TORONTO — Everything is a first for an expansion franchise. First player, first draft pick, first step onto that home court, first basket, first roar of the crowd. It's all new.
The Toronto Tempo got most of those firsts out of the way in their opening game against the Washington Mystics last Friday. The one first that escaped them, however, was that first win.
Up one with 32 seconds left in the fourth, they were right there. But a couple fouls, drained free throws from the Mystics, and missed shots from the Tempo later, and the WNBA expansion franchise was forced to wait a few days to finally change that zero to a one in the win column.
They had a bit more time than usual to process that defeat. Time has been a consistent theme for head coach Sandy Brondello in the early days of this franchise — that they don't have enough of it, that they're trying to make the most of it, that it'll take a fair amount of it before they get where they want to go, that it falls through your fingers like sand. So, with five days between their opening game and their showdown against the Seattle Storm on Wednesday, they put that ever-fleeting time to use.
They analyzed film, figured out who was "lingering," as Brondello put it, in transition, held each other accountable, yelled at one another in practice, and got rid of those Game 1 jitters.
“The nervousness should be out. Let’s just settle in and play good basketball in front of our fans, protecting that home court and improving on what we didn’t do well," Brondello said before Wednesday's return to action. "The film never lies. That’s where you can have great accountability."
In return, the Tempo earned win No. 1 by putting together a much more finished product on the floor in Game 2 of 44, beating the visiting Storm 86-73 while looking like a team built in the image of coach Brondello.
“We shared the ball. Took 10 assists last game, [turned it into] 21 [tonight]," Brondello said after Wednesday's win. "You know, I think that when we’re moving the ball and playing together, it looks good. So we made steps for it. Obviously, not our end destination, we know we can keep getting better, but it was nice to get the win and [have] these players play like they did.”
The ball zipped around more comfortably, the Tempo neither rushed nor dragged, the turnovers were kept to a minimum (12 on Wednesday compared to 16 in the opener), and the shots made more sense within the context of the offence. They looked like a team beginning to gel, like a team that had spent months playing together, not weeks.
Though Brondello has been dead-set on the Tempo being a player-led operation, continually touting that the culture will be defined by them, not the staff, it's tough to look through the glass at Wednesday's win and not notice Brondello's fingerprints.
Marina Mabrey scored a game-high 26, popping off-the-dribble threes in isolation with shades of players like Diana Taurasi or Sabrina Ionescu, both of whom won championships in Brondello's system. They turned defence into offence, like when Nyara Sabally pocketed two steals in the final minutes of the fourth and turned them into points for her team the other way — a staple of Brondello's Mercury and Liberty sides.
But more than anything, there was a degree of cohesion that could only come with time. They haven't had much of it, but if the growth between Games 1 and 2 is any indication, they've come a long way in a short time.
“It’s one of those things where you look at last game, you don’t wanna repeat it," Brittney Sykes said after Wednesday's win. "Win, lose or draw, I think we got better tonight, and that was the biggest takeaway ... It’s just one of those things where we trusted each other, we stuck to the game plan, we bought in."
Some Spanish flair
When the Tempo cut the ribbon at the expansion draft just over a month ago, the team's international flair looked to be a big selling point. Out of their 11 picks, eight players represented countries other than the U.S. on the international stage.
At the top of the pack was Spain's Maria Conde, a 29-year-old rookie who, heading into the season, had long been deemed one of the best players to have not yet suited up in the WNBA.
Though it took her a bit to come out of her shell, having joined the team during pre-season rather than in training camp due to overseas commitments, she found her footing on Wednesday. Or, more aptly, carved her own foothold in the rock.
"Just got off the plane, playing out of position. Just says ‘coach, I’ll do whatever you want,’ and I’m like 'oh, I love those players,’" Brondello said of Conde. "But she just plays so hard, and we had spoken about like — she gave up some threes in the last game and some practices — [just] shoot it. And I think you see what she’s capable of: a very high-IQ player. We’re happy."
The six-foot-one Conde played above her height against the Storm, crashing the glass for a game-high eight rebounds and never shying away from matchups against the taller Seattle squad.
She knocked down her triples (4-of-8 from deep), played with an edge, and was relied on for 29 minutes off the bench.
"When we got her in the expansion, [I was] like 'No, you’re coming and I know you well, so you’re going to get an opportunity to play here,'" Brondello said. "So just fantastic, four threes, but her overall energy, her rebounding, her persistence on the glass. Yeah, really proud of her.”
Rice is cooking
Labelled a quiet killer by teammates in training camp — an unassuming presence who puts her head down and gets the job done — Kiki Rice might've been just a bit too quiet for comfort in her debut as she finished with zero points and struggled to make an impact against the Mystics.
Making it tougher was having to watch Flau'jae Johnson — the eighth-overall pick from last month's draft, who the Storm acquired in a draft-night trade — score 12 and 16 points, respectively, in her first two games. But comparison is the thief of joy, and Tempo fans stood behind their first-round pick in her second appearance.
Though the crowd always makes its presence felt during player introductions, cheering on the starting five as their names are called, the fans at Coca-Cola Coliseum turned it up a notch when Rice checked into the game for the first time at the five-minute mark. The support never wavered, and neither did Rice.
“Don’t put her in a box. I’m going, ‘be confident, we believe in you, you’re not gonna be perfect,’ but she made the most of it," Brondello said of her rookie. "She’s a mentally tough player. She doesn’t get down, doesn’t get too high or too down, I love that."
With 2:22 left in the first, Rice finally got on the scoreboard. She got the ball at the half-court line, got a screen from fellow rookie Teonni Key to create some space between her and Zia Cooke, then put her shoulder down, gathered, and lifted the layup over her defender for her first WNBA bucket.
From that point on, it looked easy for the 22-year-old.
She followed it up immediately with an and-one bucket in transition, finishing off the fastbreak alongside Julie Allemand, and then tacked on another four points — first in transition, taking the ball up herself after a rebound, then attacking a closeout from Jordan Horston and putting Jade Melbourne on skates to finish off at the glass.
To cap it all off, she joined the growing list of Toronto basketball stars to get a little love from the rim, as her three-pointer from the corner got an RJ-Barrett-Kawhi-Leonard-esque bounce to eventually drop.
"We all have our moments, don’t we?" Brondello said. "But she’s a very mature player, and she knows who she is. But we want to continue to add to that. So it was great to see her get on the scoreboard and be effective for us at both ends of the floor.”
