The Toronto Tempo came into their Wednesday night match with a 6-5 season record; their opponents, the Connecticut Sun, were 2-11. Simple enough on paper, but ultimately a challenge for the Tempo. <\/p>\n
It took their biggest comeback of the season, extra time, and a 38-point night from Brittney Sykes to get the 106-102 victory in their first-ever overtime.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told [the Tempo] before the game, I said, \u2018do not underestimate this team,\u2019\u201d head coach Sandy Brondello said after the game. \u201cThey\u2019re very tough, they\u2019re long, they\u2019re physical.\u201d<\/p>\n
After starting the game with a lead, the score flipped, and Toronto found themselves down in the second half. They came back, in part thanks to clutch free throws from guard Sykes late in the game. <\/p>\n
While she shot, Coca-Cola Coliseum was silent. She ended the game with 13-made free throws and did not miss a single one in the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope the fans hear this, never that quiet [again],\u201d Sykes joked after the game. \u201cI believe in the work that I\u2019ve done, but the pin-drop silence\u2026 I miss, and you\u2019re gonna hear it all around. If I ever felt anxious, I just was like \u2018bro, you\u2019re a 91% free throw shooter, like this is butter.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a goal at the beginning of the season to get downhill and score from different levels, but to really own the charity stripe \u2013 to really show that it\u2019s really hard to stop me from getting to the basket and to the line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another goal Sykes has for the season is to shoot 50\/40\/90 \u2013 50 per cent from the field, 40 per cent from three, and 90 per cent from the free throw line.<\/p>\n
\u201cGot the 90, far away from the 40 right now,\u201d she said. \u201cBut hey, still a lot of games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sykes is currently averaging a career-high 21.6 points per game in her 10th season in the WNBA.<\/p>\n
Of course, the win is what matters to the team in the end, but Brondello said they still \u201cweren\u2019t happy\u201d with how they played. Still, she praised her team\u2019s resilience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought their post players created a lot of difficulties for us early, but we hung in there,\u201d Brondello said. \u201cI think our intensity picked up. We got locked in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first and the second quarter weren\u2019t very good at all. I just thought they were pushing the pace. We were not in our position; we were just not playing as a team how we\u2019re supposed to. We put the ball in [Sykes\u2019s] hands a fair bit near the end there, and she made great things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is the second time Sykes has scored 38 points in a game this season. The first was in the Tempo\u2019s win against the LA Sparks on May 17. Toronto is undefeated this season when Sykes scored 30+ points in the game. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe knows I have her back,\u201d Brondello said of Sykes. \u201cI gave her a look a few times and complimented her on certain things. You know, I\u2019m pretty calm. It probably helps her, because sometimes she\u2019s not so calm.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think she\u2019s controlled her emotions. She just poured it all into being the best she could tonight, and I think that was great.\u201d<\/p>\n
All of these games are part of the in-season Commissioner\u2019s Cup tournament. The Tempo are now 2-1 in the tournament, and have raised $7,000 USD for Lay-Up Basketball, their local charity partner, so far. They are still sitting behind Atlanta (3-1) and New York (3-0) in the Eastern Conference Cup standings. All games until June 17 count towards the tournament.<\/p>\n
As for the season as a whole, Toronto is now 7-5 on the season. This was the first game in a packed week for the Tempo. After playing a nearly three-hour game into overtime Wednesday, they go on the road Friday in to take on the Washington Mystics. <\/p>\n
They\u2019ll be back at home on Sunday to play Angel Reese and the Atlanta Dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Tempo came into their Wednesday night match with a 6-5 season record; their opponents, the Connecticut…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[712,49,48,262872,82,243298,630],"class_list":["post-729375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-connecticut-sun-sports-basketball-team-team-statscom-157","tag-sports","tag-toronto-tempo-sports-basketball-team-team-statscom-45513","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729375","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=729375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}