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From Broderick Turner: James Harden was masterful in pouring in 50 points for a Clippers team that once again has endured a slew of injuries at the most inopportune time.
Harden was purposeful with his play in going 14-for-24 from the field, six-for-13 from three-point range and 16-for-20 from the free-throw line for a Clippers team that has been in a tailspin since the All-Star break.
Harden was mindful in playing 38 minutes and 27 seconds about how the wins and losses are paramount this time of the year for the Clippers.
He essentially was all encompassing for the Clippers in delivering them to a 123-115 win over the Detroit Pistons at the Intuit Dome on Wednesday night.
“Knowing we had a lot of guys out, which made me a little more aggressive,” Harden said. “Aggressive in scoring and making plays.”
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RAMS
From Gary Klein: Now that the Rams have completed what Les Snead described as “a renewal of vows” with quarterback Matthew Stafford, the team’s longtime general manager turns his attention to what looks like an imminent breakup with star receiver Cooper Kupp.
Kupp, the 2021 NFL offensive player of the year, officially has been on the trading block since last month, when he announced on social media that the Rams had informed him they would try to move him.
Kupp, who signed a massive extension in 2022, is scheduled to earn about $20 million in salary and bonuses in 2025, with a $7.5-million roster bonus due next week.
“If there is a deadline in this situation,” Snead said Wednesday during a videoconference with reporters, “that roster date does weigh a good bit in the algorithm formula that we’re working through.”
Matthew Stafford is ‘excited to be back’ on Rams
CHARGERS
From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: The Chargers released star edge rusher Joey Bosa, the team announced Wednesday, cutting ties with their longest-tenured player before he was due to collect a $12.36-million bonus.
Bosa, 29, was drafted third overall in 2016 when the Chargers were in San Diego. He announced his presence as a game-wrecking force as the NFL’s defensive rookie of the year and joined Hall of Fame linebacker Junior Seau as the only Chargers defenders to be selected to four Pro Bowls in their first five seasons. But injuries derailed Bosa’s career in the last three seasons.
Battling groin, foot and hip injuries, Bosa appeared in just 29 of 52 regular-season and playoff games in the last three years with 14 sacks. After nine starts, five sacks and 22 tackles last season, Bosa commanded more than $36 million of the Chargers’ salary cap in 2025, the largest cap hit for any edge rusher in the league, according to Overthecap.com.
Already with the fifth-most cap space in the league, the Chargers will save $25.36 million by releasing Bosa.
USC BASKETBALL
From Ryan Kartje: This was not the tournament contention Eric Musselman hoped his team would be fighting for come March, his first as USC’s coach. But the season had slid away through a frustrating February, and now his Trojans were left tiptoeing along the brink of the Big Ten tournament cutline, a discomfiting place he never expected them to be in his debut.
There was no changing all that now. What USC could still do, with the Big Ten’s last-place team on deck for its final home game, was win and all but ensure it’s in a field it should have easily made in the first place.
USC wouldn’t have much trouble with that Wednesday, as it dispatched Washington, 92-61, finally putting a stop to a frustrating five-game losing streak.
With the win, USC needs just a single Iowa loss — either tomorrow against Michigan State or Sunday at Nebraska — to secure its place in Indianapolis next week. But as the likely 15th and final seed in the tournament, it’s got a long, difficult road ahead if it hopes to get past that.
DODGERS
From Jack Harris: It took some four hours of work, roughly 1,200 Rubik’s Cubes, and years’ worth of knowledge with the six-side, 54-panel puzzle.
Ever since high school, minor league Dodgers reliever Jack Dreyer has been able to master the Rubik’s Cube; getting so good he not only solves them in as little as 20 seconds, but has learned to arrange them on canvasses by the hundreds to create multicolored murals.
So, when the Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani to his record-breaking $700-million contract in late 2023, Dreyer decided to commemorate the moment with a unique piece of art, creating a Rubik’s Cube portrait of the two-way star that was displayed at the team’s Camelback Ranch facility last spring.
“I was like, ‘Hey, he’s the face of baseball right now,’” Dreyer recalled Wednesday. “I think it would be kind of cool to have the fans get to see something like that.”
