Liberty vs. Fire: New York Wins 100-82, First Team in WNBA History to Average 100 Points Through Four Games

Two nights earlier, Sarah Ashlee Barker's putback at the buzzer gave the expansion Portland Fire their first win and left the New York Liberty staring at a 98-96 loss. On Thursday, same building, same teams, New York treated the rematch like the director's cut where somebody finally fixes the ending.

Breanna Stewart scored 22, a former University of Portland star who had signed her contract earlier that day scored 12, and the Liberty pulled away for a 100-82 win at the Moda Center. According to the team, no WNBA team before this one had ever averaged at least 100 points a game across the first four of a season: 106, 98, 96 and now 100, all without Sabrina Ionescu or Satou Sabally.

A Slow Start, Then a Third Quarter From Another Planet

For a quarter and change, it looked like Tuesday was going to happen all over again. The Liberty went 5 of 16 in the first quarter, a 9-0 Portland run late in the period helped make it 20-14, and the Fire stretched it to 27-18 in the second in front of 13,087 very happy people. New York responded with 11 straight points in under two minutes to go up 29-27, and the rest of the half was a pinball machine with nine lead changes. Betnijah Laney-Hamilton's layup with 2.4 seconds left made it 39-37 at the break.

Then the Liberty just solved it. They made 11 of 14 shots in the third and won the quarter 31-16, and it happened fast. A 10-0 run turned a 50-46 game into 60-46, and another 10-0 run spanning the quarters took it from 64-53 to 74-53 early in the fourth. The lead reached 22, and from there the only remaining drama was how many minutes the bench would get. Portland's Haley Jones scored all 10 of her points in the final five minutes, but by then the audience was already looking for its car keys.

Everybody Eats

Stewart was the steady center of it: 22 points on 8-of-14 shooting and seven rebounds in 28 minutes. Her 92 points through four games are her highest total at this point of a season since 2023, the team says.

Pauline Astier, starting in Ionescu's spot, was the night's most interesting number generator. The free-agent rookie from France scored 20 on 7-of-12 shooting for her second straight 20-point game and now has 67 points in four games. The Liberty say only three other rookies in WNBA history had reached 67 points, 16 rebounds and 15 assists inside their first four games: Candace Parker, Tamika Catchings and Caitlin Clark. That is a loud list for a fill-in.

Then there is Marine Johannes, who shot 1 of 7, scored three points and was probably the most valuable player on the floor anyway. She handed out a career-high 11 assists and finished with a career-best plus-31. If you are looking for a single stat line to show a kid who thinks basketball is only about scoring, print this one out.

The bench, though, was the actual plot twist. Two days after that unit managed 11 total points, it dropped 41 with eight 3s. Alex Fowler signed a developmental contract earlier Thursday and made her WNBA debut that night, scoring 12 in 17 minutes in a city that knows her well. The Liberty say nobody in WNBA history had reached double figures in scoring on a developmental player contract before her. It is the kind of story that gets pitched as a sports movie and rejected for being too on the nose. Rebekah Gardner added 14 points, five rebounds and five assists, and Julie Vanloo hit three 3s for nine.

Portland had its moments. Megan DiLeo scored 14 in 14 minutes on 5-of-6 shooting, Nyadiew Puoch had 13, and Bridget Carleton and Emily Engstler scored 11 apiece. The Fire bench put up 39 of its own. But Sug Sutton's eight assists came with 3-of-13 shooting, and Carleton finished a brutal minus-31.

The Two Minutes That Flipped It

The turning point was that first 10-0 run in the third quarter. Portland was within 50-46 with 5:03 left in the period and still had every reason to believe in another Tuesday. By the 3:11 mark, it was 60-46 and the Moda Center had gone quiet. The Fire got back to 64-53, but New York's next surge came with the same ball movement and the same open looks. Once the Liberty's passing got going, the Portland defense spent the rest of the night one rotation late.

Stats That Matter

• 32 assists on 34 baskets: New York barely bothered with isolation basketball. That is about as unselfish as a box score gets.
• 15 of 38: Liberty 3-point shooting, against 9 of 31 for Portland. That is an 18-point edge from behind the arc in an 18-point game, which is the sort of tidy math coaches love.
• 41-39: The bench battle, which New York won narrowly. The real gap was in the starting lineups, where New York won 59-43.
• 31-16: The third quarter, in which the Liberty shot 11 of 14.
• 9: Points New York scored off 16 Portland turnovers. The Fire actually won that column, scoring 13 off 12 New York giveaways, and it could not have mattered less.

What the Split Means

New York is 3-1 and 2-1 on the road, and now gets a week off before hosting Golden State on Thursday. A rest would be welcome for a roster playing without two of its stars, especially when the offense has been doing this anyway.

Portland falls to 1-2, all at home, after a buzzer-beating win and an 18-point loss to the same opponent in the span of 48 hours. The Fire finish their four-game, season-opening homestand against Connecticut on Monday.

New York's Version

The Fire got their big movie moment on Tuesday, and nobody can take that away from them. But the Liberty came back 48 hours later with a player who had a new contract and hardly any time to learn the playbook, a rookie replacing a superstar, a point guard who shot 1 of 7 and ran the whole show, and a historic scoring average to show for it. Think of it as the re-recording: same venue, same matchup, far better production. 100-82, New York's Version.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details as reported by the Associated Press. Records and team notes from the New York Liberty team recap.