Fire vs. Tempo: Emily Engstler and Portland Pull Away 99-80 in the Two Expansion Teams' First Meeting

For one half, the first meeting of these two expansion teams looked exactly like the Spider-Man pointing meme. Two new clubs, staring across the floor, trading the lead over and over, neither one sure which was supposed to be the other. It was 44-all at the break. Then the Portland Fire came out of the locker room and ended the bit.

Emily Engstler had 16 points, seven rebounds and four blocks, Portland outscored the Toronto Tempo 55-36 in the second half, and the Fire left Coca-Cola Coliseum on Saturday with a 99-80 win and a one-point miss on a very round number.

Ten Lead Changes in 15 Minutes

The first half was pure chaos, in a fun way. Toronto jumped ahead 9-4, and Portland answered with eight straight for a 12-9 lead. It was 16-16 after one. Portland's next 8-0 burst made it 24-19 early in the second, and the lead changed hands 10 times in the first 15 minutes before anyone could get a real grip on the game.

Marina Mabrey finally tried to end that with a 3 that sparked the biggest run of the half. Toronto scored 11 in a row from a 30-28 deficit to go up 39-30, and Mabrey looked like the best player in the building. She had 15 points and seven assists by halftime.

Portland called time and rebuilt, getting back in front at 42-40 late in the half before things settled at 44-44.

The third was tighter than the final score suggests. Portland won it 22-17 and carried a 66-61 lead to the fourth, and when Toronto scored first to make it 66-63, this still felt like anybody's game.

It was not anybody's game for much longer.

Eighty-One Seconds

The Fire scored 11 straight points between the 9:28 and 8:07 marks, capped by a Nyadiew Puoch 3 that made it 77-63. In the time it takes to microwave a burrito, a three-point game became a 14-point game, and the Tempo never recovered.

The rest of the fourth was a Portland victory lap. Puoch's tip made it 88-71 with 4:43 left, Bridget Carleton's 26-foot 3 off a Carla Leite assist pushed it to 91-72, and two Leite free throws at 1:38 gave the Fire their biggest lead at 95-72. Serah Williams drove for a layup with 40.6 seconds left to reach 99.

And there it stopped. Portland finished one point short of what would have been its first 100-point game in its first season. Maria Conde's tip for Toronto with 10.1 seconds left closed the scoring.

Everybody Ate

Engstler was the most complete player on the floor, shooting 5-of-8 from the field and 5-of-5 at the line, and adding two steals to those four blocks. Leite scored 15 with nine assists and went 7-of-7 at the stripe. Carleton also had 15, hit four 3s and posted a game-best plus-25, the kind of number that usually means the other team couldn't figure out where she was.

The bench is where this got ugly for Toronto. Megan DiLeo scored 14 on 6-of-8 shooting, Sarah Ashlee Barker had 12 on 5-of-6, Williams added eight, and Teja Oblak barely bothered with scoring at three points but handed out nine assists in 17 minutes. That means Leite and Oblak combined for 18 of Portland's 24 assists, and neither of them had to play 25 minutes to do it. The Fire didn't even need Karlie Samuelson: a left foot injury has kept her out so far, and though she was listed as available, she did not play.

Toronto's stars had their moments. Mabrey finished with 19 points and eight assists, which also tells you how the second half went: four points and one assist after her 15-and-seven first half. Kiki Rice, a rookie, was brilliant on 8-of-11 shooting, and her 19 points tied her season high. Nyara Sabally missed the previous two games with a neck injury, then gave Toronto nine points across 23 minutes in her return.

The rough part was everywhere else. Brittney Sykes scored 10 but turned it over seven times and finished minus-23. Kia Nurse went 1-of-7, including 0-of-5 from 3. Conde shot 3-of-9 and finished minus-21.

The Turning Point Was Toronto's Own Hands

The 11-0 run decided the night, but the Tempo's turnovers had been setting it up for a while. Toronto gave it away 17 times, and Portland turned those into 28 points. Portland committed 14 of its own and gave up just 13. That's a 15-point gap on what are basically free possessions, in a game that was tied at the half.

The other piece was the arc. Portland went 11-of-23 from deep and Toronto went 6-of-25, a 15-point gap of its own. Toronto actually held up fine in the paint, losing that battle just 44-42, and won the fast break 16-7. Those are the numbers of a team that competed for a half and then ran out of clean possessions.

The Numbers That Tell It

• 55-36: Portland's second-half scoring edge.
• 33-19: The fourth quarter alone.
• 28-13: Points off turnovers, Fire.
• 42-20: Bench scoring, Fire.
• 18: Combined assists from Leite and Oblak.

Where Everybody Stands

Portland gets back to .500 at 3-3 and picks up its first road win of the season, moving to 1-1 away from home after a loss in Indiana. A trip to New York comes next on Monday.

Toronto slips to 3-4 and 1-2 at home with two straight losses, after Thursday's 100-72 defeat in Minnesota. The Tempo visit Chicago on Wednesday.

Chapter One

Rivalries need an origin story, and these two didn't have one until Saturday. There's no history here yet, no grudges, no old footage to pull up on a broadcast. All there is now is a first chapter, and Portland wrote it with 99 points and a very good bench. Toronto gets its chance to respond later this season. Until then, only one of these teams has anything to point at.

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