WASHINGTON — Alex Ovechkin scored his 903rd career NHL goal and the Washington Capitals beat the Kings 2-1 on Monday night.
Matt Roy also scored for the Capitals, who ended a two-game losing skid to gain some traction in the standings.
Anze Kopitar scored for the Kings, who had won four straight. It was just their second regulation road loss of the season.
The Kings played without defenseman Drew Doughty. He is week to week with a lower-body injury after being injured Saturday against the Ottawa Senators.
Washington opened the scoring early, as Roy got to the front of the net and tipped Aliaksei Protas’ point shot past Darcy Kuemper. It was Roy’s first goal in 25 games, dating back to last season.
In the second period, Ovechkin crashed the crease before burying a behind-the-net feed from Connor McMichael. Ovechkin, who has goals in back-to-back games and three of his last four, passed Gordie Howe for the most regular-season goals scored at a single venue in NHL history with his 442nd at Capital One Arena.
Kopitar pulled the Kings to within one with his third goal of the season with 6:33 left in the second. He tapped in a backdoor feed from Corey Perry on the power play. Washington has given up a power-play goal in three straight games and five of the last six.
Despite a rally, the Kings couldn’t beat Charlie Lindgren, who stopped 30 of 31 shots for his second win of the season after losing his last four starts.
Kuemper stopped 23 of 25 in the defeat.
Up next for the Kings: Close out a six-game road trip against the Sharks on Thursday.
Shortly before Monday afternoon’s City Section Division I quarterfinal football game between host Eagle Rock and Dorsey was set to begin in the pouring rain, referee Patrick Riley ruled the middle of the grass field unsafe.
City Section Commissioner Vicky Lagos was in attendance and acted quickly to get the contest, scheduled to begin at 4 p.m., moved to an alternate site, which turned out to be Contreras Learning Complex — seven and a half miles away in downtown Los Angeles. When all was said and done, Dorsey moved on to the semifinals after a dominant 26-0 shutout.
“When the referees ruled the field unplayable we immediately called Sotomayor and Contreras because they have turf fields and are the closest in proximity to Eagle Rock,” Lagos said. “We had to arrange busing and we’re thankful to the officials — it was the same crew that was going to do the game Friday. If we couldn’t find a facility [today] then we would’ve had to play the game tomorrow.”
The game was supposed to be played Friday night along with the full slate of City Section contests, but it was postponed until Monday afternoon after a transformer problem left the school without power.
Dorsey wide receiver Stafon Johnson runs with the ball during a City Section Division I playoff win over Eagle Rock on Monday night.
(Craig Weston)
“We were told at 3:45 that we weren’t going to be able to play,” said Dorsey coach Stafon Johnson, a Dorsey alum who played at USC from 2006-09. My main concern at that point was whichever team wins would have a short turnaround for the next game.”
When the game finally kicked off at 6:45 p.m. the rain was still pouring. Eleventh-seeded Dorsey controlled the tempo from the start, marching 65 yards in five plays on its first possession, which ended on a five-yard run by Mahkai McCluster.
Nathan Schiebler fumbled on the second play of Eagle Rock’s first possession and defensive lineman Draysean Mixson recovered for Dorsey at the Eagles’ 47. Jamell Edmond capped the Dons’ ensuing drive with an 11-yard sweep and Deuce Johnson caught the two-point conversion pass to make it 14-0 late in the first quarter.
“We were ready to get down and dirty in the mud,” Dorsey quarterback Elijah McDaniel said after rushing for 120 yards and engineering all four of his team’s scoring drives. “We wanted to play [at Eagle Rock]. We wanted to play Friday even but the longer we had to wait the more time it gave us to prepare.”
Liam Pasten, one of the best passers in the City, completed only three of seven attempts for 22 yards in the first half and finished seven for 24 for 53 yards. Even as the rain subsided in the second half, the third-seeded Eagles (8-4) could not get their offense on track.
“I had 100% attendance at practice Saturday in the rain,” Johnson said. “This is the first time all year we’ve been fully loaded. This is Jamell’s first game back and he made a significant impact. That team averages over 40 points a game and we give them full credit. We just wanted to play … we didn’t care where it was.”
Edmond finished with 87 yards in 10 carries.
De Anthony Young-Jones scored on a two-yard run to increase the lead to 20-0 late in the third quarter and Jaziel Hernandez-Cruz closed the scoring with a one-yard run with 3:48 left in the fourth quarter. The 11th-seeded Dons (7-5) will be on the road again in the semifinals against No. 2 South Gate, a game that has been pushed back to Saturday.
Eagle Rock players did not get a chance to play one last time at Don Mengel Field. In February, construction is scheduled to begin on the school’s new synthetic turf field, eight-lane rubber track and scoreboard.
LeBron James said his lungs felt like those of a “newborn baby” and his voice was “already gone” after his first Lakers practice Monday as he moved a step closer toward making his season debut after being sidelined by sciatica.
The Lakers listed James as questionable for Tuesday night against the Utah Jazz at Crypto.com Arena, and he sounded as if he was close to playing in his NBA-record 23rd season.
“We got a long time,” said James as he wiped sweat from his face while speaking to reporters. “I mean, we’ve been taking literally one minute, one hour, one step at a time throughout this whole process. So, see how I feel this afternoon, see how I feel tonight. When I wake up in the morning. … We’ll probably have [a] shootaround [Tuesday]. So, just gotta see how the body responds over the next 24 hours-plus.”
LeBron James on how he’s feeling: “My lungs feel like a newborn baby.”
Says he’s trying to get his conditioning back up and his voice is already shot from yelling at practice, but he was happy to be back. pic.twitter.com/rl6WMAuYmw
James, who will turn 41 next month, was asked how long it took him to become pain-free.
