19. The Portland Fire's margin of victory at Coca-Cola Coliseum last night. Final POR 99, TOR 80. The Tempo got beat by 19 at home to a 1-4 Portland team that walked into the building looking like the better-prepared team from tip. The crowd was loud at the start. By the middle of the third quarter it was quiet. By the fourth it was leaving.
I was in section 119. The building started chanting "let's go Tempo" with about 4 minutes left in the third quarter when the deficit hit 18. The chant did not get a response from the court. That is the moment in the game I will remember. A franchise three weeks into its first season trying to will its team back into a game and the team not responding.
The honest read on what happened.
First. The rotation was the rotation we wrote about yesterday, and the rotation did not have enough.
Allemand sat. Fagbenle sat. Harrison sat. Nyara Sabally was on the injury list and did not play either. The four-out lineup that worked against weaker opposition on the road did not work against a Portland frontcourt that, while not loaded with stars, ran disciplined sets and made Toronto's small-ball five look small. Brondello shifted lineups multiple times in the first half trying to find something. Nothing worked. The starting unit was minus 14 at halftime. The bench unit gave back another 4. Kiki Rice ran the offense for long stretches with the rookie's third straight road-style game (this one at home, but the team had been on the road for the previous three) and could not generate clean looks against Portland's perimeter defense.
The shot quality across the team was poor. Mabrey took 18 shots and was missing badly from outside (the official box score is not yet published as of the time of writing; the play-by-play feed I tracked had her at 6 of 18 from the field). Sykes was a non-factor. Conde could not find her shot. The bench was deep but the depth was depth-with-questions, not depth-with-answers.
Second. Portland was the better-prepared team.
Janelle Salaun has been a real piece for Portland this season. She had what looked like her best WNBA game last night. Brianna Turner controlled the paint. The Fire ran offensive sets that put Toronto's switching defense into rotations the Tempo did not handle. The early shooting variance was on Portland's side; they hit the threes they got open, and Toronto's perimeter coverage gave them clean looks all night. That is the variance side of the game. The non-variance side was preparation. Portland looked like a team that had specifically prepared for what Toronto was going to run. Toronto looked like a team that did not adjust when the first plan stopped working.
Third. The franchise narrative just took a real hit.
The Tempo are 3-4 now. That is below .500 for the first time since the home opener loss to Washington three weeks ago. The road trip went 3-2. The first home game of the homestand went 0-1, and it went 0-1 in a way that has the city asking questions it was not asking at 8 PM last night when the building was packed and ready to celebrate.
Two more home games this week. Phoenix on Tuesday. The third home game depends on the broadcast schedule that I will confirm Tuesday morning. The Tempo need to win both of those games to make the homestand a 2-1 success and to keep the franchise narrative at "competitive expansion team finding its identity" instead of "expansion team that beat one good team on the road and then got brought back to earth."
Brondello in postgame.
The press conference was honest. She acknowledged the team did not match Portland's intensity. She said the shot quality was bad, the rotation choices did not pay off, and the team had to be better with two home games coming up immediately. She did not blame injuries (though she could have; Allemand and the three frontcourt absences were obviously meaningful). She put it on coaching and execution.
The thing she said that stuck. The question from the local writer was whether the team had peaked on the road trip. Her answer was that this team has not peaked. She is right. The team has been together for nine months. A 99-80 loss to Portland in week three is not a season-defining game. It is a Saturday game in a long season where the things that went wrong are things that can be fixed in a film session.
The things she said she would fix tonight at film.
Rotation tightness. The lineups Brondello tried in the first half did not work, but they kept rotating through the same units in the third quarter. By the time she settled on what looked like a workable group, Toronto was down 22 and the comeback was effectively over.
Shot selection. Mabrey was forcing shots that did not need to be taken. The shots she was taking against Phoenix on the road trip were better looks (catch-and-shoot threes off Allemand drives, isolation pull-ups in transition). The shots she was taking last night were contested midrange jumpers and forced threes off pull-ups. That is what happens when the secondary creator is out.
Defensive rotations. Portland got clean threes all game because Toronto's switches were a beat slow. The fix is film and practice reps; the issue is whether there will be time before Tuesday to install corrections given the rest day.
The thing she did not address publicly.
The bench. Toronto's bench was minus 22 last night. The starters were not great; the bench was worse. That is a roster construction issue more than a coaching issue. Lexi Held played meaningful minutes for the first time this season and did not produce. Teonni Key got run and was a non-factor. The depth has been a question all season. It is now a problem.
What I am watching going into Tuesday.
The injury report. Allemand's status is the most important variable for the home crowd. If she clears for Tuesday, the offense functions and the Tempo are favored against Phoenix. If she sits, the Mercury (with Alyssa Thomas at the four and Brink at the five) will exploit the same small-ball problems Portland exploited last night.
The starting lineup. If Brondello starts the same five from last night, the message is "trust the system." If she shakes it up (Conde to the starting unit, for example), the message is "we are looking for answers." Both are defensible. The choice tells us how she is reading the situation.
The home crowd response. The crowd last night was loud through the first five minutes and then quieter as the game got away. Tuesday the crowd will be loud at tipoff again. The question is whether they will stay engaged if the game gets ugly. The franchise needs them engaged.
The thing I want to be clear about.
The Tempo are 3-4. That is two games above their preseason projection for the first 30 percent of the season. The road trip was real. The home opener of the homestand was bad. Both things are true. The franchise narrative does not collapse because of one home loss. It also does not get to coast on a single road wins. The team has earned the crowd's investment; they have to keep earning it.
Tip Tuesday at 7 PM ET. The building will be loud. We will find out which version of this team shows up.
[ End Report ]
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