Sky vs. Fire: Kamilla Cardoso's WNBA-Record 13-for-13 Shooting Night Fuels Franchise-Record 124-Point Rout

The scouting report on Kamilla Cardoso's Friday night is short: the ball kept going in. She took 13 shots, made all 13, and by the time she sat down for good with 1:31 left in the third quarter, the WNBA record book needed an edit.

Cardoso finished with a career-high 30 points, no player in league history has made more field goals without a miss, and the Chicago Sky demolished the Portland Fire 124-94 at Wintrust Arena. The 124 is a franchise record, because apparently one piece of history wasn't enough for a Friday.

A Close Game Disguised as a Blowout

The final score lies a little. Portland took a 3-0 lead on Megan DiLeo's opening 3, and that was the last time the Fire were ahead. Azura Stevens hit back-to-back 3s, the second one a four-point play, and Chicago led 29-17 after one quarter.

Then Bridget Carleton, scoreless in the first, went to work. She had 13 in the second, Portland poured in 31 as a team, and her 3 with 36 seconds left cut it to 50-47. Chicago took a 53-48 lead to the half, which is not what a record-setting rout is supposed to look like.

The Fire kept coming in the third. Carleton's step-back made it 56-53. Teja Oblak's 3 made it 70-66. When Frieda Buhner finished a three-point play with 3:17 left in the quarter, Chicago's lead was down to 74-72, and the crowd had every right to feel twitchy about all those beautiful offensive numbers.

Thirteen for Thirteen and a Very Good Supporting Cast

Every one of Cardoso's makes came within four feet of the rim, per the league's play-by-play, which is why her passers deserve a cut of the royalties. She had three baskets in the first, four in the second and six in the third, added eight rebounds and did it all in 24 minutes. The Sky say only one player in league history had scored 30-plus while shooting 100 percent from the field before Friday, that no center had ever done it, and that the mark she took down belonged to Nneka Ogwumike from 2016. The only shots she missed all night came at the free-throw line, where she went 4-of-6.

Sydney Taylor would be the headline on almost any other night. The rookie scored 29 in 23 minutes on 8-of-11 shooting, 6-of-7 from 3 and 7-of-7 at the line, and finished plus-34. Per the AP, it was her fourth game of 20 or more this season, second among all rookies behind Olivia Miles, who has seven.

Courtney Vandersloot made her season debut after returning from injury and played like someone who'd been waiting in the car with the engine running: 10 points on 4-of-4 shooting and seven assists in 14 minutes. She also somehow finished minus-1 in a 30-point win, a stat that will baffle historians. Skylar Diggins added 10 points and nine assists, Stevens had 12 points, six rebounds and six assists, and Elizabeth Williams went plus-27 off the bench with eight points, five rebounds and four assists. Jacy Sheldon chipped in 11 as a reserve, making it six Sky players in double figures.

Carleton led Portland with 20, including 8-of-8 at the line, and Carla Leite scored 18. Five Fire players reached double figures, and it came nowhere close to mattering. Portland actually won the turnover battle, 14 to nine, took 11 more shots than Chicago and grabbed 11 offensive rebounds to the Sky's six. Those are normally the ingredients of an upset. They don't do much when the other team shoots like it's alone in the gym.

From 74-72 to a Track Meet

The game turned in those final 3:17 of the third. Cardoso converted a three-point play and then scored her 30th point on a Taylor feed. Taylor made four free throws, Rachel Banham hit a 25-footer and Elizabeth Williams scored inside with 13.3 seconds left. That's a 14-3 finish and an 88-75 lead.

The fourth is where it got silly. Between 7:42 and 4:25, the Sky scored 17 straight, and Taylor had 14 of them: two free throws, two 3s, a floater with a free throw on top, and one more 3, with a Stevens 3 mixed in for variety. That took it from 93-80 to 110-80. Jacy Sheldon's layup with 2:50 left then pushed Chicago past the old franchise scoring mark, and the Sky kept going for good measure.

The Numbers That Explain It

• Assists: Chicago had 38 on 45 made field goals, which the team says is the most by a single team in WNBA history.
• Shooting: The Sky shot 66.2 percent, the best in franchise history, according to the team.
• Threes: Chicago went 15-of-28, and the team says those makes tie a franchise high.
• Second half: 71 points, with 35 in the third and 36 in the fourth.
• The run: That 17-0 stretch came when Portland was already down 13, a mean thing to do to a team that had fought for three quarters.

A Sweep and a Streak

Chicago is 6-12 and 3-6 at home. Chicago last won consecutive games on May 9-13, and the schedule backs up the AP on that one. This also finished a 3-0 season sweep of Portland: 98-83 in the opener, 101-78 two nights earlier and now this. The Sky host Las Vegas on Sunday.

Portland falls to 8-11 and 2-6 on the road after losing twice in Chicago by a combined 53 points. The Fire visit Washington on Sunday.

Perfect, With the Sound On

Baseball treats perfection like a superstition. The dugout goes quiet, nobody says the words, everyone pretends it isn't happening. Cardoso's version came with 38 assists, a rookie drilling 3s and a veteran's long-awaited return, and nobody at Wintrust had to pretend anything. Earlier this week, this team was six straight losses deep into a lost month. On Friday it rewrote its own record book. June in Chicago remains undefeated at being weird.

Stats from the official box score and league play-by-play. Additional details from the Associated Press and the Chicago Sky.