The Portland Fire once again battle the title favorites of New York. New faces, new injuries, and new bucket-getters emerged in the rematch, but this time only one team kept-up the great shooting.

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/

Before jumping into the quarters and such, let’s note with interest that this is the first game that the Fire have won the offensive rebounding battle – the players were crashing the glass with more enthusiasm this game. But even with 4 more offensive rebounds, the Fire scored less second-chance points* than New York did, 7 compared to 8. It’s a positive sign, regardless of turning it into scoreboard material.

This game was immediately different from the previous, despite the same two teams playing. Both rosters had two new players participate, and the Fire had one player sit after playing on Tuesday: Carla Leite was a game-time decision, and the team decided not to play her after she sprained her ankle in the third-quarter of the first N.Y. game. Leite returned to Tuesday’s game and put on a great show, being the second-most important contributor down the stretch, but the team decided to take precautions on Thursday.

For the Fire: Sug Sutton played in their first game in the season, and played more than the Fire had planned after Kamiah “Kam” Smalls had an ankle tweak in the first quarter. Just minutes into this game, Portland was short-handed. Later on, Serah Williams got their first minutes against New York (after a coach’s DNP* in the first game), but only when the game was out of reach in the fourth quarter. Coach Sarama said that Williams’ playing time was mostly based on the matchup, as having a smaller rookie try and compete against Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart is a tall task.

For New York: Rebecca Allen returned from injury to play in their first game of the season, and between games on this road trip, New York signed Alex Fowler to a developmental roster spot, and activated her for this game. Allen never found her rhythm, but Fowler was 4-of-7 from the field for 12 points and hit meaningful shots. As New York continues to play with 3 starters injured/unavailable, fans must be excited to have reinforcements.

As soon as the game started, it was clear that it wouldn’t be the same elite shooting performance from both teams that we saw on Tuesday, with the first quarter ending 20-14 in favor of the Fire. The second quarter flipped the scoring, and the halftime score was tied (or, it would have been, if the Fire didn’t give away a genuinely free layup in the closing seconds to give the Liberty a 39-37 lead).

The third quarter, as has been the case in all of the games so far, was the most revealing of the game. Breanna Stewart went 4-4 from the floor with 11 points, and the Liberty shot almost 79% from the floor. The Fire shot just 37%, and continued to look discombobulated on offense. The tally for the quarter was 31-16 New York, and the Fire never recovered.

Something new the Liberty did, to great effect, was play a zone defense. They went to it a lot in that dominant third quarter, and against a Fire newcomer in Sutton and a “playing at 50%” Smalls, the Fire simply weren’t prepared or practiced enough to overcome the challenge.

On the flip side, the Fire’s pressing defense was the least effective it has been so far this season; it resulted in more fouls than usual and in more open shots for the opponent than it had before.

Unfortunately, the biggest eye-popping stat of the night belongs to Bridget Carleton, who was a game-worst -31 in her 25 minutes – the Fire were outscored by 31 points when Carleton was on the floor. With the Fire’s active rotations and varied lineup combinations, their +/- numbers are going to be noisy, but there is a real signal here, because Carleton had a very quiet night on offense (4-of-11 shooting, 1 free-throw attempt, 2 assists) and couldn’t find a way to impact the game on defense.

While they’re not getting the prestigious and highly-coveted Bucket Getter of the Game award, Nyadiew Puoch had another high-impact game on defense, and had a big bounce-back game on offense after Tuesday’s 0-point performance. Puoch was 5-of-9 from the field, 2-of-5 from three, for 13 points with 2 assists and 1 turnover.

The glaring difference in this game was not generating wide-open shots and forfeiting wide-open shots. I hope to make a short video about all of the wide-open looks that New York had (in both games, really, which is likely why the Liberty shot so well in both), but they were coming from all over the place: half-court offense*, transition offense, on-ball screens, off-ball screens, bad switches, no switches, drop covering the pick-and-roll against elite shooters; you name it, the Fire did it. Offensively, it was quite shocking to see how loose and care-free the attack scheme was in this game after Tuesday’s razor-sharp offensive performance: there were less scripted plays and off-ball movement. I think the point-guard health situation is the biggest culprit here, with Leite not playing, Smalls being hobbled, and Sutton playing in their first game. I think this gets better pretty quickly.

Similar to the above, and related to coach Sarama’s Constraints Lead Approach to coaching, the Fire need to get better at their scramble defense, or switching around the court when the opponent is moving the ball quickly and the defense has to switch every assignment. You could call it their chaos defense, which is about making in-the-moment decisions, yes, but also relies on an understanding of rotations and patterns. If you get killed on a screen, you need to rotate to a certain player instead of continuing to try and fight back to your original assignment, for example. This, as most other things, should get better with time.

Lastly, it should come as no surprise to us expansion team fans that the Fire have been 3 different teams in their first 3 games. While many positive parts of their identity revealed themselves on Tuesday, there are many facets and faces on the team beyond those that won that game. Consistency is a feature that might take longer to develop than any other, so patience is key here. I continue to appreciate Alex Sarama’s framing and future-focused responses to questions in his post-game press conferences after losses:

Two simple stat comparisons you can make to tell if a player was cooking or not are:

Meg passed both tests in this contest, scoring 14 points on 6 field-goal attempts in 14 minutes. She missed just one shot, the one three-pointer she attempted, and was 4-of-4 from the free-throw line.

This was the most impactful game Gustafson has played as Portland continues to have new players be a spark off the bench in every game (SAB in game one, Kam in game two). Her defense also looked a touch sharper as Portland continues to work on their coverages, a great sign for just the third game.

The Fire cannot burn at the same brightness against elite competition two games in a row, and twice in 48 hours. That’s okay! Every game this season is going to bring a never-before-seen challenge for this brand-new team, and losing game two of a playoff-like series against a likely top-2 team, even if the opponent is short-handed, is not a cause for concern.

As with all expansion and young teams, the best question to ask, and the most important quality to track, is: how does the team respond? We will find out on Monday, as the Fire have a great bounce-back opportunity with three days of rest against the currently winless Connecticut Sun.

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

Second-change Points - points scored after securing an offensive rebound.

Coaches D.N.P. (did not play) - Healthy players not getting playing time in a game.

Half-court offense - playing offense from a stand-still rather than running the entire floor and attempting a shot within the first 7-or-so seconds of getting the ball.

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