who is going to be a great follow for any fan of my writing here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXusixFkrAA/

This was a 15 point loss that played and felt like a 5 point loss. The numbers tell a big part of the story: absolute dominance on the offensive rebounding front by Chicago, and primarily by Kamilla Cardoso, who, as the kids say, was a problem (22 points, 14 rebounds, 8 offensive rebounds!!!). There was also a huge gap in free-throw attempts in favor of Chicago. In the 4th quarter, the game was tied 70-70. Then, it was 28-13 Chicago with 19 free-throw attempts for Chicago coming in the final 9 minutes. That is over 1 foul per minute! For a stretch of several minutes, Chicago drew a foul on every single possession. Portland even used their first ever challenge on an incredibly weak call against Frieda Bühner that the referees did not overturn (as a note: referees are historically very unlikely to overturn foul calls, partly because the letters of the law are so strict, and partly because they don’t want to overturn each other’s initial calls [sorry, just telling the truth!!!]).

Beyond all of the numbers, I think there are two words that describe the difference in this game: Skylar and Diggins. The 12-year veteran was dominant from start to finish, and was the most poised and sharp player on the floor by far. They scored a remarkably efficient 21 points and created 7 assists, both the high points for anyone in the game, as well as snagging 11 rebounds while being nearly the shortest player on the floor at all times? Damn, dude.

But her game was devastating on the vibes front, as well. The harshest moment of the game, where the oxygen was at its lowest, was when Diggins got a heavy-contact block on Carla Leite with 3:15 left in the game, and gave Sarah Ashlee Barker an arm-bar to get free from the pressure (no offensive foul called), then took the ball the length of the court, missed a layup, got her own rebound among a sea of players, and put the layup in to make the score 90-76, letting out a big roar after the huge play. The crowd, in disbelief after no foul was called on the block, was then punched with the final nail of the runaway quarter for the Sky.

A couple minutes beforehand, Diggins grabbed her 8th rebound, hustled down court, and pulled up for a 24-foot three pointer that forced Portland’s first timeout of the 4th quarter, the first sign that the game was quickly turning Chicago’s way. Diggins let out another roar after that one. It is, by the GameScore metric, the second best game anyone has played in this opening weekend so far. She was a killer, and she knew it.

Ok, what was Portland doing well? They had great activity on defense, and when they decided to turn-up the intensity in key moments, they got real results: two 8-second violations* in the span of 6 minutes in the third quarter, which fired up the crowd maybe more than anything else.

I was glad to see Nyadiew Puoch starting this game, drawing the Skylar Diggins assignment on defense. Her defense remains great, but her offense is really quiet: Pouch had a usage of 8.2%, the lowest of any player in the game, which is about half of what a starter’s usage percent typically runs.

Portland’s face-of-the-franchise, who even gave a speech about gratitude and excitement about the new season before the game, Bridget Carleton struggled in the first half (1-3 from the field, 2 points, 2 assists, 1 block, 1 steal), but was the biggest part of Portland’s third-quarter comeback, hitting two three’s in back-to-back possessions to bring Chicago’s lead down to 3 points and force a Chicago timeout. Carleton finished with 13 points in 30 minutes with a 55% eFG (anything above 50% is good). I’m sure Portland fans are expecting more from their biggest name player.

Portland’s second expansion pick, who I’ll start the conversation about maybe being the best player on the team right now (👀) is Carla Leite, who did her thing and shot 12 free-throws this game, but otherwise had an inconsistent shooting night, which caused her to look pretty frustrated most of the game. She led Portland with 18 points.

Sarah Ashlee Barker came off the bench for this first game, and hit her first 4 shots of the game, providing the biggest spark for the Fire all night. She finished with 13 points.

The Queen from Queens, Emily Engstler, had a frustrating shooting night. You can see how obviously these tough nights affect her, as she admittedly wears her emotions on her sleeve. But her hustle stats were great, and her activity and defense are necessary for this Fire team to succeed. She nearly had her 4x4 stat line that I predicted, finishing with 4 points, 4 steals+blocks, 2 rebounds, 2 assists on 33.3% eFG.

Rookie Jordan Harrison continues to show off speed and ball-handling skills, but really looked her height as she struggled to affect the game on offense. I think this team will be glad to have Sug Sutton back in the mix as a more experienced back-up point guard that can create on offense, whenever Sutton gets over the so-far-un-talked-about knee injury that they have.

It was a bad shooting night for Portland. The percentages aren’t too big of an eye-soar, but qualitatively Portland was missing the bunnies (a.k.a. the layups, the easy ones, the gimmies). You could see the immediate deflation these misses had, and hitting these easy ones typically leads to hitting the harder ones, and the entire flow of the game would have been different. Additionally…

The Fire continue to struggle with transition defense and leak-outs. Head coach Alex Sarama calls them “spills” when opponents leak-out of playing defense and cherry-pick on the far end of the court, hoping for a teammate to throw a long pass after a rebound. After Portland missed some easy shots and drooped their shoulders/let go of the slack of the game, Chicago threw hit-ahead passes to get great match-ups and great looks at layups. This was a problem in the pre-season, and remained one Saturday night.

Portland is trying things out, and absolutely getting better. The Fire played all 11 available players in the game, and no one played more than 30 minutes (Carleton led with 30:23). For contrast, Chicago basically played 7 players (2 more got ~5 minutes) with four of them playing over 32 minutes. Being competitive against a team in Chicago who made a bunch of high-level signings to get into the playoffs, while playing your entire roster nearly even minutes, while your opponents play a play-off style rotation, is a great sign. The Fire are using a long-term strategy already, and it is going to make their players better.

A huge energy boost for the Fire off the bench, great efficiency in her scoring (72.2% eFG), and is a go-getter that is fighting hard at all moments. She has stepped into a pretty vocal role with the team as well, which I am really enjoying in interviews and press conferences.

This was a loss with plenty of moments of justifiable frustration (missing easy shots, opponent getting a ton of foul calls), but way more enjoyment and love and passion and cheering. I remain encouraged, as coach Saram likes to say, and I know that we are in store for a wonderful season of home games at the Moda Center. The energy was undeniable and feels completely repeatable. I forgot how special it feels to be a real fan of a home-town team. The Fire are quickly reminding me.

See you in the Back Pages.

Any questions? Please submit them in through the button below, and I’ll answer them periodically!

8-second violation - When team B scores a basket, team A will inbound the ball and then have 8 seconds to get the ball past half-court. If you can’t get the ball across the line in time, it is a turnover.

Usage Percent - the amount of a team’s possessions that a player is responsible for ending with either a shot (field goal or free throw) or a turnover.

Leak Out - a fast-break tactic where a defensive player abandons their rebounding position and sprints toward the opponent's basket just as a shot is taken, anticipating a teammate will secure the rebound and throw a long outlet pass for an easy score

Four Factors:

Points per Possession - how many points a team scores for every possession they have

Effective Field-Goal Percent (eFG%) - field goal percentage with weight added to three-point shots

Turnover Percent (TOV%) - percent of possessions that ended in a turnover

Offensive Rebound Percent (OREB%) - percent of a team’s own misses that they rebounded

Free-Throw Rate (FTRate) - how many free throws a team makes per 100 possessions