Dreyer is unsure if Ohtani ever saw the piece. And now, he said with a laugh (and hint of sorrow), it no longer exists, having been knocked over and shattered last year.
According to Roberts, Dreyer (and his Rubik’s Cube) almost reached the majors last year, with the Dodgers coming close on several occasions to calling him up for his MLB debut.
KINGS
Robert Thomas scored the decisive goal in the shootout and scored a goal in regulation to extend his point streak to 11 games as the St. Louis Blues beat the Kings 3-2 on Wednesday night.
Jake Neighbours also scored for St. Louis late in the first period while Jordan Binnington made 21 saves as the Blues played their second game of six-game trip and the first of three in Southern California.
Quinton Byfield and Trevor Moore scored for the Kings, who have now lost five straight. Darcey Kuemper made 28 saves.
DUCKS
Carson Soucy scored the winner as the Vancouver Canucks downed the Ducks 3-2 on Wednesday night.
Jake DeBrusk put away his team-leading 22nd goal of the season for the Canucks on a second-period power play. Teddy Blueger followed with a goal and Filip Hronek contributed a pair of assists.
Kevin Lankinen stopped 14 shots for Vancouver, which improved to 2-4-0 since the 4 Nations Face-Off break.
The Ducks lost starting netminder John Gibson midway through the second period after he suffered an apparent injury in a collision with Canucks winger Drew O’Connor.
THIS DAY IN SPORTS HISTORY
1920 — Mickey Roach of Toronto scores five goals to lead the St. Patricks to an 11-2 rout of the Quebec Bulldogs.
1964 — Boxing legend Cassius Clay joins the Nation of Islam and changes his name to ”Muhammad Ali″, calling his former title a “slave name”.
1976 — Dorothy Hamill wins the World Figure Skating Championships in Goteberg, Sweden.
1977 — Montclair State’s Carol Blazejowski scores 52 points against Queens College, setting a new collegiate scoring record (for men or women) in the current Madison Square Garden in New York.
1982 — The San Antonio Spurs and Milwaukee Bucks combine for 337 points in the highest scoring game in NBA history, to that point. The Spurs win, 171-166, in three overtimes.
1983 — The 12-team United States Football League begins its first season with five games.
1984 — Dale Hawerchuck of the Winnipeg Jets sets the NHL record for most assists in one period, with five in the second period of a 7-3 triumph over the Kings.
1988 — Julie Krone becomes the winningest female jockey in history with her 1,205th career victory. Krone rides a filly named Squawter to victory in the ninth race at Aqueduct Racetrack.
1996 — Detroit’s Chris Osgood becomes the third goalie in NHL history to score a goal, firing the puck into an empty net with 11 seconds remaining in the Red Wings’ 4-2 victory over Hartford.
2000 — Shaquille O’Neal of the Lakers scores an NBA season-high 61 points and had 23 rebounds in a 123-103 victory over the Clippers.
2001 — George Mason beats North Carolina-Wilmington 35-33 in the second-lowest scoring game in the shot-clock era of NCAA basketball.
2010 — Devin Harris scores 31 points and the New Jersey Nets erased an early 16-point deficit to beat New York 113-93. The Knicks miss all 18 attempts in the most futile three-point shooting night in league history.
2011 — Lindsey Vonn clinches her third discipline title in three days with a super-G victory to wrap up a memorable weekend of ski racing in Tarvisio, Italy. Vonn took the super-combined and downhill titles the previous two days.
2014 — The Clippers rout the rival Lakers 142-94. It’s the most lopsided victory ever for the Clippers’ franchise and the most one-sided loss in Lakers history.
2015 — Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim is suspended for nine games, with the school punished for ignoring the “most fundamental core values of the NCAA” for academic, drug and other violations committed primarily by the men’s basketball program. The school is put on probation for five years and the basketball team is forced to vacate 108 wins in which ineligible players participated.
2015 — Shane Walsh scores the winning goal in the fifth overtime to lead UMass to a 4-3 victory over Notre Dame in the longest game in NCAA Division I ice hockey history.
2019 — LeBron James scores his 32,293rd point in the 2nd quarter of a Lakers’ 115-99 loss to Denver to pass Michael Jordan into 4th place on the NBA all-time point scoring list.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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