“I wouldn’t take it that far,” James said. “Like I said, if you ever had it, you go about it and you wake up one day and you hope that when you step down from the bed that you don’t feel it. You go to bed at night, and you hope that when you’re in the bed that you don’t feel it. So I’ve been doing pretty good with it as of late. There’s a lot of exercises and a lot of mobility things and a lot of things you can do to help it. So I’m just keeping a positive mindset.”
Lakers coach JJ Redick said it was like having a new player in practice with James on the court.
James agreed, saying, “Definitely feels new, for sure.”
The Lakers have four days off after Tuesday’s game against Utah — including three practice days — before playing the Jazz in Salt Lake City on Sunday.
“One day back, barking out calls and assignments and stuff, getting my voice working again,” said James about his first day at practice. “Be a lot of tea and rest tonight.”
James, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer (42,184 points), admitted he had to mentally adjust to missing the start of a season for the first time in his career.
“It sucks. It definitely sucks,” James said. “Never in my life since I started playing the game of basketball have I ever not started the season — in my life. It’s been a mind test, but I’m built for it and it’s been putting in the work, both mentally and physically trying to get myself ready to rejoin the team.
“It’s just been kind of the same revolving door. Just repetition, repetition, repetition; rehabbing, rehabbing, rehabbing. Just trying to get back where I can feel like myself again. It’s great to be out here today.”
James said this wasn’t the first time in his career that he had sciatica.
“I had it two years ago,” he said. “You had it, then you know what the hell it’s about. If you ain’t never had it and people are making jokes about it, I pray you never get it. It’s not fun.”
James practiced with the Lakers’ G League team, the South Bay Lakers, twice last week, getting in some five-on-five work.
“It was great,” James said. “I got cleared to play some five-on-five for the first time since … hurting my MCL versus Minnesota. And that was the blessing.”
The Lakers have gone 10-4 without James. Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves have led the way as one of the most potent two-way tandems in the early part of the NBA season.
Doncic leads the NBA in scoring (34.4 points per game) and Reaves is ninth (28.3). Doncic is fifth in assists (8.9) and Reaves is seventh (8.2).
James, who is 50 games away from breaking Robert Parish’s all-time record of most games played in NBA history (1,611), knows he’ll have to adjust things when he returns.
“I have to work my way back into it,” James said. “The guys have been going on road trips, shootarounds, flights. So it’s kind of like a kid going to a new school again. Got to learn the guys and everything. So they got some great chemistry. Feeling my way back in and do it organically. It shouldn’t be hard. But it’s definitely a feel-out process.”
Etc.
Redick said all 14 players practiced for the first time this season and that Rui Hachimura (left call soreness) and Marcus Smart (viral illness) will be available to play against the Jazz after sitting out against Milwaukee on Saturday.
Inside an office in Hollywood, not far from the Walk of Fame and the Sunset Bronson Studios, Netflix executive Alain Tascan revealed new content coming soon to the platform — but it’s not a TV show or a movie. It’s a new game where U.S. viewers compete to win thousands of dollars.
The game show, called “Best Guess Live,” will run on weekdays at 5 p.m. PT, where hosts Howie Mandel and Hunter March will unveil a set of five clues. Mobile game players tune in to make their best guesses. The earlier they can guess correctly with fewer clues, the higher the chances they can win more of the prize money. The show, filmed in Van Nuys, is Netflix’s attempt at appointment gaming for its audience of more than 700 million viewers.
“Can you imagine where you not only can go and play a game, but you could win a life-changing amount of money each and every day, and it takes no time, it’s easy, and you just have your phone?” said Mandel, widely known for his hosting turns on NBC’s “Deal or No Deal” and “America’s Got Talent.”
The goal is to make playing games on Netflix “as simple as streaming a movie on a Friday, using the same innovative mindset that led Netflix to transform itself from a company shipping DVDs to streaming movies, shows and now games,” Tascan said.
Netflix has been investing in its games vertical for the last four years, with mixed results. Last month, the streamer’s co-CEO Greg Peters gave the company’s gaming efforts a B- grade. Under Tascan’s leadership, the division has focused on some key areas, including narratives based on Netflix programs, games for children, social party games and mainstream titles like “Grand Theft Auto.”
The changes appear to be working. The number of downloads for Netflix games has increased 17% to 74.8 million from January to October of this year compared to the same period in 2024, according to data from app analytics firm Appfigures. The company is also releasing fewer games, adding 16 titles this year compared to 35 last year, Appfigures said.
Netflix declined to comment on the Appfigures data.
The company has also removed games in part due to low customer engagement. Netflix has released 142 games, with 78 of them still active as of October, according to Appfigures.
Its two most popular mobile games were released on Netflix in the last two years, including “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,” which came on the platform in December 2023 and achieved 44 million downloads. The streamer released an original, the multiplayer party royale title “Squid Game: Unleashed,” last year with 21 million downloads. The game had tie-ins to the popular series’ second season where players could earn cash or wild tokens in the game if they watched a certain number of episodes.
Some analysts say there is still room for improvement.
Journalists participate in a games demo at a Netflix office on Wednesday.
(Netflix)
“It still seems pretty experimental,” said Ross Benes, senior analyst at research firm Emarketer. “I don’t get the impression that they are on gamers’ list of their go-to sources of entertainment.”
On Thursday, Netflix said its first slate of five games for the TV, including Tetris Time Warp, Boggle Party, Pictionary: Game Night and LEGO Party! are now available. Prior to the new slate, subscribers could only play Netflix games on their mobile devices.
When consumers load up the TV games, they will see a QR code they can scan on their devices and use them as controllers in the game. For example in Netflix’s version of Pictionary, users draw on their phones.
“A big switch in the strategy is really to make sure that we are eliminating any friction that somebody can encounter when they want to play,” Tascan said in an interview. “We believe that on TV, in particular, where people enjoy their different shows, is the best place to offer something very easily approachable.”
