Tempo vs. Liberty: Marina Mabrey Scores 30 as Toronto Blows a 20-Point Lead, Then Wins 93-91 in Montreal

A Toronto home game in Montreal, a 20-point lead that evaporated, a double technical, a flagrant, and a shoe thrown at the other team's leading scorer. If you tuned in on Sunday afternoon expecting a quiet midseason game between a slumping contender and an expansion team, the Bell Centre had other plans.

Marina Mabrey scored 30, Nyara Sabally dropped in the tiebreaking layup with 52.5 seconds left, and the Toronto Tempo hung on to beat the New York Liberty 93-91. Toronto led 74-54 late in the third quarter and needed every last one of those points, which ended a four-game losing streak in about the most stressful way available.

Twenty Points of Insurance, Nearly All of It Used

The Liberty never led. That's the part worth remembering as this thing got wild. New York did pull even in the second quarter, erasing a 24-15 deficit with a 9-0 run that carried over from the first, and it was still 32-32 midway through the period. Toronto answered with a 9-0 run of its own and took a 47-39 lead into the half.

The third quarter looked like the end of the story. The Tempo piled up 33 points, with a transition game that finished with a 28-2 edge in fast-break points, and they pushed the margin to 20 before settling for 80-64 going to the fourth. There was also some heat. Betnijah Laney-Hamilton and Mabrey picked up double technicals after a third-quarter scuffle, which turned out to be merely the opening act.

Then Toronto started giving the ball away. A 16-4 New York run, fed by five Tempo turnovers, got the Liberty within 84-80 when Sabrina Ionescu scored on a layup with 5:36 left. Mabrey did what she could to stop the bleeding, drilling a 28-foot pull-up at 3:59 and scoring from six feet at 3:34 to make it 90-84. It didn't hold. Ionescu's layup at 2:48 and two Breanna Stewart free throws at 2:23 made it 90-89.

Somewhere in those closing minutes, Laney-Hamilton got tossed for flinging a shoe at Mabrey, a sentence nobody expected to type today. Mabrey made a technical free throw at 1:48, and Stewart's driving layup off an Ionescu pass tied it at 91 with 1:30 to go.

Mabrey Against the World, Again

This is becoming a habit. Mabrey went for 30 on 9-of-19 shooting, hit 3 of 8 threes and made 9 of 11 at the line, along with five assists. It was her second 30-point game in a row after a 34-point effort in Friday's 108-95 loss to Dallas, on the same floor, with 20,996 in the building, which the AP lists as a WNBA regular-season attendance record. The AP has her with five 30-point games this season, including the 53 on June 25 against Los Angeles that tied the league's single-game record.

The downside was six turnovers, tied for the team high with Laura Juskaite, and Toronto as a whole gave it away 23 times. Juskaite made up for hers with 18 points on 7-of-8 shooting. Rookie Maria Conde added 15, and Sabally scored 13 with seven rebounds off the bench. Julie Allemand had only four points but handed out 10 assists against a single turnover, the calmest line in a very uncalm game.

New York's stars did almost everything they needed to. Ionescu scored 28 with eight assists and three steals, and Stewart had 22 points and eight rebounds, though she needed 21 shots to get there. Jonquel Jones had 10 points and 10 rebounds, and Pauline Astier scored 14 on 5-of-8 shooting. The problem was everything around them from long range: the Liberty hit 5 of 26 threes, and Stewart and Jones went a combined 1 of 8.

Allemand to Sabally

After all of that, the deciding play was almost peaceful. With the game tied at 91 and the clock under a minute, Allemand found Sabally for a 1-foot layup at 52.5. It was Toronto's first field goal since Mabrey's at 3:34, and it held up, because New York didn't score again.

For a team that had been stuck in a nasty habit of fourth-quarter collapses, those last 52 seconds mattered as much as anything that came before them. Toronto was outscored 27-13 in the final period, and the AP notes the Tempo are now minus-49 in their last five fourth quarters. They'd also lost three straight games they led going into the fourth. They were about to make it four until Allemand and Sabally stepped in.

The Numbers That Mattered

• Fast-break points: Toronto 28, New York 2.
• 3-pointers: Toronto 9 of 24, New York 5 of 26.
• Turnovers: Toronto 23, New York 18, with Toronto scoring 29 points off them and New York 27.
• Field-goal percentage: Toronto 52, New York 43.
• Fourth quarter: New York 27, Toronto 13.

Where Things Stand

The Tempo improve to 10-13 and 6-7 at home with the four-game skid behind them, the longest of their expansion season. Washington is next on Tuesday, and Toronto's unusual home schedule keeps rolling, with two games at Vancouver's Rogers Arena still to come later this season.

The Liberty fall to 13-11 and 6-6 on the road, and the slump is getting harder to ignore. This was their third straight loss, and they've lost seven of their last nine regular-season games. That stretch doesn't include the 93-85 win over Las Vegas in the Commissioner's Cup Championship on June 30, a result that doesn't count in the standings and feels like a long time ago. New York also played the day before this one, a 90-85 loss at Minnesota, so tired legs may have played a part in a 5-of-26 night from three.

Not Exactly a Glass Slipper

Cinderella only lost a shoe at midnight, and somebody came looking to give it back. Nobody is rushing to do that for Laney-Hamilton. The Tempo aren't anybody's fairy tale at 10-13, and a team that blows a 20-point lead shouldn't be measuring anyone for a glass slipper. But on a Sunday in Montreal, in a game that had everything except a dull minute, Mabrey got her 30, Sabally got the last basket, and Toronto got to leave the building with the win.

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