The Toronto Tempo finished off their nine-game homestand Monday night at Coca-Cola Coliseum with a 109-83 loss to the WNBA Champion Las Vegas Aces. After going 2-7 in the nine games, the Tempo will now have a week off as the league breaks for WNBA All-Star Weekend.
“The biggest thing for me is just taking this mental break to rest our bodies, and then coming in and having the mindset of just being tough,” Isabelle Harrison said after the game.
To end the month-long stretch at home, the Tempo had to face the Aces, who have won three of the last four WNBA championships, and do so without their head coach. After being served a suspension for comments made during the Tempo’s game versus the Atlanta Dream, Sandy Brondello was absent for Monday’s game.
They were missing both Kiki Rice (ankle sprain) and Brittney Sykes (foot), but also Nyara Sabally, who was injured in the Dream game after going down hard from contact defending Angel Reese. Her injury is listed as a rib injury, but it’s not broken ribs, and she is dealing with soreness and pain. The team is hopeful the week-long break will help her get back on track.
Still, missing Sabally in the frontcourt against a player like A’ja Wilson was a big blow to the Tempo.
“I think our start was really good, we came out firing,” said associate head coach Olaf Lange, who stepped in as head coach. “Then our defence and our defensive execution more so than our effort just let us down.
At no point in the game, past mid or late first quarter, were we able to guard or defend them in a way that would have allowed us to stay in the game.”
On the Aces’ squad is four-time WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson, in Toronto to play her first game in Canada. It was another instance where a lot of the crowd sported Wilson jerseys.
[The Aces are] a terrific basketball team, so there’s certainly no shame in losing against a team like Vegas,” Lange said. “I mean, you play some of the best players in the world. They’re really good one-on-one threats, and we had no solution for A’ja Wilson or Jackie Young today, who are some of the best players in the world.”
Wilson ended her debut in Toronto with 26 points on 11-14 shooting from the field, while Young scored 26 points and 12 assists for Vegas. For the Tempo, Isabelle Harrison led all scorers with a career-high 26 points.
“Izzy had a career-high, she’s playing great,” Marina Mabrey said after the game. “I think that gets skipped over with the way we’ve been playing lately, but it deserves to be talked about.”
She had 26 [points] and 11 [rebounds] against one of the best bigs in the world.”
After a tight stretch of games, endless injuries to the team, and then the Brondello suspension, the team could use the week off. The players collectively decided that they would not be speaking publicly about the Brondello situation, and other than Brondello’s own statements of apology, the Tempo front office has not made any further statement.
Before the game, Lange kept his comments brief.
“I’m not going to entertain that. I think my wife handled it well,” he said in pregame media. “She apologized in the way she, I think, had to. I’m not in the business of judging if this is justified or not. It is what it is, and I’ll be the coach.”
“I just gave her a big hug when I saw her,” said Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon before the game. “I know that’s not where her heart is. I know her as a very, very high-quality person, someone that’s filled with a lot of love for everyone, and so I know she’s been quite torn up and upset about the whole situation.
She’ll bounce back. I know she’s resilient. You know, it’s just unfortunate. Everything that’s kind of going around the league. I’d like to get back to sports uniting people.”
The Tempo don’t play now until they head to Minnesota on Tuesday July 28 to face the Lynx.
“We need to take the break and go back and get better and not feel sorry for ourselves,” Mabrey said.
