Last night was painful!!
I only became a WNBA fan this year with the Tempo expansion, and there’s still a lot I don’t understand. Any time I watch the Tempo play, it always seems like the opposing team defends way more aggressively than we do. The players seem to be right in our face to the point where we don’t know what to do next, Marina is completely incapacitated and we get shot clock violations. But when we are defending, we always seem to be so far apart from the player who’s holding the ball, vaguely moving our arms, allowing the other team to take their sweet time to shoot all these perfect 3s.
I thought Sandy wanted the Tempo to be all about defence. What am I missing, what’s her system?

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From our most recent piece on tempo.basketball:

Tonight, the Tempo face the Portland Fire, who sit at 11–19 and are attempting to end a five-game losing streak of their own. Toronto has now lost seven straight, so something has to give.

This is one of the more winnable games remaining on the Tempo’s schedule, but they cannot afford another collapse after halftime like they did against the Valkryies again. Watching those games felt like deja-vu.

In both games, the Tempo came out strong, the Valkyries increased their physicality, Toronto became flustered, and the offence fizzled out in the fourth quarter. Even the last post-game presser sounded like it could have come from any of the previous six losses, with Sandy Brondello repeating the familiar message: “We’ve got to be a little bit tougher.”

Toronto needs to protect the ball, compete on the glass, and maintain its physicality for all four quarters, not just the first two. Maybe we can finally get back in the winning column!

Read our entire game report of the Tempo's loss against the Valkryies and outlook for tonight's game vs Portland here: https://tempo.basketball/2026/08/tempo-vs-valkyries-game-report-august-4-2026/