{"id":173932,"date":"2026-01-23T17:59:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T22:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=173932"},"modified":"2026-01-23T17:59:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T22:59:32","slug":"portland-fire-2026-schedule-ongoing-cba-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2026\/01\/23\/portland-fire-2026-schedule-ongoing-cba-negotiations\/","title":{"rendered":"Portland Fire Release Schedule During Ongoing CBA Negotiations"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Portland Fire will debut on May 9th against Angel Reese<\/a> and the Chicago Sky as part of their full 2026 schedule.<\/p>\n

Although ongoing CBA negotiations<\/a> have reached a “status quo,” the WNBA released the full schedule<\/a> for all 15 teams Wednesday. Portland will debut its new team this season, along with the Toronto Tempo. Assuming business proceeds as normal, here are the key games for the Fire this season.<\/p>\n

Portland Fire Release Schedule During Ongoing CBA Negotiations<\/h2>\n

Homecoming for Star Guard, Assistant Coach<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Portland will battle the New York Liberty three times this season, including twice during the first week. Liberty guard and former University of Oregon Sabrina Ionescu<\/a> returns to her beloved state and will play in front of a multitude of Ducks fans. Their first matchup is on May 12th.<\/p>\n

Caitlin Clark<\/a> will grace the Rose City with the Indiana Fever on May 30th for the first of three matchups this season. Clark has yet to play in Portland as a pro, but she recently played at the Moda Center in 2022 at the Phil Knight Legacy championship game. The Fever’s first game against the Fire will also mark a homecoming for assistant coach Tully Bevalaqua, who played in Portland<\/a> from 2000 to 2002.<\/p>\n

Portland will play emerging star Dominique Malonga<\/a> and the Seattle Storm in the renewed I-5 rivalry in four matchups starting on June 17th.<\/p>\n

The league will take a break from September 1st to September 16th for the FIBA World Cup<\/a>. All-Star Weekend<\/a> will take place in Chicago at the United Center on July 24th and 25th.<\/p>\n

No. 1 Pick, Defending Champs, and Expansion Rivalry<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"Jul
Jul 28, 2025; Arlington, Texas, USA; Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers (5) celebrates during the game between the Dallas Wings and the New York Liberty at College Park Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Fire will take on young superstar Paige Bueckers<\/a> and the Dallas Wings<\/a> three times this season, starting on June 13th. This will be Bueckers’ first game in Portland as a pro and first since the 2024 Elite Eight when UConn beat USC to advance to the Final Four.<\/p>\n

Las Vegas will travel to the Rose City on June 11th in the first of their three matchups against the Fire. The defending champions, led by reigning MVP A’ja Wilson<\/a>, will be a major test for Portland this season.<\/p>\n

The Fire and Tempo rivalry will take place three times this year, starting on May 23rd. Despite each team having one home game, the third will be played in Vancouver, Canada, at Rogers Arena.<\/p>\n

The full Portland Fire schedule can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Eakin Howard-Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Portland Fire will debut on May 9th against Angel Reese and the Chicago Sky as part of their full 2026 schedule. Although ongoing CBA negotiations have reached a “status quo,” the WNBA released the full schedule for all 15 teams Wednesday. Portland will debut its new team this season, along with the Toronto Tempo. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5740,"featured_media":174200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,3,49709],"tags":[49063,4153,3152],"class_list":["post-173932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-news","category-wnba","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-paige-bueckers","tag-sabrina-ionescu"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5740"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173932"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174209,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173932\/revisions\/174209"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}