PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) _ The Sacramento Monarchs were so bad in the first half they made the expansion Portland Fire look terrific. Things returned to normal in the second 20 minutes.

Ruthie Bolton-Holifield scored 28 points and hit the deciding free throws as the Monarchs beat the Fire 63-60.

The Monarchs (12-6) came back from an 11-point halftime deficit, as Yolanda Griffith and Latasha Byears each had eight points in the second half. Byears finished with 11 points and Griffith with eight.

"If we had played great and they had just outplayed us, that would have been one thing, but we knew we played awful," Bolton-Holifield said of the Monarchs' nine-turnover first half. "The only thing we had going for us was we had 20 more minutes left. It couldn't go anywhere but up."

Sylvia Crawley scored 16 and Sophia Witherspoon added 14 for the Fire (4-11), which led by a many as 16 in the first half.

"Just to come back and win this game is an example of how great this team will be," Griffith said. "We knew all we had to do was put a little pep in our step."

Sacramento tied the game at 56 on Lady Hardmon's layup with 4:03 remaining.

Portland took a 57-56 lead with 3:28 left when Witherspoon hit one of two free throws, but Bolton-Holifield hit a 3-pointer to give Sacramento a 59-57 lead with 3:06 remaining.

Witherspoon answered with a 3, but Bolton-Holifield hit one of two free throws to tie the game at 60 with 2:20 left.

The teams traded misses before Griffith stole the ball from Crawley with 37 seconds left. After a timeout, Bolton-Holifield was fouled by Stacey Thomas and hit both free throws with 27 seconds left.

Tangela Smith then stripped the ball from Vanessa Nygaard and the Monarchs ran the clock down to 2.7 seconds before Nygaard fouled Bolton-Holifield, who hit one of two from the line.

Witherspoon's 3-pointer at the buzzer fell short.

"We needed to win this. We knew this game could make or break us," Bolton-Holifield said. "I don't really know what happened. The game started and they took it to us. We were just flat tonight."

The Fire used a 14-1 run in the first half to take a 32-16 lead. Portland held the Monarchs without a field goal for 7:45 before Byears hit a layup and added a free throw with 4:25 left in the half.

The Fire held Griffith, Sacramento's leading scorer, without a point in the first half, but ultimately Bolton-Holifield was the one to watch.

"This was a tough loss because we lost it and broke down late," Portland coach Linda Hargrove said. "Defensively, we did a great job on everyone except two players (Griffith and Bolton-Holifield) That's what great players do."