The TV games are the latest iteration in Netflix’s effort that began four years ago. The company had beefed up its staff after acquiring four gaming businesses — Glendale-based Night School, Boss Fight Entertainment out of Allen, Texas, Finland-based Next Games and Spry Fox based in Seattle.
Netflix shut down Boss Fight Entertainment last month.
The gaming division efforts were first led by Mike Verdu, a former Facebook and Electronic Arts executive. He later transitioned to a role focusing on transforming game development and player experiences with generative AI in November 2024 and left Netflix earlier this year. Tascan, a former executive at Epic Games, was named Netflix’s president of games in July 2024.
Games has been an attractive area of investment for some companies, as younger audiences spend a lot of time playing titles like Roblox, Fortnite and Call of Duty. Tascan estimates there are 3 billion gamers in the world and with Netflix having an audience of more than 700 million people, “the Venn diagram is pretty large.”
The streamer on Thursday also announced new mobile games for kids, including digital coloring book “Barbie Color Creations” and a hairstyling game, “Toca Boca Hair Salon 4.”
It can be challenging for companies to get into the space. For example, in 2023, Google shut down its gaming service Stadia after it failed to gain traction with users.
Tascan said Netflix is not competing against traditional gaming consoles but is looking to innovate and find new ways to reach its customers.
Tascan said he is encouraged by the reactions he has seen.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” he said. “But at the end, how many people are going to have the same reaction? We are a company driven by data, and our main data is, how many people are going to engage?”
Tascan said he thinks it will be a few short years before Netflix becomes the Netflix of games. He hopes the division can improve from Peters’ grade of a B- to a higher level.
“What I hope is, by the end of the year, we’ll upgrade to an A, hopefully A+,” Tascan said.
Times editorial library director Cary Schneider contributed to this report.
No. 1 Nebraska displayed every skill that’s made it a powerhouse program — the offense attacked every part of the court, defense never gave up on the ball and the fans showed up at the Galen Center.
In front of a sellout crowd of 9,072, USC’s nine-match win streak came to an end with a straight-set loss to Nebraska (26-0, 16-0 Big Ten).
“I just felt like the game was a little too fast for us today,” USC coach Brad Keller said. “I thought it was slow for them and fast for us.”
The No. 17 Trojans never led and were limited to a 20% point scoring percentage throughout the match. USC (20-6, 11-5) led in attacks, but its 16 errors were costly during the 25-13, 25-16, 25-20 loss to the Cornhuskers.
USC’s Adonia Faumuina taps the ball over the net against Nebraska at the Galen Center on Sunday.
(Kim Ly / USC Athletics)
“Nebraska is the real deal,” Keller said. “They are really, really good and they showed that today from point one to the very end. They’re hitting .400 and they held us down to .156, that kind of shows you a lot of where they were.
“Go Big Red Nation deserves credit and they deserve the fact that they travel and they support their team.”
USC outside hitters London Wijay, with 10 kills, and Adonia Faumuina, with nine kills, kept the Trojans in as much as possible throughout the three sets. After a break, the Trojans came out with some extra gusto to make things a little interesting for the Cornhuskers.
“We literally had nothing to lose,” Faumuina said.
During the match, Nebraska made 10 errors, with five spread across the first two sets. The Huskers moved the ball quickly around the court and if they made a mistake, the team quickly adjusted. In the third set, a ball bounced in the air close to the floor seats. Nebraska saved the ball and it later led to a kill by Virginia Adrian that put the Huskers three points from closing out the game.
Nebraska kept USC guessing, while exploiting the weaker USC back court and capitalizing on attacking errors. Throughout the match, they kept hitting the ball to the back, usually resulting in a point for them.
“There were some plays they made that I haven’t seen in a while and that was normal for them,” Keller said.
As the Trojans look ahead to their next match against Oregon on Wednesday, Keller doesn’t have a silver lining take-away from the loss.
“I love my team, I don’t care what their age is,” Keller said. “There needs to be a standard and we need to execute and if we don’t execute, we go back to the drawing board, we work on those things, we get better and we execute.”
Wijay said the loss exposed how much harder the Trojans must work to achieve their goals.
“I don’t want to brush off this loss,” Wijay said. “I think it’s good to use as fuel for the next game. It was a good test to see how far we are to get to that level. And I feel like the silver lining is to make sure that we’re all gonna be in the gym working even harder to make sure that we pursue the balls.”
“I think it made me more hungry to want to win,” Wijay added.
Clad in close-fitting black outfits, two performers get into stance for a fight scene. The cameras surrounding the massive stage in Playa Vista start rolling.
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One turns around slowly, pantomimes being shot, and carefully, deliberately, arches himself backward, clawing at the air before a stunt coordinator helps ease him toward a black mattress.
That movement is translated into dots and lines on a nearby computer, transmitted by the round, white sensors embedded in the suits’ colorful almond-shaped patches. Later, those will be fleshed out into characters and scenes in the new “Call of Duty: Black Ops 7” game, which debuts Friday.
It’s all part of the blockbuster production effort that goes into making one of the most popular video game franchises ever. “Call of Duty,” from Santa Monica publisher Activision, has ranked as the top-selling video game series in the U.S. for 16 straight years and has sold more than 500 million copies globally since the first installment was released in 2003.
And as one of the few franchises with an annual release schedule, hitting that deadline takes an army. About 3,000 people worked on “Black Ops 7” over the course of four years.
Activision executives declined to discuss the game’s budget but called it a “significant investment.” Top video game franchises can have production costs of $250 million or more — higher than most big-budget Hollywood films.
“It’s like, every year we have to launch a new ‘Star Wars.’ Every year we have to launch a new ‘Avatar,’ ” said Tyler Bahl, chief marketing officer at Activision. “So we have to think about, how do we do this in an unexpected way?”
“Ultimately, we want to treat our games like an absolute blockbuster,” said Matt Cox, general manager of “Call of Duty” at Activision, who has worked on the franchise for more than 10 years. “The investment is there for them.”
