To suggest that the Portland Fire—or any WNBA expansion team—could make the league’s playoffs in the first season would have gotten you laughed out of many an arena before the 2025 season. This is because that up until head coach Natalie Nakase took charge of the Golden State Valkyries (last year’s expansion team), made it to the playoffs, and then was named Coach of the Year, the history of successful expansion teams was nonexistent.
Expansion teams almost inherently struggle—and struggle a lot—that first season. And in some ways, the Fire has. The team lost their first few games, navigated roster changes while adapting to an entirely new way of playing basketball, and lost key players to injury (we miss you, SAB). They’ve lost more games than they’ve won (13 wins to 20 losses), and most people wrote them off from the jump.
But, but, but: the Fire is still ninth in the league (out of 15 teams) and anything can happen. Making the playoffs might not be the likeliest outcome for the team’s first season back in the league, but there’s no reason to derail my happily delusional train just yet (unless you just want to be mean).
If there’s anyone who is also marching to the sound of a boombox blasting a refrain of “anything can happen,” it’s probably head coach Alex Sarama. For the unfamiliar, he’s pretty unique for a basketball coach, even in a league full of them. Sarama has, so far, never walked into a press conference after a loss with his head hung low, ready to put his team on blast. He’s never deflected blame for a potentially tough rut onto his players. He’s always thoughtful, calm, eager to point out ways the team still accomplished at least some of their goals—even when they’ve been at their lowest.
When they’re at their best, no one is more ebullient than Sarama, who loves to see a CLA-created plan come together. His athletes have commented all season that he’s different, and that’s part of what drives them to compete the way they do.
And, despite that 13-20 record, the Fire is absolutely playing their faces off. The team’s two recent wins (97-83 over the Toronto Tempo on August 6 and 100-93 over the Seattle Storm on August 8) buoyed their spirits after a difficult five-game stretch of losses. They went down 85-81 against the Minnesota Lynx on August 12, but they did so in style, coming back from a 29-point deficit to almost beat the WNBA’s literal number one team.
That right there is grit, it’s fire, it’s the spirit the team has played with all season. But is it enough to push them over an enormous hurdle into the top eight teams, which would qualify them for the playoffs? Let’s review.
Carla Leite led the way to a win against the Tempo.
One of the best problems to have this season has been the fact that Carla Leite doesn’t know how to give up. The Fire needed the win against the Tempo for a lot of reasons, chiefly because they hadn’t won since Sarah Ashlee Barker went down with a torn ACL, and basketball is a game of morale as much as anything.
Leite ended the night with 27 points and 11 assists, a feat that’s impressive no matter how a game turns out. She was a powerhouse during the first quarter and helped push the Fire to a 25-23 lead as it closed out. Frieda Bühner, who is seeing a bit more clock as Sarama toys with rotations, pushed the lead into the double digits with a killer three-pointer in the second, and Megan DiLeo added 17 points of her own.
Jordan Harrison, whose developmental contract was recently converted to a standard deal, also made her official Fire debut. Though she is officially listed at only 5’6”, Harrison’s defense is one of the strongest parts of her game—and it’s something that helped the team win. “That’s what I do. That’s what’s natural for me,” she told reporters after the game. “I’m still working through some stuff, still learning, but I know how to guard my men, [and] make sure they don’t score on me.”
The win “felt great,” Leite told reporters after the game. “We waited [for] that a long time. So, yeah, we’re so happy to win this game today. You have to enjoy that.”
Harrison was a big part of the Fire’s routing of the Storm.
Harrison didn’t stop there. Her skills were on full display against the Seattle Storm two days later on August 8, when they pulled off a 100-93 win against the team’s local rivals. Teammate Bridget Carleton was the game’s true leader, with 24 points (including four three-pointers) that pretty much stopped the Storm in their tracks. And when the Fire needed a bucket, Harrison, who contributed 13 points of her own, somehow found a way to hit it.
The game also saw a career-high 19 points from Nyadiew Puoch, who nearly immediately deflected praise for her performance back to her teammates after the game. “I was just kind of taking what I was given,” she told reporters after the game. “I was sick of not doing anything or not shooting the ball when I got it. So I was like, ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ [and] I just threw it up. But it was all good.”
The Fire nearly bested the Minnesota Lynx.
The Fire didn’t win Wednesday night, but the fact that they could have is something to be proud of. Portland nearly pushed the Lynx toward total collapse, an impressive feat considering Minnesota controlled the game almost entirely from the second it began.
In fact, the Fire was down 64-35 at one point, one of the most demoralizing potential losses this season, when they summoned something from somewhere (the sky? The universe?) and opened up the fourth quarter on a 13-0 run. Still, coming back from being down 29 points in the last quarter of a basketball game isn’t something that happens every day, but when the team found themselves playing a 69-64 basketball game, the Fire Pit truly came alive.
Sarama told reporters after the game that the Fire played without identity in the first half, which explains why it was so rough. “Minnesota is one of the best teams in the league…. I think we came out in that second half [with] a completely different mindset.”
“I’m very happy with the response,” despite the loss, he added.
DiLeo agreed. She acknowledged the differences between the two halves, and pointed to a key factor that always gets the team going: getting rowdy defensively. “When we’re chaotic like that defensively, it helps our offense, too,” she pointed out. “We’re able to get more of a flow, we’re more comfortable.”
What’s next for the Fire.
Listen: no one wants the Fire in the playoffs more than the fans who pack the Fire Pit week after week, night after night. The odds that they’ll pull this off aren’t in their favor, but the Fire’s never been especially concerned about odds. The team does things their own way, which means no matter how the season closes out, they’re probably going to feel good about what it took to get there.
The Fire hit the road today with a game in Seattle, then will travel to Phoenix to play the Mercury on August 16 before meeting the Tempo again on August 21. They’ll return home to Portland to play the Washington Mystics—the team currently above them in the league’s rankings—on Sunday, August 23. Make no mistake: the idea of making the playoffs is still a long shot (there’s a lot that separates the Mystics and the Fire, at least statistically). But staying optimistic and even a little delusional is fun. If ever there’s a time for fans to turn up and turn out, it’s now. Tickets are on sale for as low as $23.