Portland plays their first (regular season) game in Seattle for the second game of the “I5 Rivalry” (meh name). It was a poor shooting night for both teams, but it created a great game, close the entire way, with 11 lead changes. After 3 consecutive road losses, the Fire really needed a win, and they worked together to find one.

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/

Short one today; hope you’re enjoying your holiday weekend!

This was a game that was won on the margins, as both teams generated open shots and simply missed them. The four factors were close, but the big difference was rebounding, which the Fire won decisively with a team-wide effort. They secured 47 rebounds this game, the most they’ve grabbed in a single game this season. It is heartening to watch everyone on the roster work so hard to secure the ball when most of the season has proved that they don’t have great personnel for getting this job done. But focus, intention, and effort can overcome many deficits.

Frieda Bühner had a great game off the bench, grabbing 7 rebounds to help with the team’s season-best performance, and had 9 points. Holly Winterburn got a big chunk of minutes for the first time in several weeks, and turned in a really solid performance, especially in the third quarter, to turn the nature of the game back Portland’s way.

The starters were good (though as a unit of 5 they were -1 on the night), with Carla Leite once again leading all scorers with 20 points. Bridget Carleton had a kinda up-and-down game, with great attacking in the first quarter, a very quiet middle two quarters, and then some great and-1 makes in the fourth to help secure the win. Emily Engstler was active, but also gave away 5 turnovers, spurring Seattle’s best offensive stretches of the game. Meg Gustafson has a near double-double with 10 points and 9 rebounds, with the emotional dagger and-1 layup near the end of the game.

Dom Malonga had a “medium” game, but for her that meant 22 points in under 19 minutes. Holy moly.

Winterburn seems to have gotten the minutes that Jordan Harrison got the previous three games, and Luisa Geiselsöder once again did not see the floor. With Karlie Samuelson sitting with a minor injury, and the good bench performance this game, I think we can safely say that Portland has too many players that they want to play, even as a team that plays more of their bench than almost any other team. I am coming to appreciate the 10-person roster every game as players continue to avoid major injuries and lower roster players continue to get better. But what do you do with 13 interesting players? “We really still believe in Lui (Geiselsöder)”, coach Sarama said in the post-game press conference. He said she will get minutes in certain matchups, but Serah Williams is providing more of the defensive pressures that the team is looking for with their bench units.

Portland’s defense was much improved this game. This is probably the worst they have shot in a win, and typically their poor offense leads to dull defense. Not this time. This was the second fewest points Portland has allowed this season, with 9 steals, 3 blocks, and 37 defensive rebounds; all great numbers, and a ton of Seattle’s misses were very heavily contested by the Fire defense, though, yes, Seattle is definitely irked at several easy shots they should have made.

Despite 5 fouls and a lower-than-normal amount of minutes for Carla, Leite put up 20 very efficient points, especially her free-throws down the stretch to keep the game out of reach for Seattle. Her 4 turnovers were avoidable, yet she threw them anyway lol. The entire team struggled against the infinite length of Seattle’s roster, so Carla was far from the lone culprit. She had her dribble game really working this game, getting into the paint with tons of creativity, and hit a couple dazzling and-1’s.

It will have been 22 days between Fire home games on Thursday, when Portland finally gets back from a road trip sandwiched by lots of time off. They’ll host the defending champion Las Vegas Aces for the second and final time of the season, who have been without MVP A’Ja Wilson for a couple of games now. The Fire played a great game the first time Las Vegas came to town, and if Wilson is sitting……. Who knows!!!!!

I’ll see you there.

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