Carleton Fuels the Fire to 100-93 Win
The Storm lost their 11th game in a row, despite a career-high from Jade Melbourne.
(Portland, Oregon) - Despite losing budding star Carla Leite in the first quarter to a knee injury, the Portland Fire (13-19) outscored Seattle by 12 points in the second quarter, and executed them over the game’s final five minutes to secure a 100-93 victory over their I-5 rival. For the Seattle Storm (6-28), it was their 11th loss in a row and the second time they’ve lost 11 games or more this season. Before this game even tipped off, Seattle was eliminated from the playoffs after the Washington Mystics (18-12) beat the Atlanta Dream (19-12) on Friday by the final score of 79-74.
I spoke to Coach Sonia Raman about what happened in the second quarter.
She responded, “The three-balls started going for them a little bit in the 2nd quarter, if I’m not mistaken. They started to pack the paint a little bit more, and we just kind of weren’t seeing those quick, early passes. We did sometimes, we didn’t in other times, right? So a work in progress there, but I still think that the battle and the compete was there, but you know, some of the details were a little bit missing in that quarter. Stuff that I thought we did a good job of cleaning up in the 2nd half.”
Jade Melbourne scored a career-high 23 points and dished out five assists. Portland’s defense sagged off of Jade, clogging the paint, and daring the Australian point guard to shoot three-pointers. It was a sound strategy as Melbourne has a career average below 30% from beyond the arc. Jade ended up taking 12 three-point field goal attempts in this game, the most of her career, and to her credit, she knocked down four of them.
Melbourne talked about her strong offensive game.
“I think my teammates are the best. I think for me, I always go in with the mindset of being a pass-first guard, and sometimes it gets me a little stuck because I look to pass too much when I’m wide open, so my teammates, my coaches have been echoing me to like be on the front foot, be aggressive, and tonight I was.”
Jade went on to say, “Yeah, I’ve never put up that many three-point attempts in my life, but you know, when they’re open, you've got to look to take them, and if you can hit some, then it opens up for the rest of the team. So yeah, just being on the front foot, being aggressive, and yeah, just doing what my teammates and my coaches are telling me to do.”
Dominique Malonga finished with 21 points on 7-14 FG, and was a perfect 6-6 FT from the free throw line. She nearly had a double-double and finished with nine rebounds. Jordan Horston had her best game of the season, finishing with a season-high of 17 points on 6-10 FG in 19 minutes. Similar to Melbourne, the Fire’s defense dropped its coverage and challenged Horston to make shots from the outside. She did exactly that, hitting 4-6 FG from beyond the arc.
Unfortunately for Seattle, this was the second game in a row that Natisha Hiedeman really struggled with her offense. She finished with just two points on 1-4 FG. That was after scoring only two points on 1-7 FG against the New York Liberty on Wednesday. Rookies Awa Fam (3 points) and Flau’jae Johnson (8 points) also struggled in this game. Johnson also went down with a lower leg/ankle injury on two separate occasions in this contest. Coach Sonia Raman did not have an update after the game, but just stated that Flau’jae was still being evaluated by the team’s medical staff.
I spoke with Coach Raman after the game about Hiedeman’s recent struggles.