If there’s a mantra the Toronto Tempo are living by these days, it’s probably: strive for progress, not perfection.
As the expansion squad continues to navigate a laundry list of injuries, the level of competition only seems to get higher, while the losses have started to pile up.
Standing in the Tempo’s way on Sunday afternoon was Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones and a New York Liberty team that had already thumped Toronto by 15 points in a game last month when Sabrina Ionescu wasn’t even available.
The Liberty guard was in action tonight, however, presumably eager to help her team shake off back-to-back losses and hand the Tempo a second defeat at Montreal’s Bell Centre, and a fifth straight overall.
Which is why, despite blowing another late lead — after going up by as many as 20 points — and getting outscored 27-13 in the fourth quarter, the Tempo gladly settled for a 93-91 victory.
The box score certainly won’t go up on the fridge, considering the 23 turnovers for 27 points would be quite an eyesore, but the win counts in the standings all the same. Toronto improved to 10-13 on the season and sits two games back of the eight-seed Washington Mystics for the final playoff spot.
And what may go down as more of a standout from the game than the actual outcome was how the Tempo ended up there. The victory didn’t come together thanks to another offensive showcase from Marina Mabrey — while she racked up a game-high 30 points, and is now second in the WNBA with her fifth 30-point game (trailing only A’ja Wilson’s seven), she also shot 9-of-19 from the field and committed six turnovers to offset her five assists.
Sunday’s Montreal matinee wound up being a collaborative production, with the European contingent of Laura Juskaite, Maria Conde and Nyara Sabally all taking turns on centre stage. Early on, it was the rookies making the most noise as Juskaite hit a trail triple from ATB, then punched the ball into the paint a couple of possessions later before kicking out to Conde on the right wing.
The pair hit two of the Tempo’s four threes — on nine attempts — in the opening frame, as each chipped in five points to help build a 24-19 lead over the Liberty. Mabrey led the way with seven early points but did most of her damage by going 4-of-4 from the line, en route to finishing 9-of-11 from the charity stripe.
Juskaite and Conde weren’t done there, however, as the pair combined for 12 more points in the second quarter, even supercharging a 13-2 run that put the Tempo up 47-39 at the break. First, it was the Lithuanian import floating into the pinch-post area on the left side of the floor and finding Conde, who had lifted above the break, to hit the open three. The Spaniard then returned the favour by feeding Juskaite down low in that same pinch-post spot, who then spun off Ionescu and dropped in a push shot before pulling up and drilling a three of her own from above the break.
The Euro duo was relentless getting up and down the floor, no longer burdened by having to trail and check opposing bigs thanks to a (mostly) in-tact frontcourt rotation for Sandy Brondello to work with. Instead, it was as though they were plopped onto the autobahn, free to accelerate as much or as little as they pleased — the Tempo would up scoring 15 fastbreak points in the second quarter and finished plus-26 (28-2) for the game.
But after the break was when Toronto really hit that next gear, putting up 33 points on 14-of-19 shooting while chipping in nine unanswered fastbreak buckets. The Tempo had seemingly reached flowstate between Juskaite attacking a closeout by freezing Ionescu with a pass-fake and finishing at the rim, Conde curling into a fadeaway three from the right corner and Mabrey joining in on the fun with 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field.
Much of which felt like a luxury given the double-digit lead, but it turned out Toronto needed every bit of that 16-point buffer headed into the final 10 minutes of action. They wound up losing the final frame for a fifth consecutive game, now minus-45 in the fourth quarter during that span.
Committing 11 turnovers for 15 points was certainly the biggest culprit for the near collapse, but shooting 4-of-13 or sending New York to the line for 12 free throws did the team no favours either.
Five of those giveaways came off the hands of Mabrey as the Liberty hounded the all-star guard the full length of the court for much of the frame — doing just about anything they could to throw off her focus. Emphasis on anything, considering a shoe was flung at Mabrey right as the two sides were embroiled in a one-point game. The perpetrator, Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, was tossed after receiving a second technical foul for the incident, despite making the case that she was simply trying to return the shoe to her teammate, Jones.
Call it a step in the right direction, as Mabrey managed to keep her cool; she is working on not being “rage-baited” after all, as she explained post-game.
The now-composed Tempo star made the lapse by Laney-Hamilton work in Toronto’s favour by knocking down the technical free throw, before setting up the game-winning basket. After receiving an inbound pass, Mabrey was immediately blitzed while trying to work into a pick-and-roll and she astutely swung the ball to Julie Allemand on the left wing, who then redirected it — for her 10th assist — to a rolling Sabally, who scored the final two of her 13 points.
It was fitting that while it appeared that those around Mabrey, like Juskaite and Conde, had all but run out of gas (a common theme of late), Sabally, who was kept to a modest workload entering the fourth quarter after missing the last game with a knee injury, stepped in and (literally) drove Toronto to victory. She also paired up with Juskaite for a game-sealing stop, as the two converged on a curling Stewart and suffocated her shot attempt at the basket.
Ultimately, it’s a win that’ll go down as far from perfect, but still a marker of progress.
The Tempo return to action on Tuesday, back in Toronto to host the very Mystics team they’re chasing in the standings.
(Editor’s note: We’re experimenting with a traditional recap format as opposed to the Quick Reaction style. If you have any feedback, let us know!)