Activision’s Treyarch game production studio is where Call of Duty video game is produced.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
The franchise has become a key driver of Activision’s success, analysts said.
The base game consistently sells more than 20 million units annually, not including the live services components that update after a game’s launch and keep players engaged, monthly battle passes that unlock rewards or even the mobile game, all of which add up to an estimated annual sales of about $3.5 billion to $4 billion, said Eric Handler, media and entertainment analyst at Roth Capital.
“It revolutionized the first-person shooter and has done a great job, year in and year out, of being the best of breed, building the largest community and evolving, pivoting to where video game players are all over the world,” Handler said. “There are other [shooter] franchises that are trying to replicate its success … but nobody’s been able to match the consistency of ‘Call of Duty.’”
To maintain its annual cadence, Activision rotates game development among several of its studios, including Playa Vista-based Treyarch, which co-developed “Black Ops 6” and “Black Ops 7” in parallel — the first time that two “Call of Duty: Black Ops” games came out in subsequent years.
The previous game is set in the ‘90s, while the newest installment jumps ahead to 2035, meaning designers and animators had to envision what gear and gadgets might look like in the future (“Call of Duty: Black Ops 2” was eerily accurate in its predictions for the year 2025).
“It was a huge opportunity for us to tell two unique but also connected stories at the same time,” said Yale Miller, senior director of production at Treyarch.
Unlike the linear nature of film production, many things happen in tandem when producing a game like “Call of Duty.” The game has a campaign mode that follows a story, a multiplayer option to play with friends and the ever-popular zombies portion, meaning each designated team is thinking in parallel about things like tone, features and playable moments that they want fans to experience, Miller said.
While an actor is recording lines, another team may be building the weapon they mention and making it interactive, while another group builds the explosion that the lines and weapon will be part of.
“It’s not just, ‘Oh, we got the shot. We’re done for the day,’ ” Miller said. The acting performance is “an anchor for a lot of the things that we build, but then it’s the whole world in parallel, and that’s how we get to such big teams working on stuff, and everything has to get thought about.”
The franchise has become known for its intense, cinematic quality, a reputation enhanced by the live-action film and television backgrounds of many who work on the games, including some stunt performers and Treyarch performance capture director Mikal Vega, who worked on the 2017 NBC drama “The Brave” after a long career in the military.
“It’s theater-in-the-round,” he said during a Zoom call from the stage. “A lot more like theater-in-the-round than film in some cases, and very much like film in other phases of it.”
And there is a bit of a learning curve, particularly because of the motion-capture technology used, which can make movements awkward.
In the new game, “This Is Us” star Milo Ventimiglia plays Lt. Cmdr. David Mason, a character who first appeared in 2012’s “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2” and is now on the hunt for a former arms dealer who caused the death of his father and was previously believed dead.
Acting in “Black Ops 7” was “more technical” than his previous film and TV roles since it required getting used to a boom mic or camera that jutted out in front of him, he said. In one early instance, Ventimiglia went to scratch an itch on his cheek and was told by the crew not to put anything between his face and the camera, and to pantomime scratching outside of the camera, not realizing it wasn’t acting.
Then there were four-hour sessions in the sound booth, saying lines dozens of times in dozens of ways with any number of weapons.
“It’s super, super taxing, hard work, but fun at the same time,” Ventimiglia said. “When are you going to talk about calling out grenades and flash bangs and using different weapons? Very rarely.”
Adding to the cinematic quality are the hyper-realistic portrayals of actors, gear and costumes, which are the result of scans on a light stage that can re-create items in 3-D. Principal and background characters sit on a chair inside the sphere and do poses, surrounded by 16 DSLR cameras and dozens of hexagonal lights that emit a hazy glow. In 1.3 seconds, more than 256 images will be shot. Principal characters like Ventimiglia will typically do up to 120 poses — all to make sure the nuances of someone’s face are captured.
Evan Buttons, Activision director of technical projects, is photographed inside the face scanning studio.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
In a nearby room with a 22-foot ceiling and black, soundproof walls, an even larger sphere with more than 140 cameras and several video cameras are used to capture full body scans, gear and costumes. Everything captured then goes to the character art team, which will tweak it to their specifications and put it in the game.
Even in the days leading up to the game’s release, the team was still busy. In an era when internet speeds are faster, work doesn’t end with a game’s initial release. Content will be released regularly in the months after “Black Ops 7” debuts, all to keep it fresh for players, who can put more than 1,000 hours into the game.
“The No. 1 reason why they play ‘Call of Duty’ is actually because their friends are there,” said Bahl of Activision. “Those bonds and those social connections, I think, is really what makes this game different and stronger, and it’s made it last for so long.”
He will stay in London and not travel to Lille for the Tunisia match on Tuesday.
Gabriel has formed a key part of the Arsenal defence as they top the Premier League table, having conceded just five goals in 11 league games.
The Gunners are next in action when they face north London rivals Tottenham on 23 November, before welcoming Bayern Munich in the Champions League the following Wednesday.
Another Arsenal defender, Riccardo Calafiori, has left the Italy squad.
The Lakers finished an uneven road trip on a high note with consecutive wins at New Orleans and Milwaukee, salvaging a 3-2 record on the trip after a 119-95 win over the Bucks on Saturday. The only thing that seemed to excite the players more than the victory was what waited for them after the nine-day journey.
“Let’s go homeee,” forward Jake LaRavia posted on his Instagram story.
Here are five takeaways after the five-game road trip:
Lakers recapture their magic
Laker Deandre Ayton fouls Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo on Saturday in Milwaukee.
(Morry Gash / Associated Press)
Deandre Ayton took credit for the postgame locker room’s Frank Sinatra soundtrack, but JJ Redick had Jay-Z on his mind. After wrapping up a grueling trip, one of Redick’s first thoughts was Jay-Z’s track “A Week Ago,” which begins with the lyric: “It was all good just a week ago.”
