Fire 83, Sun 82: Baffling lineups down the stretch that made little sense from the outside

The Sun were in a tight game against a shorthanded, but very motivated expansion Portland team Monday night, and you looked up with five minutes left to see a lineup of Charlisse Leger-Walker, Hailey Van Lith, Saniya Rivers, Aneesah Morrow, and Brittany Griner.

It seemed (and has seemed) clear that Leger-Walker and Van Lith can’t keep good WNBA point guards in front of them, which isn’t the end all, be all of everything, however it’s made things difficult for Griner, who can’t really hard hedge many pick-and-roll actions at this stage of her career.

If you add in the fact that Portland has a young coach in Alex Sarama, who clearly thinks his team’s best chance as an expansion squad is to pressure opponents into mistakes (how the Sun were successful at the end of last season). Leger-Walker had a nightmare against it, turning the ball over a couple times, almost doing it a couple more, and finally just giving up on taking the ball up the court altogether. Van Lith was a little more savvy, but still had trouble getting the Sun into any sets (something Meziane lamented after the game).

Which meant surely after seeing a minute or two of that chaos, Rachid Meziane would bring back in Aaliyah Edwards or Diamond Miller (or both) to put his best team out there in the final minutes. But there was no change. Not offense-defense. Not after a timeout. Nothing.

So the two-point guard lineup stayed, and after (led by Van Lith) the Sun came back to tie the game at 79-79, Sug Sutton basically strolled to the basket for the winning layup, and it was a frustrating loss for the only winless team in the WNBA.

No team is perfect, but the coach’s job is to make adjustments, of course.

In the end, Edwards played just 17 minutes, Miller only 13. After the game, Meziane basically said Edwards was not in good enough shape to play more, even though she had 12 points in that time (she was a -10, to be fair), while for Miller (and Kennedy Burke), it was a quick, “we need more from them”.

He’s coaching the team and I’m not, and it’s nothing personal against Leger-Walker, who seems like a great story and a great person, and was 3-for-4 from behind the arc, but playing both her and Van Lith together at this point doesn’t seem to make any sense. We’ll see what Wednesday brings.

What else did we learn from the Sun’s frustrating 83-82 loss to Portland that was a breakout game for Sarah Ashlee Barker:

 

1. The best defensive performance of the season - That gets a bit of an asterisk, because Portland will probably rank near the bottom of the WNBA in offensive efficiency and didn’t have Carla Leite, but the Sun held the Fire without a field goal for the final seven minutes of the second quarter, and had nine steals (four by Saniya Rivers), several that led to buckets at the other end. Which made the final few minutes that more frustrating to watch when Barker, Sutton, and others just drove to the rim without enough resistance. 

2. What to do with Kennedy Burke? - Burke, who got a big contract before the season, was scoreless in 21 minutes, and is now 12-for-44 from the field (27.3%) and 3-for-18 from three-point range (16.7%) in 2026. She doesn’t appear to be helping the Sun too much in other ways. It’s only five games, but the fears about what would happen when she wasn’t surrounded by some of the best offensive players in the WNBA might be coming to reality.

3. Have to guard the paint -  I think we’re just going to put this one up every game until proven differently. The overall numbers, 21-for-40 from inside the arc (52.5%) are not awful, but - again - the Fire are probably not going to be a great offensive team, and if they can get to the rim as much as they were down the stretch, that doesn’t bode well for what’s going to happen when other teams start watching the film. Leila Lacan should help.

Player of the game:  Saniya Rivers - Rivers had just nine points, but that was a much closer effort to what we saw last season, as she added six assists and four steals, wreaking havoc on the defensive end by jumping into passing lanes. It was probably a good move to take her off the ball, but as I said before, that didn’t mean they needed two point guards, one was fine.

Inside the numbers : 9 -  Number of free throws that the Sun missed (11-for-20), which is tough to look at in a one-point game.

Under the radar: More strange substitution patterns: Reagan Beers appeared early, but only finished with 5 minutes, while Nell Angloma, after looking impressive on Friday night, got just 3 minutes. Meanwhile, Aneesah Morrow logged 34 minutes off the bench. All this makes things interesting when Lacan arrives, where do her minutes come from? You would think (again) from Leger-Walker, but we shall see.

It was clear Portland’s gameplan was to be very physical with Griner and others, leading to a first-half flagrant foul. But it’s hard to argue with the way they played defense after struggling (albeit with two against the Liberty) in their first three contests. The Sun just have to be better with the ball and trying to limit turnovers (17 on Monday).

Quotable:  “She (Edwards) still has to get in her best shape. You can see when she’s playing too many games in a row, she starts to make - I don’t want to call them bad plays, but bad decision making. She has to get in her best shape to contribute more. She is in a new position, so you have to be patient with her." - Rachid Meziane

Next up: Wednesday at Seattle, 10 p.m.