The Portland Fire improved to an impressive 5-3 on the season with a 71-61 win over the visiting Connecticut Sun.
Starting point guard Carla Leite took scoring honors for the Fire with 18 points, with guard Sarah Ashlee Barker pulling down nine boards. Aneesah Morrow led the way for the Sun with 13 points. The Sun were without Brittney Griner, who was a significant thorn in the side of the Fire the last time these two teams matched up.
The Fire weren’t exactly lighting up the scoreboard to start the game,
but between their excellent defense and some horrific shooting from the Sun, Portland jumped out to a seven point lead. It wouldn’t last as the Fire went cold and the Sun fought back, resulting in a narrow 17-16 lead for the Fire at the end of the first quarter. It should have been a bigger lead with Connecticut going 0-8 from deep, but Portland got badly abused on the boards.
Portland started to compete more in the rebounding category in the second quarter, and that allowed the Fire to start building a lead. They went into halftime leading 37-27, by all appearances in control.
Sadly, the third quarter wasn’t kind for Portland. Miscues and turnovers started to become a real problem, and before you know it a 10-point lead turned into a three-point deficit. Portland would steady the ship a tiny bit at the end of the third quarter to tie it up at 50 apiece.
The Fire have been excellent at scoring in the fourth quarter this season, but it started to look it would not be the case tonight when the Sun jumped out to five point lead. Portland’s offense looked to be stuck in reverse. Don’t count these women out though. The Fire turned up the defense, and the offense followed. A few forced turnovers, a few made baskets, and suddenly the Moda Center crowd was on their feet, loud and proud. A 10-0 run for Portland got them the lead that they would never again surrender. A clutch three from Carla Leite, followed by Leite steal, and then a Frieda Buhner three, all in quick succession, fueled the Fire to a nine point lead with 1:32, and that flurry sealed the deal on another Portland win.
Rebounding
It was a good thing that the Sun were shooting poorly, because Portland got badly outrebounded most of the evening. The game finished with 47 rebounds for the Sun compared to 37 for the Fire, but the deficit was larger most of the game. The worst part was that Portland got more than doubled up on the offensive glass, 14 to 6.
Second Chance Points
When you give up a lot of offensive boards, you might expect to have a problem with giving up second chance points. That’s exactly what happened. Connecticut dominated the category 15 – 5. That’s ugly.
Three-Point Shooting
Neither team shot the ball well from deep. While the Fire weren’t great at 31.8%, the Sun were positively putrid. 4.8% (yes, four point eight percent!) for the game on 21 attempts for Connecticut is the primary reason the Fire walked away with a win in spite of a poor evening in many respects. That’s right. The Suns made one three pointer all night on 21 attempts.
Fast Break Points
Another statistic that really went against Portland. 10 for the Sun vs. only 6 for Fire. Again, that figure for the Fire flatters them, as many of those Fire run outs came late in the game.
Frieda Buhner
It was a great contribution from the rookie forward from Germany. 4 for 5 shooting including a massive three to help seal the deal was huge for the Fire on an evening when everything wasn’t always going to plan. Not bad for just over 13 minutes of work off the bench.
The Most Important Stat
This was not an impressive game overall for the Fire, with so many key stats not going their way. None of that matters though if you score more points than your opponent.
Up Next
The three-game homestand continues with the first matchup of the season against the Atlanta Dream. The game starts at 7pm Pacific on Friday, May 29.