A week ago, the Lakers were 7-2. They were riding the high of a five-game winning streak heading into practice in Atlanta.
Then things turned sour.
The Lakers (10-4) were blown out against Atlanta and Oklahoma City on this trip. They played about one good half of basketball in their first three games. But during the most demanding part of the stretch, the Lakers rallied to find themselves again with critical wins against the Pelicans and Bucks.
“This is the NBA,” Redick told reporters. “And you gotta find moments to recapture what makes you a good basketball team. And I think over the last 24 hours we’ve done that.”
Redick credited Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves for continuing to lead the team through choppy waters Saturday. Despite the team arriving in Milwaukee at 3 a.m. on Saturday morning and Doncic playing 40 minutes the night before in New Orleans, the superstar guard was still diving on the floor for a loose ball in the second quarter. He pushed the ball ahead to Reaves, who found Ayton for a layup.
As Doncic becomes more comfortable with his teammates, his leadership has shown through not only his play but his sarcastic personality, which has helped develop a strong bond.
“It’s great chemistry,” Doncic told reporters. “When I came, I was probably a little more quiet, trying to get to know people. But right now, I’m just being myself, just joking around a lot, trash-talking. So I think one of the biggest things for the team to win is have a great chemistry, and I think we have that.”
Doncic’s MVP campaign rolls along
The Lakers’ Luka Doncic drives past the Bucks’ Gary Harris on Saturday in Milwaukee.
(Morry Gash / Associated Press)
With 41 points, nine rebounds and six assists against Milwaukee, Doncic collected his fourth 40-point games this season, equaling his total for such games all of last year.
He leads the league with 34.4 points per game and officially became eligible for the leaderboard after playing in his 10th game Saturday. His points and 8.9 rebounds per game are close to his production in 2023-24 when he led the Dallas Mavericks to the NBA Finals and finished third in most valuable player voting with 33.9 points and 9.2 rebounds per game. He is doing it despite shooting a 32.7% from three-point range, his worst mark since his second season.
Reinforcements are on the way
Lakers forward Lebron James is expected to return to the lineup soon.
(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)
LeBron James is expected to return to the practice court with the Lakers on Monday after a productive test stint with the South Bay Lakers. He could make his season debut as soon as Tuesday against the Utah Jazz at Crypto.com Arena in the Lakers’ only game this week.
James is the only standard contract player still awaiting to make his debut after the Lakers got forwards Maxi Kleber and Adou Thiero back on the court during the trip. Kleber, who was sidelined with an abdominal strain, has played in three games. He made his first shot of the season in the win over Milwaukee while playing 25 minutes with three points and three assists.
The rookie Thiero also made his debut against the Bucks, scoring four points and punctuating his first NBA appearance with an emphatic two-handed dunk in the final minute. It showed the type of athleticism and activity the Lakers were looking for when they drafted him in the second round. He also grabbed one offensive rebound during the first half that led to Kleber’s three-pointer.
Guard Gabe Vincent (ankle) is still out and is approaching three weeks since he turned his ankle against the Sacramento Kings. The original timetable for his return was two to four weeks.
Shooting slumps
Lakers guard Gabe Vincent throws a lob pass to center Deandre Ayton for an alley-oop dunk against the Kings on Oct. 26.
(Sara Nevis / Associated Press)
Vincent’s eventual return could help the Lakers with one of their most glaring offensive deficiencies: three-point shooting.
The Lakers rank 25th in three-point shooting at just 33.8%. Their 32.4 three-point attempts per game rank 26th in the league. It’s a far cry from the 40.4 threes they attempted in the games after Doncic joined the team last year.
Part of the shooting slump could be Reaves’ early struggles from three-point range. Outside of his six for 10 night that led to a career-high 51 points against Sacramento, Reaves, who missed three games with a groin injury, was shooting 26.4% from three this season.
He then caught fire in the second half against the Bucks, making five threes. While finishing with 25 points and eight assists, he made three consecutive three-pointers to open the fourth quarter that Doncic called some of the most important shots of the game.
“It was good to get something to go down,” Reaves told reporters. “… Hopefully we continue to shoot the ball well.”
Pick up the pace
The Bucks’ Bobby Portis and the Lakers’ Luka Doncic battle for a loose ball on Saturday in Milwaukee.
(Morry Gash / Associated Press)
The Lakers are second-to-last in transition possessions per game and transition possession percentage. Redick was puzzled as to why the team played so slowly when asked about its pace before the Charlotte game. He said the pace was “literally the first thing we emphasize in every film session.”
But on the second night of a back-to-back, Redick acknowledged the team, considering its personnel, was simply not going to be a fast team. However, he still identified markers of success. Before Saturday’s game, Redick told the players the team was 9-1 when it scored 12 or more transition points and 8-0 with 24 or more assists.
“I think there’s a formula here for throwing the ball ahead and sharing the basketball,” Redick said. “And they were good again with that tonight.”
The Lakers had 12 fast break points and 23 assists against the Bucks.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota backup Jesper Wallstedt made 28 saves for his second straight shutout and the Wild beat the Ducks 2-0 on Saturday night.
Wallstedt extended his shutout streak to 141 minutes 9 seconds after beating Calgary 2-0 last Sunday night.
The 23-year-old Swede’s biggest save Saturday came when he robbed Frank Vatrano alone in front of the goal late in the second period. Wallstedt the backup to Filip Gustavsson, the fellow Swede who signed a five-year, $34-million extension Oct. 4.
Marcus Johansson scored in the second period and Matt Boldy added an empty-netter.
Minnesota improved to 5-1-1 in its last seven games, giving up only 12 goals in that stretch. The Wild are 19-1-0 against the Ducks dating to the 2020-21 season, including six consecutive wins since March 14, 2024.
