Mota Delivers Portland's Slim Win

PORTLAND, Mariguana Mota did a little of everything and just enough of everything that mattered. She finished with 25 points on 9-of-13 from the field, 4-of-7 from three, 8 assists, 7 rebounds, and 2 steals in 34 minutes, carrying the Portland Creatures past the Cleveland Firebirds 124-121 in a game that came down to possessions in the final two minutes.

The decisive stretch came late in the fourth quarter, when Portland pushed its lead to six before Cleveland clawed within one with roughly 45 seconds left. Mota, who had already handed out six of her eight assists by that point, took the ball in transition on the next Portland possession, drew two defenders, and found Montana Ellis open on the wing. Ellis knocked it down, his fourth triple of the night, and the Firebirds never got the stop they needed after that. Cleveland shot well enough to win, they had multiple contributors above 17 points, but Portland's ball movement kept pressure off any single player and put the Firebirds' defense in rotation all night.

Mota was the engine. Her game score of 27.2 led all players, and the zero turnovers under that kind of usage pressure stood out. Ellis added 17 points on 6-of-8 shooting, zero turnovers, and 7 assists of his own in just 27 minutes, making Portland functionally impossible to key on with two primary creators operating at that efficiency simultaneously. Baller 31 gave the Creatures another 17 off the bench on 7-of-10 shooting, with a plus-14 that tells its own story about Portland's depth advantages in this one.

For Cleveland, Brooklyn Creed gave the Firebirds 20 points on 7-of-10 shooting in under 20 minutes and Brooklyn's four triples kept them alive through the third quarter. But Creed finished minus-2, and the Firebirds' best players were consistently on the floor when Portland outscored them, not when Cleveland made its runs. Baller 64 shot 7-of-15 and went 2-of-8 from deep, leaving points on the floor when Cleveland needed every one.

Portland improves with this result and hands Cleveland a loss that will sting given how close the final margin was. The Firebirds outscored Portland from three-point range but couldn't match the Creatures' turnover discipline. Portland had just enough of both to survive.