The Portland Fire’s two matches against the New York Liberty offered a mixed bag in terms of wins this week, but the team is doing exactly what coach Alex Sarama wants.
The games were meant to be the team’s first test against Oregon graduates Sabrina Ionescu and Satou Sabally, but both were out due to injury. While playing in front of 12,386 fans Tuesday night, the Fire capitalized on those absences and pushed the Liberty to the very final second of the game, when Sarah Ashlee Barker grabbed an offensive rebound to win the game 98-96 at the buzzer.
Bridget Carleton, who was the No. 1 pick in the team’s expansion draft, also hit a career-high 26 points during Tuesday’s game. Barker’s rebound was from one of Carleton’s rare shots that didn’t make it into the basket, and the latter had high praise for her teammate.
“I mean, that’s who she is. I knew that last year when I had to play against her, and how annoying it was… because she’s active, crashes hard, and is annoying on defense. That’s just the grittiness, the kind of player she is,” Carleton told reporters in reference to Barker after the game.
The bucket was “a great example of when you do the little things, you’re rewarded in moments like that. My shot wasn’t pretty, but it bricked perfectly into her hand, so it was meant to be that way,” she continued. “I’m just really proud of her for pushing through and being there.”
That win electrified Tuesday night’s crowd and likely spurred others to head to the Moda Center Thursday for the Fire/Liberty rematch (where attendance hit 13,087). While the Fire went down 100-82 in their second outing, that loss did little to dampen fan enthusiasm, who were on their feet as the final buzzer thundered through the arena.
Coach Sarama also felt good about the team’s performance. Though they were trailing by as much as 21 points throughout the fourth quarter, the Fire continued to fight up until the final second of the game, resisting the urge to sink into the garbage time blues. That’s something to be proud of, he told reporters after the game.
“I said to them in that last timeout [that] the last four minutes of the game, it’s not garbage time, it’s quality time,” Sarama explained. “And that’s going to be our attitude the whole year. That’s when our young players are pushing for more minutes and we are never gonna give up until the final buzzer, and we’re gonna play every single second—that’s the only way it can be.”
The theme of the season is “disruption,” something Sarama and his staff of assistant coaches (which includes WNBA legend Sylvia Fowles) has been drilling into the team since training camp. The Fire wants to be more than a WNBA team—they want to be rowdy, the kind of “good trouble” that keeps the rest of the WNBA on their toes. Sarama has made no secret of the fact he wants other teams to see the Fire on their schedule and audibly groan, because they know any fight at the Moda Center is going to be a true battle.
To get there, the team will need to keep the parts of their game they already do well—full court pressure, pick and roll coverage, and making split-second decisions in the moment that work—while beefing up their zone offense.
All in all, the team’s second game was still a win in Sarama’s eyes. “It’s great, just the learning opportunities you get from this,” he said Thursday night. “I think we got significantly better in these two games, even though the score might not reflect that today…. [The Liberty] had to go zone a lot of the game, and we said in the locker room [that] we take that as a compliment.”
The final score may have reflected a loss, but fighting to the end is part of the team’s culture—and it’s also what will keep motivating fans to show up.
Fans are a crucial part of any team’s success, and that’s especially true for an expansion team in a league that’s under a very tight microscope these days. Portland has waited a long time for the WNBA to come back, and plenty of people were happy to talk to the Mercury about what they like, love, and dislike about the new team in town.
Chandra isn’t sold on the logo, but is sold on the team
“I have very mixed feelings, honestly, about the logo and the court and everything, but that’s just aesthetics,” Chandra said this week. “The courts have the sponsors… it’s a shame to see the sponsors’ names bigger than the players’ names.”
But when it comes to the WNBA, she’s excited about learning more about the teams after getting into women’s basketball during the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.
Sue and Eliza love getting to know the Fire—and their dogs
Season ticket holders Sue and Eliza showed up for the Fire’s second game Tuesday. The pair were looking forward to seeing University of Oregon graduate Sabrina Ionescu.
As for the Fire, the pair said, “We’re just getting to know them—and their dogs.” (Megan Gustafson and her corgi Pancake are already proving to be quite popular.)
Eliza also appreciates how easy it is to get to the games, thanks to TriMet. “It’s not that important, but I’m just so psyched that it’s so easy,” she said.
Jodie, Woe, and Heather are all in on the WNBA
Jodie, Woe, and Heather showed up in matching basketball net hats in Liberty colors, but made it clear they’re Team Fire. When asked what fans need to know about the league, Heather was blunt: “It’s very good, very good basketball—it’s so much better than the MNBA.”
The Portland Fire will host the Connecticut Sun at the Moda Center on Monday, May 18, before traveling to Indianapolis to meet the Indiana Fever on May 20. Single game tickets are available here, and season memberships are still available.