Fire eager to fluster Liberty in teams’ third meeting of season

This could be the WNBA’s golden age for expansion teams.

Last year, Golden State became the league’s first team to make the playoffs as a first-year franchise.

This year, the Portland Fire — set to visit the New York Liberty on Monday night — hope to become the second team to earn that distinction.

Portland is off to a promising 3-3 start, including a split of two games against the Liberty. New York lost to Golden State on Thursday, so upstart teams have given the Liberty trouble.

“We want to be annoying to play against,” said Bridget Carleton, Portland’s first pick in the expansion draft.

Carleton, the first player to sign a contract with the Fire, has indeed been annoying to New York, scoring 26 points in the Fire’s two-point win on May 12. In the rematch two days later, New York held her to 11 points and won by 18.

Another player the Liberty won’t soon forget is Sarah Ashlee Barker, whose put-back at the buzzer beat New York 98-96 in that May 12 game.

Meanwhile, the Liberty have lost two straight games to start its season-long, seven-game homestand.

However, the good news for the Liberty is that two starters have returned to the lineup over the past few days — three-time All-Star Satou Sabally (cyst) and four-time All-Star Sabrina Ionescu (foot injury).

Sabally scored a team-high 20 points in New York’s 91-76 loss to Dallas on Sunday. Ionescu had 11 but went scoreless in 16 second-half minutes.

“I came back a lot sooner than I was supposed to,” Ionescu said of her injury. “I’m thankful.”

Sunday marked the first pro game in which Ionescu and Sabally played together. The former Oregon teammates were the top two WNBA draft picks in 2020, with Ionescu selected first. They finally have been reunited, but only after Sabally left Phoenix and signed as a free agent.

More importantly for the Liberty, they want to end their modest skid.

–Field Level Media