In just two games, the Portland Fire have their first win as a reborn franchise. A high-scoring nail-biter at home that fans were losing their mind over. A dramatic injury exit, a dramatic injury return, incredible shooting from both teams, the best referee-ing of any Fire game so far (mild compliment), a successful 4th quarter challenge – this game had it all.

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/

I got to the game about 45 minutes before tip, the earliest I have been to a game so far. Two things stood out that would say a lot about the coming game: Brenna Stewart warming up by herself on the Liberty side of the court, and Fire players working in pairs on very specific pick and roll movements.

The Fire started the same five players they did in the first game: Carla Leite, Nyadiew Puoch, Bridget Carleton, Emily Engstler, and Luisa Geiselsöder. The Liberty brought their same starting five that they have all season as they push forward without Sabrina Ionescu, Satou Sabally, or Rebecca Allen. The shorthanded Liberty played 9 players total, but only 7 got real minutes. The Fire, on the flip side, used their now-typical early-and-often subbing patterns, playing 10 players, all more than 7 minutes, which would sometimes result in 5 bench players for Portland playing against the starting 5 for the Liberty, which can feel scary, but it also results in the opposite: Portland’s starters against the opposing team’s bench unit.

One tactical shift the Fire used this game was the defensive matchup for Nyadiew Puoch, who has typically guarded the opposing teams lead guard. On Tuesday, Puoch took on the Breanna Stewart matchup, and did so wonderfully. Stewie made just one of her seven shot attempts in the first half, and only got going once she attacked the paint and started earning foul calls. Puoch struggled offensively, but her defense has emerged as an elite skill across multiple positions.

Another shift for the Fire was the complexity of their offense. In the first possession you could see growth, as they ran their most scripted actions of the young season to get Bridget Carleton a shot that she likes. Screens, re-screens, flipped screens, Gortat screens – the Fire deepened their bag exponentially. They were able to generate good shots for Carleton all night, and would be able to adapt off of those actions later in the game.

The first half was a ton of fun, and the Liberty had a reasonable lead for a team with their resume, 54-57. But the Fire were showing signs that they were ready to compete at a much higher level already.

The second half started sloppy, but Bridget Carleton really started hitting shots, going 4-4 from the floor in the 3rd quarter. With about 30 seconds left in the third quarter, Carla Leite stepped on the ankle of her defender and went down grabbing her ankle. The Liberty snatched the ball, and took it the length to score, and it took the referees several more seconds to acknowledge the FIre’s timeout call while Leite lay on the floor. The entire arena was silent for a full minute; no P.A. announcer, no music, no movement from the players huddled around their teammate. Leite was helped off the floor and into the locker room. Kamiah Small subbed in to end the quarter with the Fire down 70-77.

The fourth quarter was a thrill. Smalls and Carleton traded 3’s, Haley Jones hit one of her several pivotal tough layups of the game, and the Fire were clawing their way closer. Then, with six minutes left in the game and the Fire down by four, Carla Leite came back. The rest of the game was the most locked-in basketball I’ve seen in person in a long time. Leite immediately scored a mid-range jumper, the Liberty missed their next 3 shots while trying to find anyone open looks against the Fire’s defense. The Fire, for the first time in their short existence, stayed with their best 5 players for an extended period instead of rotating through their bench players. It worked. A strange foul call let the Fire get the ball with the game tied and ~15 seconds on the clock. And the rest, they will say, is history.

This was strangely a game where both felt similar in their struggles with their new offenses. New York has a new coach that they have talked very positively about, and the Liberty were generating open corner three’s all game, which is the sign of a great offense. But in the fourth quarter alone, there were three bad turnovers: two coming from attempts to pass the ball to the corner where a player had just cut out of the corner, essentially throwing the ball into the crowd. The third, and strangest and most devastating, was an offensive “3 seconds in the key” as the Liberty idled around trying to run down the clock in the final moments. The Fire, on the flip-side, looked like a completely new team in the first half with their offensive systems, but coming out of half time, they looked bad. Emily Engstler started the first possession of the half just dribbling around aimlessly while teammates tried to point her in the right direction. That’s a weird thing to happen coming out of halftime in a game in which you’re playing well. It’s clearly way too early to judge either team’s coaches and systems, but while both teams had flaws, both teams were capable of muscling out great possessions and great games.

New back-up point-guard Kamiah “Kam” Smalls showed why the Fire staff valued her so much in the first possession she was on the floor. She looked remarkably comfortable in the Fire’s offense and in the W after playing in Europe for most of her adult career. The Fire front office continues to look abroad for their signings, and Kam, who was a training camp signing, seems like another potential gem.

About mid-way through the third quarter, I wrote a single word in my notebook: mature. This is an expansion team that has maybe had 10 practices together ever, playing against a top-2 ranked team with championship aspirations. Despite those facts, Portland clearly had a gameplan, and they clearly ran it at nearly every moment of the game. After the win, coach Alex Sarama said it was the best run gameplan he’s ever coached. After just two pre-season games and one regular season game, the Portland Fire looked like they had 25 games under the belt. The maturation of their strategies, their mindset, and their composure just took a massive leap.

This is the Bridget Carleton Portland thought they could reveal when they picked her first overall in the expansion draft. After the first game against Chicago in which Carleton was in the background of a lot of the action, she was front and center in game 2. She set and ran through a bunch of screens, on and off the ball, which was her superpower in Minnesota. Additionally, she started using her size to her advantage when New York would switch defensive assignments, something Bridget was not doing in game 1 or the pre-season.

Carleton shot 71.9% eFG (a remarkable number), had no turnovers, stole the ball four times, and remains Portland’s best help defender, which is a deeply necessary skill against opponents who have great bigs, like Chicago’s Kamilla Cardoso and the Liberty’s Jonquel Jones.

Carleton was, simply, a bucket getter last night.

Just before Portland’s first home game against Chicago, GM Vanja Cernivic told reporters that her team was heavily doubted last year (the Golden State Valkyries), and that they proved everyone wrong. In just two games, the Portland Fire have made a leap in quality of play that felt repeatable. Are they going to shoot that well every game? No. Is the opponent going to shoot even better than them every game? Also no. This was a statement performance across all levels.

I think it would be unwise to start looking ahead to the playoffs or towards any numeric accomplishments. But hopefully, this curbs the uninteresting opinion that many have that the Fire are simply going to be bad this season. The only way to find out who wins is to play the games. And the Fire came to play last night.

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

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

Portland signed former Oregon Duck Holly Winterburn to their second and last development roster spot: