Fire vs. Sun: Carla Leite Scores 20 as Portland Closes on 21-6 Run for Third Straight Win, 71-61

One for 21. Read it again if you need to. That was the Connecticut Sun from 3-point range on Wednesday night at Moda Center, with the lone make arriving more than 21 minutes into the game, and somehow the Sun still led by five with eight minutes to play.

Then the Portland Fire stopped being polite about it. Carla Leite scored 20, the Fire finished on a 21-6 run, and Portland won 71-61 for its third straight victory, pushing the expansion club to 5-3 while Connecticut sank to 1-8.

A Slog With a Plot Twist

This one was never going to win any beauty contests. The teams combined for 43 turnovers, and the first quarter delivered the scariest moment of the night when Aaliyah Edwards went down with 5:02 left after taking contact to the face from Sarah Ashlee Barker on a play ruled a flagrant foul. Edwards missed both free throws and soon left with what the team called a nose injury. Her night lasted five minutes.

Connecticut still answered an early Fire lead with eight straight points to go up 16-15 before Bridget Carleton's basket made it 17-16 Portland after one. The second quarter is where the Sun's shooting went from concerning to alarming. Connecticut scored 11 in the period, went to the locker room 0-for-13 from deep and trailed 37-27.

The third looked like a different sport. Aneesah Morrow's 3 with 8:23 left, the Sun's first of the night, cut it to 39-32. Olivia Nelson-Ododa got them within 43-42, Morrow's layup finished an 8-0 run for a 44-43 lead, and a 23-13 quarter left it tied at 50. Gianna Kneepkens and Hailey Van Lith then supplied the first five points of the fourth, and Connecticut had a 55-50 lead with 8:04 remaining. It was the high point of the Sun's evening by a wide margin.

Leite Closed, the Bench Did the Rest

Leite needed only 23 minutes. She shot 4-of-10 from the floor and a perfect 10-for-10 at the line, and seven of her 20 came in the last 1:54: a 23-foot 3 off a Carleton assist, then two separate trips to the stripe. Carleton was the steady hand with 13 points, seven rebounds and three assists.

The real story sits in the plus-minus column, which is almost comically clear. All six Fire reserves finished on the positive side. None of the five starters did. Barker, the most eventful player in the building, came off the bench for 11 rebounds, three steals and a game-best plus-19 in 22 minutes. Megan DiLeo scored 10 at plus-15. Frieda Buhner made 4 of 5 shots for nine points at plus-13 in only 13 minutes, and Teja Oblak was plus-11.

For Connecticut, Morrow did what she could. She had 13 points and 13 rebounds, eight of them offensive, for her sixth double-double of the season, according to the team. It took her 19 shots, though, and she went 1-of-7 from 3. Charlisse Leger-Walker scored 11, with five of those at the line, while Saniya Rivers shot 3-of-11. The Sun also played without Brittney Griner, out with a right rib injury and still one point shy of 6,000 for her career.

Nearly Five Minutes of Nothing

The game swung right after that 55-50 lead. Portland's run started with Oblak, who hit two baskets to make it 55-54. Buhner then scored on back-to-back layups, the second making it 58-55 with 4:25 left, and Carleton's short jumper finished a 10-0 burst at the 3:36 mark.

Connecticut's offense simply left the building. From Van Lith's points at the 8:04 mark until Rivers' 16-footer with 3:17 to go, the Sun did not score, and that Rivers jumper was their only field goal over the final 8:04. Leite and Buhner then hit back-to-back 3s, with Buhner's 25-footer making it 66-57 at 1:32. Every point after that came at the free-throw line, which made the final look only moderately rude.

Stats That Matter

• 3-pointers: Portland 7-of-22, Connecticut 1-of-21. That is an 18-point difference in a 10-point game.
• Points off turnovers: Portland 28, Connecticut 19. The Sun had 22 total turnovers to the Fire's 21, but Portland did far more damage with its chances.
• Offensive rebounds: Connecticut 14, Portland 6. The Sun won the glass 33-26, which is the only reason a 1-for-21 night stayed interesting this long.
• Free throws: Portland 16-of-24, Connecticut 12-of-22. Take away Leite's perfect line and the Fire were 6-of-14, so she was doing plenty of the heavy lifting there too.
• Fourth quarter: Portland 21, Connecticut 11. Five of those Sun points came before the 8:04 mark.

May Standings, Expansion Edition

Portland is 5-3 and has won three in a row, following road wins at Toronto and New York with this one. The Fire are now 3-2 at home and have beaten the Sun twice at Moda Center in nine days, after squeezing out an 83-82 win on May 18. Atlanta comes to Portland on Friday night.

Connecticut has lost three straight and is 1-8 overall and 1-5 on the road. The five-game trip that started and ended in this building finished 1-4. Now comes a change of scenery, as the Sun meet the Los Angeles Sparks on Saturday in Hartford, their first game in the city since 2003.

The Wi-Fi Was Down

A 3-point attack that finishes 1-for-21 has all the reliability of airport Wi-Fi: it connected once, briefly, and nobody could explain why. What makes this one sting for Connecticut is how close the rest of the night came to covering for it. The Sun crashed the glass, forced 21 turnovers and led with eight minutes left.

Expansion teams are supposed to be the ones taking their lumps in May. Portland has five wins and a three-game streak. Connecticut has one win, one made 3 from its last night on the road and a long flight to think about both.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details as reported by the Associated Press. Team notes from the Connecticut Sun.