Petr Mrazek made 29 saves for the Pacific Division-leading Ducks. They have scored only four goals in losing three in a row after winning nine of 10. Anaheim entered the day averaging 3.88 goals per game, second-best in the NHL.
Johansson opened the scoring 55 seconds into the second. Down the slot a stride behind Ryan Strome, Johansson got a pass from Boldy, went from forehand to backhand to deke Mrazek and lifted the puck past the down goalie. Johansson has seven goals this season after scoring just 11 goals each of the last two seasons.
The Wild have scored first in a franchise-record eight consecutive games.
Minnesota was 0 for 7 on the power play, the Ducks 0 for 2.
Ducks center Mikael Granlund, who returned Thursday after missing eight games because of a lower-body injury, missed the game because of the same issue. Wild right wing Vladimir Tarasenko missed his first game of the season because of a lower-body injury.
Up next
The Ducks open a six-game homestand against Utah on Monday night. The Wild host Vegas on Sunday night.
They were battered, they were bruised, they were soaking wet and covered in stereotypes.
They’re not tough enough. They’re not resilient enough. They’re not Big Ten-enough.
Late in the second quarter Saturday afternoon at the Coliseum, a USC football team fighting for a playoff berth was crumbling beneath the weight of its worst national perception.
It was wilting under the weather and the weight of a team from Iowa.
Then, with big swings from a deep strength that few thought a Lincoln Riley team possessed, everything changed.
It’s raining wins, hallelujah.
Trailing 21-7, the Trojans got muddy and chilly and just plain mean, winning the line of scrimmage, winning the battle of skill, and eventually winning the game 26-21.
Yeah, afterward, that was Riley dancing in a downpour.
And, yes, USC is still in the national championship hunt, needing wins in its final two games at Oregon and against UCLA to qualify for the College Football Playoff.
Few will believe they can beat sixth-ranked and one-loss Oregon in Eugene. But then again, few believed they would survive Iowa after the Hawkeyes took that big second-quarter lead.
During the last 10 years, Iowa had an 83-5 record when leading by eight points or more. Translated, this is a program that knows how to protect a lead, and the Trojans were seemingly cooked.
But Makai Lemon made 153 yards worth of spectacular catches, King Miller ran for 83 bruising clock-killing yards, Jahkeem Stewart made a game-changing interception, Jayden Maiava held it together with a touchdown pass and no turnovers, and the game essentially appropriately ended with USC just being stronger.
On a fourth-down pass in the final minute, Kennedy Urlacher shoved Kaden Wetjen out of bounds as he was making a grab deep in Trojan territory.
No catch, game over, and in the end, the Trojans were as hearty as that section of fans that witnessed the game shirtless.
The afternoon started with groundskeepers drying the field with leaf blowers, the first rainy game at the Coliseum in nine years.
USC coach Lincoln Riley celebrates with wide receiver Prince Strachan during the second half of a 26-21 comeback win over Iowa at the Coliseum on Saturday.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
But for USC under Riley, it felt the same, a late-season game requiring the sort of grimy toughness that his Trojans had yet to show.
Blew five fourth-quarter leads last season. Blew four of their last five games two seasons ago. Blew the Pac-12 championship game and a shot at the playoffs three seasons ago.
It looked like they were going to blow it again.
Iowa took the opening kickoff and drove 69 yards in seven plays in a bruising drive punctuated by a fourth-down, two-yard touchdown pass from Mark Gronowski to Dayton Howard in the back of the end zone.
Yes, the FBS’s 133rd ranked passing offense — out of 136 teams — had just scored on a pass play.
And Iowa was just getting started.
After stopping the Trojans’ Miller on a fourth-down run around just inside Iowa territory — a terrible Riley call against the nation’s best fourth-down defense — the Hawkeyes drove 45 yards in nine plays to score on a Gronowski one-yard push to take a 14-0 lead.
The Trojans came back while finally finding their groove, driving 74 yards on 11 plays featuring a leaping catch by Ja’Kobi Lane and ending with a one-yard touchdown run out of the wildcat formation by Bryan Jackson.
So USC had the momentum? Not so fast.
USC defensive tackle Jide Abasiri holds up the ball while celebrating with cornerback Decarlos Nicholson during the second half of the Trojans’ win Saturday over Iowa.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Iowa took the possession and pounded and pounded and nine plays and 75 yards later scored on a five-yard, trick-play pass from receiver Reece Vander Zee to Gronowski.
That gave Iowa a 21-7 lead that was shortened only by a Ryon Sayeri 40-yard field goal after a dropped pass and penalty stopped the Trojans.
USC took the ball at the start of the third quarter and seemed to be destined for a touchdown after a leaping sideline catch by Lemon. But a holding call against Lane ruined a long run by Miller, two failed pass plays stalled the drive, and the Trojans had to settle for a 29-yard field goal by Sayeri to close the gap to 21-13.
After the Trojans defense stiffened, the offense went back on a roll, using another leaping grab by Lemon — this one for 35 yards — to set up a 12-yard TD pass between three defenders to Lemon. Maiava overthrew Lemon on the two-point conversion attempt, but this time, the Trojans didn’t blow the momentum.
On Iowa’s next possession, with 1:52 left in the period, the powerful freshman Stewart grabbed a deflected pass for an interception to give the Trojans the ball on the Iowa 40-yard line.
From there, Maiava drove them 40 yards in six plays on a possession that was assisted by a pass interference penalty and gave them an eventual 26-21 lead after Jackson’s one-yard touchdown run.
On a flight to Houston to play in his first college football game, Kenny Easley was told that he would split time at free safety with a veteran UCLA teammate.
“That’s what happened,” Easley told The Times in 2017, recounting the story 40 years later. “Michael Coulter started the game and played the first two quarters, I played the second two and Michael never played again.”
Such was the dominance of a player who would be called The Enforcer for the way he inflicted his will on college and NFL opponents. Easley finished that first season with nine interceptions and 93 tackles, school records for a true freshman, and was just getting started on the way to becoming the first player in Pac-10 history to be selected for the conference’s first team all four seasons.
