TORONTO — The Toronto Tempo have often been outmuscled, out-rebounded, and overmatched in paint of late, and had a tall task in the Atlanta Dream frontcourt of Angel Reese and Brionna Jones on Friday.
It was ultimately more of the same, as another steep deficit in paint scoring and rebounding were once again too great to overcome, and the Tempo fell 111-92 to the Dream at Coca-Cola Coliseum.
In their last game, the Tempo also scored a season-low 62 points against the Washington Mystics.
Their offence had appeared more stagnant in recent games, with players overextending their dribbles and advantages often dying on the vine.
Sandy Brondello wants her offence to operate with point-five principles — choosing to pass, shoot or dribble within half-a-second, cascading smaller advantages into larger ones — and didn’t mince words when addressing her players’ decision-making before the game.
“Terrible in the last game. We didn’t move the ball at all and played right into their hands … We track first side action, second, third, and last game it was terrible.
They came out flat again to start against the Dream. Actions moved at a snail’s pace. Players hesitated off the catch and let advantages wither away. On the other end the Dream were a picture of strong ball movement, as Reese caught on a duck-in, pinged the ball back out, it swung to the corner, and Jordin Canada canned a 3.
When the Tempo eventually found a path to functional offence, it was largely through the will of Marina Mabrey and the lively and creative play of Tima Pouye. Mabrey ran off a screen, into a handoff and drained a signature step-back 3. She slalomed into the defence and settled into a pair of jumpers and imposed her will on drives, taking it hard to the hoops for a pair of shooting fouls, going perfect from the line. Mabrey finished the game with 26 points on 12 shots, including 3-for-6 from deep, but also had five turnovers and five fouls.
And Pouye injected a verve that revived the previously D.O.A offence. She quickly got off the ball and kept moving, and her proactivity seemed to spur the same from her teammates as actions gained fluidity. Maria Conde found Pouye on a baseline back cut, and she immediately snapped it back to Conde for an open 3. Quick thinking by the bench guard helped propel the Tempo to a 23-23 tie through one.
(Pouye ended up only playing that three-minute stretch, but it was a good one, and in my eyes warranted more.)
The game only sped up in the second. Nyara Sabally got involved with a couple of layups and a triple, as Conde caught on a cut and found her open in the corner. Allemand made a clean behind-the-back dribble to beat her defender into the paint, picked up her dribble, and found Laura Juskaite for a cutting layup. Both Mabrey and Conde navigated the various pick n’ roll coverages masterfully, as they beat hedges with tight dribbles and threaded perfect pocket passes.
“I think when we’re moving the ball, including Marina, because they guard us so closely, I think that’s when we’re the best,” Sandy Brondello said postgame. “When we have an inside-out attack.”
She added: “Yeah, we scored 92 points, but I think there’s another level offensively we can go to with some of our execution where we can create a little bit more advantages and not fight pressure so much … just back up sometimes and play to the next action then.
The Tempo were putting a run together to start the second, but Mabrey was called for an offensive foul as her hand caught the defender’s face on the gather. She was upset; Sandy Brondello waved her arms in an animated exchange with the ref, and the sellout crowd of 8,210 at Coca-Cola Coliseum booed and groaned. Naz Hillmon added insult to injury by immediately popping a 3 going the other way as the wind was sucked out of the Tempo’s sails. They trailed by one at half.
As it has throughout their season, the Tempo’s offence ebbed and flowed in this game, and it ebbed severely to start the second half. The actions they did run stalled out. The air quality started to improve in Toronto on Friday, but the Tempo still appeared to be moving through a thick fog. The ball swung listlessly around the perimeter, and Conde chucked a late-clock grenade off the side of the backboard. It got ugly.
“I think we try and force things,” Brondello said. “We want to try and get the points spread back closer, and instead of just staying calm and playing together, I think we try and force the action, and then we’re not making shots, and they’re making it down (at) the other end. They had some runouts, which is inexcusable.”
Meanwhile, the Dream mounted a 13-4 run to start the half on the strength of a couple of Reese layups and another Hillmon 3. Right as the Tempo built momentum again, they bizarrely had a fastbreak basket taken away by an inadvertent whistle. “Ref you suck” chants rang throughout the building. Then Julie Allemand splashed a pull-up 3 on the ensuing play. Ball don’t lie.
Still, the Dream kept surging with a barrage of drives and cuts to the rim. Reese caught back-to-back touchdown passes for easy layups. Allemand ripped a pull-up 3 out of the pick n’ roll and Mabrey added another but the Tempo were still stuck six as the fourth quarter ticked on.
But Hillmon’s movement was a stark contrast to the Tempo’s often stagnant offence as she sliced through for a couple cutting layups. She added another 3 to bring her shooting line to a perfect 8-for-8 from the field, 4-for-4 from 3 and 4-for-4 from the line for 24 points. Madina Okot also banged in two of the Dream’s 60 paint points — the Tempo had only 38 — and the score slowly drifted out of reach.
Sabally took a hard hit in the midsection from Reese with about three minutes remaining and was helped off the court and to the locker room. Brondello had this to say about her status postgame: “That was a hard hit. She’s not feeling great at the moment. She’s hurt a rib, so we don’t know what that is at the moment. So hopefully, you know, she’s doing so well for us, and hopefully it’s nothing too serious.”
Alternatively, Temi Fagbenle returned to give the Tempo a full complement of frontcourt players — until Sabally’s exit — which has been a rare occurrence this season. The three Tempo players who play (non-small-ball) centre and average the most minutes, Fagbenle, Sabally and Izzy Harrison, have missed a combined 33 games this season.
And the Tempo have suffered down low. They’re 13th in both rebounds per game (31.1) and points in the paint (34.8) and are last in rebounding by a significant margin over the last five games — the gap between them and the second-to-last team is the same as the gap between 14th and eighth.
Fagbenle had missed five straight games while in concussion protocol and had four points, one rebound and six personal fouls in 15 minutes against the Dream.
After dropping to 10-15, the Tempo will have one last chance to get back in the win column before the week-long All-Star break on Monday against the juggernaut Las Vegas Aces.