The Portland Fire began the 2026 season as one of the WNBA’s most pleasant surprises.
One of the league’s two newest expansion teams, not much was expected of the Fire during their inaugural season, but a 6-4 start, highlighted by multiple upset wins and Coach of the Month honors for Alex Sarama, quickly put Portland on the map as a team capable of spoiling anyone’s night—and perhaps even a dark horse playoff contender.
Since then, reality has sunk in. The Fire are 2-5 in June, suffering blowout losses
to Minnesota, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Golden State, and as of Friday, they’re in danger of falling out of playoff range in the WNBA standings.
And while effort is never in question when it comes to Sarama’s squad, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the Fire don’t yet have the talent or experience to stack up against the WNBA’s best—especially defensively.
Portland’s porous defense must improve
Look at the Fire’s recent slide, and it’s not difficult to find the common theme.
They allowed 95 points to the Valkyries and over 100 points to the Lynx and the Aces, and though some grace should be extended here considering the level of competition (no team is going to have an easy time guarding A’ja Wilson or Olivia Miles, for instance), it should also go without saying that the Fire can’t afford to give up that many points on a near-nightly basis.
The numbers are staggering. Portland currently ranks last in the WNBA in defensive efficiency, allowing 111.8 points per 100 possessions, a number that jumps all the way to 119.0 during their recent lull.
Such an enormous defensive rating often points to a multifaceted issue. In Portland’s case, there are red flags everywhere! The Fire haven’t been able to keep opposing teams out of transition, allowing a league-high 13.1 fast break points per game in June, and their inability to finish defensive possessions with a rebound has led to 16.3 second-chance points per game for opponents.
Worse still, the Fire have committed a turnover on 20.8 percent of their own possessions during their current slide. That’s an offensive issue, yes, but when a team can’t take care of the basketball, it also puts undue pressure on its transition defense—something that the Fire can ill-afford.
If there’s a point to be taken from all of this, it’s that the Fire simply aren’t giving themselves a chance to compete on defense. It’s true that their center rotation of Megan Gustafson and Luisa Geiselsöder isn’t going to deter many shots around the rim, and they don’t have many perimeter players who cut their teeth on defense, either, but that also makes it all the more important that Portland cover for its defensive weaknesses in the halfcourt by minimizing the number of opportunities opponents have to exploit them. No matter the context, offensive rebounds and fast breaks tend to yield high-efficiency shots, and right now the Fire are giving up far too many.
The Fire can help themselves out with better offense
The obvious solution? Portland needs to play better offensively to take some of the pressure off its defense.
That’s not exactly deep-dive analysis, but when a team is struggling so mightily to defend, sometimes focusing on what it can control elsewhere can help. Obviously, ranking near the bottom of the WNBA in defensive rebounding and turnover rate would be bad for anyone, but given the Fire’s struggles to defend in the halfcourt, cleaning things up on the glass and in transition would go an especially long way.
Portland improving their own scoring efficiency would help, too. For some teams, high-scoring games are inevitable, whether it’s due to pace of play or their own offensive talent. Take the Fire’s fellow expansion team, the Toronto Tempo, for example. They, too, rank near the bottom of the WNBA in defensive efficiency, but have still been able to hover around .500 thanks to their high-octane backcourt.
Portland doesn’t have that kind of firepower, but there are still avenues for improvement. Guards like Bridget Carleton, Carla Leite and Sarah Ashlee Barker are having career years, and while the Fire’s roster isn’t built to win barn-burners—they’re currently playing at the second-slowest pace in the WNBA, averaging 78.68 possessions per 40 minutes—it’s generally harder for opponents to get their own offense going if they’re pulling the ball out from the net more often.
Granted, most of this will be easier said than done. It’s very possible that the Fire’s early-season success was nothing more than a mirage and that they just won’t be able to hang around for a full 44-game schedule.
For an expansion team, the only way to go is up, and Portland’s recent slide shows that there’s still plenty for them to work on.
