TORONTO — Two of the most anticipated moments of the Toronto Tempo’s inaugural season came to a head on Tuesday night at Scotiabank Arena.
Brittney Sykes, the defensive superstar and million-dollar offensive backcourt weapon, made her return to the floor after eight weeks out with a foot injury.
But the 19,300 seats at Scotiabank Arena didn’t sell out simply for Sykes’ return. Tuesday also marked the first time Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever would play in Toronto.
“There'll be a lot of Caitlin Clark fans in the stands too, which I don't have a problem with ... That's good. They're coming to watch. They get to see the Toronto Tempo, too,” Tempo head coach Sandy Brondello said.
“What a great spectacle to have.”
Sykes was met with thunderous applause when introduced in the starting lineup — and perhaps surprisingly, the cheers she received rang louder than the welcome Clark attracted when her name was called moments before.
“It was chilling. I couldn't even hear my name to be honest,” Sykes said.
“Like I said from the beginning, like yes, the W fans in the States, they give love, but Goddamnit, like Toronto and Canada itself, the love that they give is just ridiculous. I'm really grateful for that, too.”
Unfortunately for Tempo fans, the slumping home team lost 101-95 to the Fever as a big rally at the end of the fourth quarter fell short. It was the 11th consecutive loss for the Tempo, who are now 0-3 at Scotiabank Arena for showcase games.
One thing that felt good for the hosts was having Sykes and Marina Mabrey back atop the scoresheet. Mabrey fought through tough double-team action from the Fever to lead the Tempo with 22 points while Sykes added 15 in 21 minutes. She was on a minutes restriction, but said after the game that she fought for extra time on the court.
Before the game, Brondello wanted Sykes to “have some grace and play with joy.”
“I'm grateful for coach really because that helped me kind of ease my nerves. I can get really worked up and lost in a lot of things that I can't control, and the one thing that I could control was where I placed my joy.”
Sykes showed Toronto just what it had been missing with a play in the second quarter that saw her fight for a rebound at one end, take it down the floor herself and release it for a jumper at the elbow.
Annesah Morrow grabbed a tough offensive rebound over Aliyah Boston and Myisha Hines-Allen and sunk the layup to cut the deficit to five points. Morrow, a trade-deadline acquisition, had 14 points and 16 rebounds, good for a franchise rebounding high. It was her first double-double since the trade and 10th this season.
“(Morrow) be Windex on the glass,” Sykes said with a smile.
Defence improved for the Tempo, who put up 41 rebounds and saw Laura Juskaite, Isabelle Harrison and Morrow outperform their season rebounding averages.
The Tempo’s issue wasn’t getting shots off, it was getting them in. The hosts opened the game with nine misses. The team has a tradition where fans remain standing after tip-off until they score a basket ,so the crowd got a good stretch in. Toronto finished the game with a .391 shooting percentage, while Indiana was at .529.
Kelsey Mitchell led the Fever with 29 points. With more than 20 points in 20 straight games, she has now tied A’ja Wilson for the longest streak of that kind in league history. Clark added 24 points and seven assists in the win.
The Fever and Tempo are unique because each draw a large breadth of fans. The Fever, as the most-watched team in the league, pull eyes from across the U.S. and the globe. Though they are based in Indiana, they represent far beyond those borders. The same goes for the Tempo, who have branded themselves as Canada’s team, playing home games outside of Toronto.
“It's really incredible. It's everything we thought it was going to be, everything we hoped it would be,” Fever head coach Stephanie White said of expansion and overall growth of the WNBA. “When I was a part of this league back in 1999, this is what we envisioned, right? And to now, for me to still be a part of it, is really incredible.”
Boston, the first-overall pick in 2023, had similar thoughts to her coach.
“It's super exciting. I think it just goes to show how much the league's expanding, how much women's basketball is expanding, how much people really want to watch and want to be a part of. So I'm super excited that we're here in Toronto.”
The Tempo revealed their mascots at half — Dez, a snapping turtle from Muskoka, Ont., and Dot, an arctic hare — a duo meant to represent a fun spin on the old story of the tortoise and the hare with their unique speeds and changes of tempo.
The Tempo are off to Washington to face the Mystics on Wednesday before a trip to Vancouver for the final two games of the cross-Canada series this weekend.
