PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) \u2014 Kamilla Cardoso had 22 points and 14 rebounds, and the Chicago Sky spoiled the expansion Portland Fire\u2019s WNBA opener with a 98-83 victory on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Carla Leite had 18 points for the Fire, whose fans at Moda Center celebrated the league\u2019s return to the city for the first time in 24 years.<\/p>\n
The Fire trailed by 17 points in the first half before rallying to tie it at 70 on Bridget Carleton\u2019s 3-pointer with 8:39 left. But Chicago regained control from there.<\/p>\n
Skylar Diggins finished with 21 points and 11 rebounds for the Sky, who made sweeping changes after finishing 10-24 last season. Just four players from that squad remain on the roster. Angel Reese was traded to Atlanta for first-round draft picks in 2027 and 2028.<\/p>\n
One of the Sky\u2019s veteran signings was Natasha Cloud, who played for New York last season, but she was unavailable for the opener because of illness.<\/p>\n
The Fire, the second-youngest team in the WNBA, were resilient through the first quarter, trailing 19-18. But the Sky pulled ahead 50-37 by halftime. <\/p>\n
Portland went on a 12-2 run, capped by a pair of 3-pointers from Carleton, to open the second half. Carleton, who played for Minnesota last season, was the Fire\u2019s first pick the WNBA expansion draft.<\/p>\n
Carla Leite made the first basket for the Fire, a layup 1:02 into the game, to thunderous applause. <\/p>\n
Portland previously had a WNBA team, also named the Fire, that played for three seasons from 2000-02. <\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
It was the first of a four-game trip to kick off the season for the Sky, who play at Golden State on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
The Fire host New York on Tuesday night as their season-opening four-game homestand continues.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP WNBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/wnba-basketball __<\/p>\n
Anne M. Peterson, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) \u2014 Kamilla Cardoso had 22 points and 14 rebounds, and the Chicago Sky spoiled the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-659579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}