{"id":708996,"date":"2026-06-17T06:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T06:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/708996\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T06:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T06:23:10","slug":"storm-fire-clash-in-first-all-northwest-matchup-since-2002-field-level-media-professional-sports-content-solutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/708996\/","title":{"rendered":"Storm, Fire clash in first all-Northwest matchup since 2002 – Field Level Media – Professional sports content solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although they absorbed a 107-74 blowout loss Monday night at Minnesota, the Portland Fire remain in playoff position during their expansion season.<\/p>\n

Portland (7-9, 1-5 Commissioner\u2019s Cup) looks to take another step in that direction Wednesday night when it hosts the struggling Seattle Storm (3-12, 0-6) in the first matchup of Pacific Northwest franchises since 2002, when the Fire were last in the league.<\/p>\n

The Fire entered Tuesday a game out of the WNBA\u2019s final playoff spot, currently occupied by the Los Angeles Sparks. Portland\u2019s mix of veterans and young players has produced more than some expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a bunch of overlooked players,\u201d center Megan Gustafson said. \u201cI\u2019ve never really been respected as a basketball player until I got here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carla Leite is leading Portland with 13.7 points and 5.3 assists per game, while Bridget Carleton adds 13.1 ppg. Carleton is coming off a rough game against the Lynx, her former team. She was 1 of 9 from the field in 26 minutes and scored three points.<\/p>\n

Gustafson is scoring a career-high 11.4 ppg and hitting 57.9% of her field-goal attempts. As a team, the Fire are fifth in the league in 3-point percentage at 34.1%.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Seattle (3-12) continued its early-season struggles with a reconstituted roster. It dropped its eighth game in a row on Friday night, a 76-72 setback at Golden State despite a game-high 26 points from Natisha Hiedeman.<\/p>\n

Offense has been the Storm\u2019s major problem, as they rank last in the league in scoring (76.4 ppg), field goal percentage (40.5%), and assists per game (17.7). Hiedeman is pumping in a career-high 14.7 ppg, the first time in her five-year career that she\u2019s averaging in double figures.<\/p>\n

Hiedeman said Seattle hasn\u2019t given up despite its recent skid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t ever give up, regardless of the score,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s a good thing about our team. We are full of competitors. We have a lot of fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

One positive has been second-year center Dominique Malonga. She is averaging 14 points and 6.3 rebounds in seven games.<\/p>\n

\u2013Field Level Media<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although they absorbed a 107-74 blowout loss Monday night at Minnesota, the Portland Fire remain in playoff position…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-708996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}