Portland goes on the road for the first time against a 2025 semi-finalist with one of the loudest and harshest home crowds to play against. How will their game change in different environments?

Introducing: The Balcony Recap - A 5(ish) minute chat immediately after the game.

I’m recovering from the flu, which is why I sound like nerd in this edition. Don’t worry, I usually sound like a much bigger nerd when my repiratory system is healthy.

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/

From the jump, Indiana looked like the better prepared and better equipped team. The Fire showed up pretty weakly in their first road game, admittedly in a tough arena to play in. But with Caitlin Clark as a late scratch, likely a load management decision against an expansion team Indiana thinks they can beat without her, and with Carla Leite returning from injury – on an apparent minutes restriction – fans could think that this game would be a good battle.

It wasn’t.

Right from the jump, the Fire showed some slack in their ability to navigate screens appropriately, or to navigate them at all, letting some great Fever shot-makers get wide-open looks. Not only this, but when they turned on their full-court pressure, which can frequently leave somebody with an open if the opponent can get the ball down the court, the Fire left the wrong kinds of players open, like Lexi Hull, who has been a very good three-point shooter the past couple years. Aliyah Boston and Kelsey Mitchell were both 3-of-4 from the floor in the first quarter as Indiana took an 8 point lead, and the Fever would add on a similar amount in each quarter, until Portland’s bench unit closed out the game on a nice run, shortening the big lead by a couple points.

Carla Leite had an efficient 6 points in 6 minutes, and then played another 8 in which she had 0 points and 4 turnovers. On the wrong side of an ankle injury, Nyadiew Puoch …

The only fight in the game came from a little chippiness between Aliyah Boston and Portland’s Luisa Geiselsöder, who were battling in the post in the fourth quarter, leading to Geiselsöder fouling out of the game (which, as with everything so far this season, was not enough to keep Luisa from smiling through it). Oddly enough, Portland challenged the foul call, and won the challenge, removing Luisa’s 6th personal foul, but left her out of the game the rest of the time anyways. We’ll take that challenge win, though! Portland is 2-for-3 on those this season (or maybe 3-for-4? These aren’t tracked anywhere, unfortunately).

Bridget Carleton led the Fire’s scoring efforts with 16 points on 14 shooting possessions, which is an average kind of performance. Sug Sutton did well to finish in the paint with her oft-used floaters. Sarah Ashlee Barker didn’t light-up the scoreboard, but the advanced ratings and on/off numbers suggest that she remains the most impactful player of this early portion of the season – S.A. was the only Fire player with a positive net rating in the game, and she didn’t play in the end-of-game stretch that the Fire technically won. It might be time that SAB starts games in addition to finishing them.

It was good to see that Meg Gustafson played in the game immediately following her game 4 injury. It was not good to see that Nyadiew Puoch, who struggled to impact the game, looked like she turned her ankle in the last defensive play of the third quarter. Hoping she’s okay!

I thought it was notable that rookie Serah Williams got minutes alongside Meg Gustafon, sizing Williams down a position. It produced some good matchups for Williams, who is an efficient scorer in the post, especially when she is equal-sized or has the advantage. Freida Bühner was a DNP for her second straight game, and Williams took those minutes against the Fever. There are upsides to the change, and there are also downsides. But Bühner is on a development contract, and can only play in 9 more games this season. Holly Winterburn, the other development player, only got minutes in this game at the end of the fourth quarter.

This game continues a trend of the Fire being unable to play two good games in a row. Their two wins have been followed by let-downs. This also sets up the trend of the Fire bouncing back well after losing sloppy games. They have a decent matchup to do so, taking on their fellow 2026 expanders in Toronto.

The Fire continue to force turnovers, but also give away their own turnovers with mistakes. They are usually winning the turnover battle, but the nature of the turnovers isn’t leading to that big of an advantage for the Fire just yet. When the Fire throw the ball to no one, that’s a free layup for the other team. When the Fire force a shot-clock violation, they just inbound the ball and don’t get additional advantages. It’s a live-ball turnover versus a dead-ball turnover situation. I hope to talk about this in more depth soon.

The offense continues to be slow, and struggles to create separation or to get paint touches. The Fire have the lowest percent of assisted 2-point field goals in the league. Put another way, they lead the league in unassisted 2-point makes. Sug Sutton, as noted earlier, had a good shooting game and actually got the ball into the paint, but those possessions involved 0 passes, and Sutton just beat their person out of a pick-and-roll, and took their own shot. Carleton had some smaller players guarding her, and posted them up for a couple of buckets, but those, too, are 0 pass possessions. The team-wide motions and actions remain stuck in molasses.

Carleton had a good variety of scoring methods in this game, which was great to see after a Connecticut game in which she mostly stuck to her “open-three’s or nothing” strategy. Carleton has scored 11 or more points in every game so far this season, which isn’t All-Star levels of good, but it is one of the few consistencies that this Fire offense has had so far. She also remains a good defender, especially off-the-ball, and is second in the league in steals per game. She should continue to grow into her offensive role, which the Fire will continue to rely on even if the team raises its level of play.

Another hard fought game with hard-to-come-by buckets for Portland. They took a step closer towards a healthy and consistent roster and rotation, but then may have taken a step back. Now, we get to see how the team responds to adversity during a road trip where they don’t have their own residences and practice facilities to fall back into to regroup.

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