Easley, one of the most revered players in school history, died Friday from unspecified causes, the school announced. He was 66. Easley had long battled kidney issues that forced the five-time Pro Bowler to retire prematurely in 1987 after spending all seven of his NFL seasons with the Seattle Seahawks.
“We are deeply saddened by the passing of Seahawks legend Kenny Easley,” the team said in a statement. “Kenny embodied what it meant to be a Seahawk through his leadership, toughness, intensity and fearlessness. His intimidating nature and athletic grace made him one of the best players of all-time.”
Much of that resolve was forged thanks to a childhood game that Easley called dynamite pigskin. A pack of kids would gather on the athletic fields in Easley’s hometown of Chesapeake, Va., and a football would be tossed into the air.
Safety Kenny Easley also returned punts for UCLA.
(Courtesy UCLA Athletics)
Whoever caught it would take off running and everybody else would try to catch him until the ball carrier found himself hopelessly surrounded, forcing him to throw the ball back into the air, where the game earned its dynamite nickname. The game would go on for hours until everyone was bruised and exhausted.
One of the nation’s top prospects out of high school, Easley appeared bound for Michigan, telling everyone he was going to play for the Wolverines. But on the day of his college announcement, Easley blurted out that he was going to play for UCLA, his other finalist, during a ceremony at his high school auditorium.
“So just like that, the proverbial genie is out of the bottle and it’s on videotape that I’m going to UCLA,” Easley would recall many years later. He suspected he changed his mind because the Bruins had said from the start they were recruiting him to play free safety while Michigan wanted him as a quarterback, his other high school position.
Easley tallied 19 interceptions during four college seasons, which remains a school record. Having made 13 interceptions during his first two seasons, Easley developed a ready explanation for why he couldn’t sustain that pace.
“They didn’t throw the ball down the middle,” he said of opposing quarterbacks. “If I was playing against Kenny Easley, I wouldn’t throw the ball down the middle either.”
Easley also returned punts and was a punishing hitter, logging 105 tackles during his senior season in 1980. He would finish ninth in voting for the Heisman Trophy that year. His 374 career tackles remain the fifth most in UCLA history and he became the second player from the school to earn consensus All-American honors three times, joining linebacker Jerry Robinson.
“Kenny Easley was the most competitive person I’ve ever met in my life,” Robinson wrote in an email to The Times. “No matter what he was doing, whether it was sports or life, he was in it to win it! Whether it was football, basketball, pick-up softball games, playing cards, high diving into the swimming pool or golf, everything he did he wanted to be the best at it. And he was the best at it. He was the greatest all-around athlete that I have ever played with. RIP ‘Force 5’.”
The Seahawks selected Easley with the fourth pick in the 1981 draft, and he went on to make 32 interceptions in seven seasons. But his time with the franchise ended acrimoniously after he accused the team of providing medicine that led to his kidney problems. The sides would later resolve their differences. Easley was named one of the 50 greatest players in franchise history.
Elected into the college and pro football halls of fame, Easley had his No. 5 jersey retired by UCLA in 1991 and was also enshrined in the school’s athletics hall of fame.
Different team. Different time. But it’s back to the scene of the crime for the Chargers, who three years ago succumbed to a 27-point comeback in a playoff loss at Jacksonville.
This season’s Jaguars got off to a 4-1 start but have lost three of their last four to slip back into the pack. They don’t have star rookie Travis Hunter, who underwent surgery this week and will miss the remainder of the season.
The team plays hard for first-year coach Liam Coen, who said he wants quarterback Trevor Lawrence to “cut it loose and let it rip” when he sees opportunities down the field.
After opening the season 3-0, the Chargers lost three of four, but are now riding another three-game winning streak. Justin Herbert has been outstanding at times, despite being the most-hit quarterback in the NFL.
The Chargers defense is coming off a gem of a performance in a win over Pittsburgh. Aaron Rodgers looked every bit of 41 years old, and at one point the Steelers were 0 for 9 on third down.
How the Chargers can win: As usual, protect Herbert behind a patchwork offensive line. Jacksonville has struggled to pressure quarterbacks, especially with Travon Walker at less than full strength and a beat-up secondary. Get the ball to Ladd McConkey and Oronde Gadsden II, with some Keenan Allen mixed in. Don’t allow the Jaguars to control the game with the run.
How the Jaguars can win: Jacksonville can look like a playoff team when it wins at the line of scrimmage but tends to collapse when it gets pushed around. The Jaguars need to establish the run early and grind out some long drives because they do not get a lot of explosive plays. Get to Herbert quickly before he has a chance to attack that weakened secondary. Contain Herbert, too, because he can burn you with his feet.
After absorbing one punishing blow after another, the UCLA quarterback will miss Saturday’s game against top-ranked Ohio State at Ohio Stadium because of concussion symptoms related to hits he sustained last weekend against Nebraska, a person with knowledge of the situation not authorized to speak publicly said.
Iamaleava was participating in the early portion of practice Tuesday, the last session observed by reporters this week.
His absence against the Buckeyes presumably means that top backup Luke Duncan, a redshirt sophomore who has never thrown a pass at the college level, will make his first career start.
Iamaleava’s ability to take hits and keep on playing had been a major topic of discussion early this week between reporters and UCLA interim coach Tim Skipper. The quarterback was easily his team’s leading rusher, his average of 52.7 yards per game nearly doubling the output of running back Jaivian Thomas (30.8), the team’s second-leading rusher.
Skipper had praised Iamaleava’s fearlessness, saying the 6-foot-6, 215-pound redshirt sophomore didn’t want to slide or run out of bounds.
“Nico’s the first like tall, skinny dude that I know that will lower the pads on you and is not afraid, he’s going to always be going forward and getting yards and things like that,” Skipper said Monday. “He’s got little legs and skinny arms but has no fear at all.”
