Toronto Tempo head into their September 22 meeting with Chicago Sky trying to do something they have not done in a long time on the road: win. Toronto is carrying an 11-game road losing streak into the third matchup between the teams this season, and the stretch has left little margin for error as the schedule turns again toward Chicago.
The timing is what gives this game bite. Toronto is 11-31 overall and 5-13 against Eastern Conference teams, while Chicago is 15-27 and 3-15 against the conference, so both sides enter with the same basic problem: they have struggled when the games count most inside their own group. Toronto also already owns one result in the series, an 85-68 win on June 7, when Brittney Sykes scored 25 points and Azura Stevens led Chicago with 18.
The matchup turns on more than records. Toronto ranks eighth in the WNBA with 9.5 made 3-pointers per game while shooting 34.1% from deep, and Marina Mabrey has been its best long-range threat at 3.3 made 3-pointers per game on 38.5% shooting. But Mabrey is out with an adductor injury, and that matters because Toronto’s road skid has lasted even with her production as its top 3-point shooter. Chicago, meanwhile, averages 7.2 made 3-pointers per game, which is 2.6 fewer than Toronto allows, while Toronto’s own 9.5 made 3-pointers per game is 1.5 more than the 8.0 Chicago gives up.
Recent form has not made the handicap any simpler. Toronto is 1-9 in its last 10 games and has been outscored by opponents 94.8 points to 79.9 on average over that span. Chicago is 3-7 in its last 10, with opponents averaging 92.5 points, and it has also gone 3-4 in games decided by fewer than four points, a sign that it has at least stayed alive in close finishes even while its overall record has slipped. Toronto’s ability to pull this game toward the 3-point line, with Laura Juskaite averaging 11 points and Kia Nurse averaging 1.9 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games, may decide whether the skid ends or deepens.
That is the hard edge for Toronto Tempo and Chicago Sky: one team is trying to stop a road collapse without its top outside shooter, and the other has been too inconsistent against Eastern Conference opponents to assume control. If Toronto is going to leave Chicago with a result that changes the story, it will have to do it in the same place its season has been slipping away.
