{"id":721749,"date":"2026-06-23T19:26:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T19:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/721749\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T19:26:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T19:26:19","slug":"wnba-injuries-to-brittney-sykes-kiki-rice-could-be-trouble-for-tempo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/721749\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA: Injuries to Brittney Sykes, Kiki Rice could be trouble for Tempo"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Toronto Tempo (8-9) are no strangers to playing shorthanded.<\/p>\n

Injuries to their frontcourt forced them to play smaller than expected right out of the gate, with Isabelle Harrison missing the first 10 games of the season and Temi Fagb\u00e9nl\u00e9 only recently returning from an injury suffered on opening day.<\/p>\n

The Tempo\u2019s injury woes have unfortunately continued, and it now seems like they\u2019ll have to go without two of their three go-to guards, Brittney Sykes and Kiki Rice, for an extended period of time. Sykes, who leads Toronto in scoring at 20.1 points per game, injured her plantar fascia last Tuesday in a game against the Indiana Fever, while Rice, the No. 5 overall pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft, has been dealing with a Grade 3 ankle sprain since early June.<\/p>\n

\"Kiki<\/a><\/p>\n

Kiki Rice became an invaluable piece of Toronto\u2019s rotation early in her rookie season. Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Tempo had little to say<\/a> about either player\u2019s injury, only that Sykes and Rice will both be reevaluated in the coming weeks and are expected to return later this season.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, the vagueness of the team\u2019s communication, in addition to the nature of each player\u2019s injury, do not bode particularly well for the short-term. The Tempo must prepare to be without a good chunk of their backcourt for the foreseeable future, and while they were able to tread water earlier in the season with a thin frontcourt, overcoming the losses of Sykes and Rice will likely be a much bigger challenge.<\/p>\n

Monday night\u2019s loss to the Atlanta Dream marked Toronto\u2019s fourth loss in their last five games, sending them to below .500 for the season and outside the current playoff picture.<\/p>\n

Expect Marina Mabrey to keep up the scoring<\/p>\n

As is the case when any All-Star is injured, Toronto won\u2019t be able to simply replace Sykes\u2019 production with another player on its roster. The 10th-year guard is having a career year offensively and has shouldered an enormous burden for the Tempo, shooting the ball 15.2 times per game and averaging 6.9 free throw attempts. She\u2019s one of the WNBA\u2019s most athletic perimeter players and is among the best in the league at leveraging that athleticism into trips to the free throw line, which is something the Tempo will miss dearly.<\/p>\n

Rice\u2019s absence will be felt, too. Though she\u2019s just a rookie, she\u2019s shown remarkable poise playing for championship-winning head coach Sandy Brondello, guarding multiple positions while quietly putting up highly efficient scoring numbers, shooting 59.6 percent on 2-pointers, 39.1 percent on 3-pointers and 84.4 percent on free throws.<\/p>\n

\"Marina<\/a><\/p>\n

Marina Mabrey has been lighting it up all season, but she\u2019ll need some help if the Tempo are going to remain competitive. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lot of offense to make up for, and the Tempo will be relying even more heavily on Marina Mabrey to do so.<\/p>\n

She, too, is enjoying a career year, combining with Sykes to form one of the WNBA\u2019s highest-scoring duos; Mabrey is currently averaging 19.1 points per game and has been scorching the nets from deep, making 3.3 3-pointers per game at a 39.1 percent clip. In Toronto\u2019s first game without Sykes, Mabrey showed that she\u2019s up to the task of being her team\u2019s No. 1 option, carrying the Tempo with a career-high 37 points, and she\u2019ll likely be one of the highest-volume scorers in the league until her teammates return.<\/p>\n

Mar\u00eda Conde and Julie Allemand may be asked to do more<\/p>\n

Even so, Mabrey can\u2019t be expected to do it alone. The Tempo are going to have to find offense elsewhere, lest they become a one-player show, which typically isn\u2019t a formula for success.<\/p>\n

Mar\u00eda Conde is one player who could see an increased role. She\u2019s had an up-and-down season and has mostly been used as a reserve (14 games coming off the bench and just two as a starter), but she\u2019s found a bit of a groove lately, averaging 14.3 points in her last three games. Conde is also far more experienced than her rookie designation suggests; she\u2019s competed in either EuroLeague Women or EuroCup Women every winter dating back to 2018, and she\u2019s been part of the Spanish National Team even longer, so Brondello should have confidence in her doing more for the Tempo.<\/p>\n

\"With<\/a><\/p>\n

With several of Toronto\u2019s guards out, Julie Allemand may have to be more aggressive offensively. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Look for Julie Allemand to step up her game, too.<\/p>\n

Like Conde, Allemand brings a wealth of international experience, most recently winning a EuroLeague Women championship with Fenerbah\u00e7e Opet, and she\u2019s been a member of the Belgian National Team for over a decade. Though Allemand has been more of a pass-first point guard during her time in the WNBA, the Tempo\u2019s injury situation may force her to look for her own shot more often.<\/p>\n

Regardless of which players are next in the Tempo\u2019s pecking order, overcoming Sykes\u2019 and Rice\u2019s injuries won\u2019t be easy. Dynamic guard play has been a major part of Toronto\u2019s offensive identity this season, and with several of those guards out until further notice, it would be unrealistic not to expect some sort of drop-off. The question will be if the Tempo can adjust quickly enough to stay in the playoff race; right now, they\u2019re only a half-game behind the Washington Mystics for the No. 8 seed, but their margin for error just became much, much slimmer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Tempo (8-9) are no strangers to playing shorthanded. Injuries to their frontcourt forced them to play…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-721749","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\/721749","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=721749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}