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From Dan Woike: Seven times.
Since the Lakers listlessly began their post-All-Star break stretch with a disappointing loss against Charlotte, they’ve played seven times.
Seven times in 13 days.
They won in Portland, they dominated in Denver. They beat the Mavericks, they bested the Timberwolves and took care of the Clippers twice. And Tuesday, on a night where some kind of letup felt like a possibility if not an all-out likelihood, they dominated New Orleans 136-115 after the Pelicans won four of their previous five.
It’s the Lakers longest winning streak of the season.
“We know what we want to do every night,” LeBron James said.
Energy and complacency were never issues for them Tuesday, not with Luka Doncic skipping after made threes and posing after no-look passes, not with James making history and then making big play after big play and not with the Lakers, once again, playing with the kind of full-throttle effort that has them in second place in the Western Conference.
Commentary: How do the Lakers set themselves up for a long postseason run? It starts at home
Kyrie Irving injury is latest unfortunate event for Mavericks after Luka Doncic trade
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CLIPPERS
Kevin Durant scored 34 points, Devin Booker added 17 and the Phoenix Suns rallied from a 23-point deficit late in the third quarter to beat the Clippers 119-117 on Tuesday night.
The Suns trailed by 19 entering the fourth but came all the way back thanks to big buckets from Durant and backup guard Collin Gillespie. Phoenix had a 43-22 advantage in the fourth, reviving its playoff hopes.
Gillespie scored 10 points on four-of-six shooting, including two for three from three-point range, to give the Suns a much-needed spark in the second half. Nick Richards added 16 points on eight-of-10 shooting.
Clippers’ high-flying Derrick Jones keeping grounded on defense
UCLA-USC BASKETBALL
From Ryan Kartje: After a stellar season that included a Big Ten regular season championship, USC forward JuJu Watkins has been named Big Ten Player of the Year and the Trojans’ Lindsay Gottlieb earned coach of the year honors following a vote among league coaches and media members.
Kiki Iriafen, who transferred to USC from Stanford last spring to team with Watkins, joined her on the All-Big Ten first team after a season in which she averaged 18.1 points and 8.3 rebounds per game.
Watkins and senior Rayah Marshall were named to the Big Ten’s All-Defensive team, while freshman Kennedy Smith earned All-Freshman team honors. Marshall and Smith also earned All-Big Ten honorable mentions.
UCLA center Lauren Betts earned Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year honors and was named to the Big Ten All-Defensive Team, while fellow Bruin Janiah Barker earned Big Ten Sixth Person of the Year.
Betts joined UCLA’s Kiki Rice on the All-Big Ten first team. UCLA’s Londynn Jones earned league honorable mention honors.
DODGERS
From Jack Harris: It all came as advertised.
The 99-mph heat. The late-diving, hard-biting splitter. The overwhelming, if still raw, stuff that many expect will make him a future ace … if not more.
In his first official Major League Baseball contest, in the Dodgers’ 4-2 win against the Cincinnati Reds in Cactus League play at Camelback Ranch, 23-year-old phenom Roki Sasaki displayed all the tools that made him such a coveted commodity coming over from Japan this offseason.
He pitched three scoreless innings. He recorded five strikeouts. And he flashed seemingly endless potential, in both the short and long-term.
“We were all kind of waiting to see how he manages his emotions under the lights, first big league game,” manager Dave Roberts said. “And I thought he was fantastic.”
Travis Hunter’s take on NFL two-way difficulty panned when he downplays Shohei Ohtani’s feats
RAMS
From Gary Klein: The Rams have agreed to trade offensive lineman Jonah Jackson to the Chicago Bears, a person with knowledge of the situation said Tuesday.
The Rams will receive a 2025 sixth-round pick for Jackson, and the Bears will absorb Jackson’s salary, said the person, who requested anonymity because the deal has not been finalized. The trade cannot be finalized until after the new league year starts March 12.
Jackson’s tenure with the Rams lasted one injury-plagued season. He played in only four games.
LAFC
From Kevin Baxter: When defender Christie Pearce was roaming the backline for the women’s national soccer team, she lived by a simple adage.
“If we score, we might win,” she said. “If they never score, we can’t lose.”
For the most part that worked, with the U.S. losing just 20 times in the 311 games Pearce played in, more than half of them ending in clean sheets.
Pearce’s philosophy is now one LAFC appears to have adopted. In four of the five matches the team has played this season, goalkeeper Hugo Lloris hasn’t conceded a goal. LAFC has won all four.
The latest win came Tuesday, with Denis Bouanga scoring twice in a 3-0 victory over the Columbus Crew in the first leg of a round of 16 CONCACAF Champions Cup playoff at BMO Stadium. The second and deciding leg will be played March 11 in Columbus with the winner advancing on aggregate goals.
How United Soccer League plans to launch a new top division
DUCKS
Mason McTavish had a pair of goals and Jackson LaCombe and Cutter Gauthier each had three assists as the Ducks scored four goals in the final eight minutes of the first period en route to a 6-2 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday night.
Leo Carlsson, Sam Colangelo, Ryan Strome and Alex Killorn also scored for the Ducks, who have won two of their last three. Netminder Lukas Dostal made 32 saves.
Defenseman LaCombe extended his point streak to six games.
THIS DAY IN SPORTS HISTORY
1924 — Frank Carauna of Buffalo becomes the first to bowl two straight perfect 300 games. Carauna throws five strikes to open his third game, giving him 29 straight strikes.
1931 — WGL radio broadcasts the first game of the American Basketball League championship series. The Brooklyn Visitations beat the Fort Wayne Hoosiers 14-10 in the first pro basketball game to be broadcast live on radio.
1960 — Carol Heiss wins the ladies title at the World Figure Skating Championships in Vancouver.
1965 — Ernest Terrell wins the world heavyweight title with a unanimous 15-round decision over Eddie Machen in Chicago.
1973 — New York Yankee pitchers Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich announce that they’ve swapped wives and children.
1981 — Scott Hamilton wins the men’s title at the World Figure Skating Championships held in Hartford, Conn.
1985 — Mike Bossy of the New York Islanders scores his 50th goal, becoming the first NHL player to score 50 goals in eight consecutive seasons.
2004 — Ottawa and Philadelphia combine for an NHL-record 419 penalty minutes, with the Flyers setting a single-team mark with 213. There are five consecutive brawls in the final two minutes, including one involving both goalies. The previous record for penalty minutes was 406 by the Minnesota North Stars and Boston Bruins in 1981. The Flyers beat the Senators 5-3.
2016 — Makai Mason scores 22 points to lead Yale to a 71-55 victory over Columbia, clinching the Bulldogs’ first NCAA Men’s Tournament bid since 1962. The Bulldogs shared the Ivy championship last year with Harvard, but lost the playoff game with the Crimson. The win ends the second longest NCAA drought of any team that has made the tournament previously.
2016 — Clemson beats Boston College 66-50, completing the Eagles’ winless regular season in Atlantic Coast Conference play. The Eagles (7-24, 0-18) are the first men’s ACC team to go winless in their conference regular-season games since Maryland went 0-14 in 1986-87. Worse, BC’s football team went 0-8 in league play, making the school the first in ACC history to go winless in both sports in the same academic year.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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