Portland traveled to Minnesota to play the league’s best team so far in 2026, and they witnessed first-hand just how cohesive, assured, talented, and well-prepared the Lynx really are.

Let’s talk about it.

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/

The most interesting path of thinking I found for myself in this game was the simple comparison of these two teams on the basis of experience, preparedness, of confidence, and of players understanding each other and each others’ roles.

First, let’s quickly explain the floor and ceiling analogy some of us use in sports, because I simply cannot avoid using it, myself. Here is a simply drawing:

Despite the disparity in the standings, every team in W is capable of beating any other team. That means that no team’s floor is higher than any other team’s ceiling. But for some teams, it’s close. Minnesota has the highest floor in the league right now: their worst possible game is better than every other team’s worst possible game. Comparing their range to, let’s say, Connecticut’s, might look something like this:

The Fire have proven that their ceiling is pretty high, especially for an expansion team. They have beaten four good to really good teams this season, including two games against the New York Liberty. And the comments sections around the internet will assure you that fans of basketball all agree that when Portland is cooking, they are entertaining and scary to root against.

But Portland must also contend with its own floor, which is near the lowest in the league. The Fire (who had 21 turnovers against Minnesota) have 3 of the top-4 worst turnover games in the league this season, including their 28 turnover game against Atlanta, which is 6 more turnovers in a single game than second place – their worst game was 27% worse than everyone else’s worst game! They have given up 3 of the top-8 offensive performances by offensive rating this season, and have the worst overall defensive rating in the league.

A brand new expansion team is going to have a wide range like this. Hell, they typically don’t even have as high of a ceiling as Portland has this season. In addition to their best and worst possible outcomes is the team’s ability to reach their ceiling frequently, to avoid their floor frequently, their ability to raise their ceiling, and their ability to raise their floor. The raising of their levels is mostly saved for the off-season, as players can introduce new skills and teams can make roster moves, but practices can help identify actions or gaps that can be taped over – or repaired in full – to increase their levels.

For fun, let’s look through the Fire’s games played and label them Floor, Ceiling, or ( ... what would be in between a ceiling and a floor? … ) Middle, I guess. (Damn it, I can’t find the joke answer here):

Half of their games have been objectively “not what you want” performances. That probably matches expectations, given their busy schedule and tough opponents so far, but it does still spark surprise in me that these games still occur so frequently and, seemingly, easily after a third of a season.

But how does a team consistently avoid their floor? How does a team consistently hit their ceiling? These are soft skills that reveal deeper and harder-to-track capabilities of both the coaching staff and the players on the roster. Portland has built-in reasons to be inconsistent at the start of this season, but when should these results start tapering towards a median performance every night? When should the coaching staff start to be responsible for closing gaps in a team’s performance?

Cheryl Reeve and the Minnesota coaching staff is one of, if not the, best coaches and staff in the league at avoiding their floor and touching their ceiling.

The Lynx threw 31 assists, the second-most any team has tallied so far this season. Who has thrown the most assists in a single game? The New York Liberty, when they came to Portland in May. There is a signal, here, in the fact that Portland has given up more assists than anyone else this year in two games: their rotations can be weak, at times, which gives opponents easy passes that lead to easy shots. Every team throws enough passes to earn 40 assists in a game, if not way more, but shooting percentages will bring those down into the teens and twenties. When a team is connecting 30+ times, that means that, yes, that team is playing sharp and fast, but it also means there is an ease to their performance, and a lack of pressure from the defense.

Take a look at this clip early on in the Minnesota game, where Carla Leite gets stuck on the Lynx’s center Natasha Howard. Meg Gustafson does well to come down to the block and allow Carla to switch onto someone else, but the ball moves around the floor quickly and eventually finds that player Carla (or Sarah Ashlee Barker) should have found her way to. The problem is: she hasn’t done so.

Issues like this were happening all night. Let me assure you all, though, that games like this are expected, are normal, and are going to happen. It’s a simple truth of being an expansion team with a rookie head coach. We don’t lose faith here at Rose-Colored Buckets, even when the players look like they got their powers sapped by the Space Jam aliens.

I was also sapped by aliens, because I watched this game after seeing a showing of Steven Spielberg's DISCLOSURE DAY, so please excuse my lack of information and takeaways; I’m dealing with the fact that Josh O’Connor can **** ** aliens.

Anyways: Olivia Miles is the Rookie of the Year, a top-3 player in the league on the Lynx bench waiting to come back from injury, and Minnesota is going to go to the conference finals this year.

Portland really struggled against aggressive defense. Minnesota is disciplined and fast, just like the Valkyries team that also caused a bunch of trouble for the Fire, and they throw help at the ball carrier suddenly and forcefully. Sarah Ashlee Barker had 7 turnovers and looked somewhat shell-shocked at points by how she couldn’t carry out simple actions. Hitting this less experienced team from different places, forcing them to try something they haven’t had the time to play through yet, is a great strategy.

Okay, I’m doing it. For the first time ever, we are not awarding the prestigious Bucket-Getter of the Game Award to anyone on the roster, because no one was getting buckets! If you want the prize, you gotta put in the work! Let this be extra motivation for the Seattle game on Wednesday.

Have questions? Submit them through the link below, and I’ll answer them periodically!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSehNt8_EhXpWW7nvePd8eL5ZiXFe54l-DTyr74sH6n6l3RaKQ/viewform?usp=header

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 Attempt Rate (FTA Rate) - how many free throws a team takes for each Field Goal attempted

Portland Fire GM Vanja Černevic talks about the season so far: