The Toronto Tempo (8-9) are no strangers to playing shorthanded.
Injuries to their frontcourt forced them to play smaller than expected right out of the gate, with Isabelle Harrison missing the first 10 games of the season and Temi Fagbénlé only recently returning from an injury suffered on opening day.
The Tempo’s injury woes have unfortunately continued, and it now seems like they’ll have to go without two of their three go-to guards, Brittney Sykes and Kiki Rice, for an extended period of time.
Sykes, who leads Toronto in scoring at 20.1 points per game, injured her plantar fascia last Tuesday in a game against the Indiana Fever, while Rice, the No. 5 overall pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft, has been dealing with a Grade 3 ankle sprain since early June.
The Tempo had little to say about either player’s injury, only that Sykes and Rice will both be reevaluated in the coming weeks and are expected to return later this season.
Needless to say, the vagueness of the team’s communication, in addition to the nature of each player’s injury, do not bode particularly well for the short-term. The Tempo must prepare to be without a good chunk of their backcourt for the foreseeable future, and while they were able to tread water earlier in the season with a thin frontcourt, overcoming the losses of Sykes and Rice will likely be a much bigger challenge.
Monday night’s loss to the Atlanta Dream marked Toronto’s fourth loss in their last five games, sending them to below .500 for the season and outside the current playoff picture.
Expect Marina Mabrey to keep up the scoring
As is the case when any All-Star is injured, Toronto won’t be able to simply replace Sykes’ production with another player on its roster. The 10th-year guard is having a career year offensively and has shouldered an enormous burden for the Tempo, shooting the ball 15.2 times per game and averaging 6.9 free throw attempts. She’s one of the WNBA’s most athletic perimeter players and is among the best in the league at leveraging that athleticism into trips to the free throw line, which is something the Tempo will miss dearly.
Rice’s absence will be felt, too. Though she’s just a rookie, she’s shown remarkable poise playing for championship-winning head coach Sandy Brondello, guarding multiple positions while quietly putting up highly efficient scoring numbers, shooting 59.6 percent on 2-pointers, 39.1 percent on 3-pointers and 84.4 percent on free throws.
That’s a lot of offense to make up for, and the Tempo will be relying even more heavily on Marina Mabrey to do so.
She, too, is enjoying a career year, combining with Sykes to form one of the WNBA’s highest-scoring duos; Mabrey is currently averaging 19.1 points per game and has been scorching the nets from deep, making 3.3 3-pointers per game at a 39.1 percent clip. In Toronto’s first game without Sykes, Mabrey showed that she’s up to the task of being her team’s No. 1 option, carrying the Tempo with a career-high 37 points, and she’ll likely be one of the highest-volume scorers in the league until her teammates return.
María Conde and Julie Allemand may be asked to do more
Even so, Mabrey can’t be expected to do it alone. The Tempo are going to have to find offense elsewhere, lest they become a one-player show, which typically isn’t a formula for success.
María Conde is one player who could see an increased role. She’s had an up-and-down season and has mostly been used as a reserve (14 games coming off the bench and just two as a starter), but she’s found a bit of a groove lately, averaging 14.3 points in her last three games. Conde is also far more experienced than her rookie designation suggests; she’s competed in either EuroLeague Women or EuroCup Women every winter dating back to 2018, and she’s been part of the Spanish National Team even longer, so Brondello should have confidence in her doing more for the Tempo.
Look for Julie Allemand to step up her game, too.
Like Conde, Allemand brings a wealth of international experience, most recently winning a EuroLeague Women championship with Fenerbahçe Opet, and she’s been a member of the Belgian National Team for over a decade. Though Allemand has been more of a pass-first point guard during her time in the WNBA, the Tempo’s injury situation may force her to look for her own shot more often.
Regardless of which players are next in the Tempo’s pecking order, overcoming Sykes’ and Rice’s injuries won’t be easy. Dynamic guard play has been a major part of Toronto’s offensive identity this season, and with several of those guards out until further notice, it would be unrealistic not to expect some sort of drop-off. The question will be if the Tempo can adjust quickly enough to stay in the playoff race; right now, they’re only a half-game behind the Washington Mystics for the No. 8 seed, but their margin for error just became much, much slimmer.
