Fire vs. Tempo: Carla Leite Scores 27 as Portland Snaps Five-Game Skid, Hands Toronto Eighth Straight Loss

Carla Leite spent Thursday night at the free-throw line like she had signed a lease on it. Fifteen makes on 17 tries, 11 assists on top of that, and a Moda Center crowd of 12,379 got something it had not seen since June 17: the Portland Fire winning a game in this building.

The final was 97-83 over the Toronto Tempo, and both sides of that score carried baggage. Portland ended a five-game losing streak behind Leite's 27 points. Toronto absorbed its eighth straight defeat. When two expansion teams meet in August with this many losses between them, nobody is pretending it is a preview of anything. But for one night, the Fire looked like the adults in the room.

Portland Flipped It, Then Slammed the Door

The opening quarter gave no hint of what was coming. Megan DiLeo came out scoring, piling up eight points on 4-of-5 shooting, and Toronto still led 23-20 with 41.6 seconds left in the period. That was about as good as it got for the Tempo. Portland rattled off nine straight across the quarter break to go from three down to 29-23.

Frieda Buhner's 3 off the bench eventually produced the first double-digit cushion at 45-35. Leite's jumper in the dying seconds made it 51-37 at the half, and the third quarter was a 30-22 demolition that left Toronto staring at an 81-59 hole. Portland's biggest lead reached 27.

To Toronto's credit, the fourth quarter got weird. A 13-0 Tempo run between the 6:48 and 3:52 marks chopped an 89-66 deficit to 89-79, capped by Julie Allemand's 27-foot 3. Aneesah Morrow's basket with 3:08 left made it 91-83, and for a minute the home crowd had to put its phones down. That was the last time Toronto scored. DiLeo finished two Leite feeds inside, Leite added a pair of free throws with 58.3 seconds left, and the whole thing ended where it began: with Leite at the line.

Leite Ran the Show, DiLeo Did the Dirty Work

Leite's line is a fun little paradox. She made only five of her 12 shots from the floor, two of them 3s, and still finished with 27 because she lived at the stripe. Her 15 made free throws came within one of Toronto's entire team total of 16. She also handed out nearly half of Portland's 23 assists, and while four turnovers kept the night from being flawless, she was the reason this offense never had to think very hard.

DiLeo was the ideal sidekick: 17 points on 8-of-12 shooting, two blocks and a plus-18 in 28 minutes, mostly by being wherever the ball was about to show up. Bridget Carleton quietly posted a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds, 10 of those boards on the defensive end. Buhner gave the bench 10 points in 16 minutes, and Jordan Harrison packed eight points, four assists and two steals into just 11 minutes.

Toronto's best work came from its point guard. Allemand went 4 of 5 from the field for 11 points and dished out 12 assists, a genuinely lovely line that still came with a minus-16. Nyara Sabally led the Tempo with 17, getting there with six free throws on a 5-of-13 shooting night. Morrow supplied 11 points, eight rebounds and three steals as a reserve and finished plus-1. Marina Mabrey's night was harder to look at: nine points on 3-of-9 shooting and a minus-20 in 22 minutes.

The Minute That Ended the Suspense

If you want the moment this stopped being a contest, rewind to the last two seconds of the first half. Portland led 49-37 when Leite's jumper fell. The Fire then opened the third quarter with seven more points in the first minute, and just like that, a 12-point game had become 58-37 on roughly a minute of game clock.

Toronto came out of the locker room needing a stop and a bucket and got neither. The Tempo finished 9 of 31 from 3-point range, and a team shooting like that does not erase 21 points by accident. When the fourth-quarter run finally arrived, it mostly served to make the final score look more polite.

Stats That Matter

• 15 of 17: Leite's free-throw shooting. All of Toronto went 16 of 24.
• 50 percent vs. 40 percent: Portland went 33 of 66 from the field, while Toronto needed 72 shots to make 29.
• 11 of 27 vs. 9 of 31: Portland made two more 3s on four fewer attempts.
• 12-5: Portland's edge in fast-break points.
• 13-0: Toronto's fourth-quarter run, followed by no points at all over the final 3:08.

Two Expansion Teams, Two Very Different Moods

Portland moved to 12-19 overall and 7-9 at home, and it is now 2-0 against Toronto this season after winning 99-80 on May 23 in the first meeting between the league's two newcomers. The Fire's last victory before this one was a 75-56 road win at Washington on July 16, so this was overdue. Seattle visits Portland on Saturday.

Toronto fell to 10-21 and 4-10 on the road. The Tempo have now dropped 12 of their last 13, and their most recent win remains a 93-91 decision over New York on July 12. The schedule does not offer much sympathy either, with a trip to Atlanta up next on Monday.

Leite Found the Cheat Code

Nobody is going to confuse a 12-19 team with a contender, and beating an opponent on an eight-game slide is no one's idea of a coronation. But losing streaks have a way of making every possession feel like a group project where nobody did the reading. Leite showed up having done the reading, plus everyone else's, then walked to the line and turned in the assignment 15 more times. Sometimes snapping a skid is not complicated. You find the person who can get to the stripe, hand her the ball, and let the whistle do the rest.

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