{"id":382433,"date":"2026-07-22T14:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T14:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/382433\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T14:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T14:16:14","slug":"wings-vs-fire-preview-dallas-seeking-bounce-back-win-in-portland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/382433\/","title":{"rendered":"Wings vs. Fire Preview: Dallas seeking bounce-back win in Portland"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dallas Wings (17-9) are back in Portland to take on the Fire (11-15) Wednesday night to conclude their stretch heading into the All-Star break. This matchup follows their Monday night overtime loss<\/a> against the New York Liberty, in which the Wings deeply missed the presence of star Paige Bueckers.<\/p>\n

The last time the two squads matched up was during the Commissioner\u2019s Cup, where Emily Engstler hit a free throw that put the Fire up by one for the win. Bueckers was also absent from their last matchup as she was dealing with ankle soreness.<\/p>\n

At the time of writing, the status of Bueckers and Alanna Smith remains questionable<\/a>. With this in mind, here are three key things to note as the Wings hope to cap off their pre-All-Star stretch with a win.<\/p>\n

Err on the side of caution with Bueckers and Smith<\/p>\n

Though Bueckers and Smith are trending in a positive direction to return to play soon, the Wings should be in no rush to bring them back tonight. With only one game remaining before the Wings get a break, there is little incentive to bring back either of the two, and risking further injury. Dallas has enough offensive firepower without Bueckers to keep Portland at bay. With the Wings becoming a playoff threat, it is key to conserve their star Bueckers\u2019 health, especially considering her injuries this season have come off freak accidents.<\/p>\n

Keep an eye on Bridget Carleton and Carla Leite<\/p>\n

Bridget Carleton and Carla Leite are both coming off 20-point games in Portland\u2019s loss<\/a> to the Lynx. Though the Fire have little offensive acumen outside of the pairing, it is key that the Wings contain the two. Carleton led the Fire in their Commissioner Cup win against the Wings with 20 points<\/a> on six three-pointers. Leite is the engine for the Fire\u2019s offense, and it will be key that Dallas limits her playmaking tonight. The Wings will need to force the ball out of her hands and stay on Carleton from behind the arc, or the pairing will keep Portland competitive in this matchup.<\/p>\n

Take advantage of Portland\u2019s lack of defense<\/p>\n

Even if the Wings are short-handed tonight, Portland is a bottom-of-the-barrel defensive team, ranking 13th<\/a> in the league. The Wings are an offense-heavy team with enough tools in their bag to compete with a team that consistently is outscored by its opponent. Azzi Fudd and Arike Ogunbowale have the opportunity to make their mark all over this game, as the Fire struggle to guard anywhere on the floor. The pairing led the Wings in their previously mentioned loss, and will both be looking to turn the page from their heart-breaker loss Monday night in overtime. To add, this is a favorable matchup for Jessica Shepard on the glass. She has the opportunity to push her double-double streak to seven straight against a poor rebounding team in the Fire.<\/p>\n

Tune in to KFAA-TV and CNBC at 9 p.m. CDT to see Dallas push for one more win before the All-Star Break.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Wings (17-9) are back in Portland to take on the Fire (11-15) Wednesday night to conclude…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,14421],"class_list":["post-382433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-dallas-wings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}