Skipper also acknowledged the need to preserve Iamaleava’s availability by preventing him from taking more hits than necessary.
“Obviously, he’s your starting quarterback,” Skipper said. “You don’t want him taking big hits and things like that, but if they’re going to give him running lanes, you might as well take them. I kid with him all the time, ‘Hey every now and then, you might want to slide a little bit.’ But you know, when you have a natural runner like he is, you kind of just let them go do their thing.”
Immediately after UCLA’s 28-21 loss to Nebraska, Iamaleava did not indicate that all the hits he had taken impacted his performance. He completed 17 of 25 passes for 191 yards and two touchdowns without an interception while also running 15 times for 86 yards.
“Yeah man, shoot, I’ve played football a long time and I’ve gotten hit a lot of times in many games,” Iamaleava said. “So, I don’t think it affected me in that way. Overall, we just gotta play better as a whole and finish games.”
A rare November storm dumped continuous gallons of rain on players and fans Friday night across Southern California, creating opportunities for underdogs in the quarterfinals of the high school football playoffs.
No one was better prepared for rain than Santa Margarita quarterback Trace Johnson, who played last season in Florida. “Every other game was rain,” he said.
Johnson fired touchdown passes of 33 and 34 yards to sophomore Ryan Clark to help No. 5-seeded Santa Margarita (8-3) hand No. 4-seeded Sierra Canyon (10-1) its first defeat, 21-9, to advance to the Southern Section Division 1 semifinals.
The big stunner of the night was No. 8-seeded Orange Lutheran eliminating No. 1-seeded St. John Bosco 20-19 when the Braves missed an extra point in the final two minutes. Orange Lutheran (3-8) lost to St. John Bosco 48-0 in the regular season. The big play was sophomore King Rich Johnson returning an interception for a touchdown and a 20-13 lead. The Lancers will host Santa Margarita next week at Orange Coast College.
“To go from losing 48-0 to beating a team in the playoffs speaks to their character and continued growth,” Orange Lutheran coach Rod Sherman said. “Our goal is to play our best football at the end of the year. We don’t make excuses with our young team. We played our best football game of the year. I’m super proud of our guys. They got over the mental block that they can play with anyone in the country.”
The other semifinal will have Mater Dei at Corona Centennial. Centennial defeated Servite 41-6. Mater Dei defeated Mission Viejo 20-0.
Sierra Canyon had never trailed this season, led by a defense considered the best in the region. But Johnson stunned the Trailblazers with his touchdown pass to Clark at the end of the first half for a 7-3 halftime lead. Sierra Canyon scored on its opening possession of the second half to go on top 9-7, but after that, it was Santa Margarita’s defense displaying its dominating form.
Isaia Vandermade sacked Sierra Canyon quarterback Laird Fink twice in the second half. He also batted down a pass attempt. Fink was limited to 92 yards passing. The Eagles had three second-half sacks, with leading tackler Leki Holani making tackle after tackle.
Santa Margarita entered the Division 1 playoffs under first-year coach Carson Palmer having played six of the seven teams in one of the toughest regular-season schedules. Palmer singled out Clark, who’s also the Eagles’ punter.
Santa Margarita had done nothing on offense. Then Trace Johnson gets time and connects with Ryan Clark for a 33-yard TD with 18 seconds left in second quarter. Santa Margarita 7, Sierra Canyon 3. Halftime. pic.twitter.com/2yUnn5ZI4b
“He was unbelievable,” Palmer said. “He made plays all night.”
Said Clark: “They were great throws. We practiced good all week.”
Sierra Canyon quarterback Laird Fink throws in the rain.
(Craig Weston)
Sierra Canyon’s Jaxsen Stokes rushed for 106 yards, but lost opportunities in the first half proved costly. The Trailblazers tried three field goals. Carter Sobel made a 34-yard field goal, but he had one blocked and missed from 42 yards. Fink had a pass intercepted in the end zone by Joshua Holani in another huge play for the Eagles.
With seven commits to USC playing on the drenched Sierra Canyon all-weather field and USC Heisman Trophy winner Palmer coaching Santa Margarita, it would have been a perfect time to hire Traveler to take a gallop around the field or borrow the Trojan band to play “Tusk.”
Palmer has certainly made an impact in his first s†int as a high school coach.
“It’s been real fun and it’s still going,” he said.
DALLAS — James Harden scored four of his 10 overtime points in the second extra period and finished with season highs of 41 points and 14 rebounds, along with 11 assists, as the Clippers beat the Dallas Mavericks 133-127 in an NBA Cup game on Friday night.
Harden had the 82nd triple-double of his career and Ivica Zubac added a season-high 27 points and 11 rebounds as the Clippers (4-8) snapped a six-game losing streak and improved to 2-0 in the NBA Cup.
Naji Marshall, making his first start of the season, and D’Angelo Russell, coming off the bench, scored 28 points apiece to lead the Mavericks (3-10), who are 0-2 in group play. Dallas has lost three straight games and seven of its last eight.
Harden, who had two three-pointers in the first overtime, followed two made free throws with a driving basket to give the Clippers a 129-125 lead with 3:07 left in the second overtime.
It appeared the Clippers took a 125-123 lead with 1.4 seconds left in the first overtime when Dallas’ Daniel Gafford was called for goaltending on a Harden shot, but video review reversed the call.
The Clippers’ Bogdan Bogdanovic had five three-pointers and 21 points — both season highs — off the bench.
Dereck Lively II, who missed the previous nine games with a sprained right knee, returned to the Mavericks’ shorthanded frontcourt. Lively, coming off the bench on a minutes’ restriction, had four points — all in the fourth period — and five rebounds. Dallas played without big men Anthony Davis (eighth consecutive game missed with a strained left calf) and P.J. Washington Jr. (left shoulder strained in Dallas’ previous game).
The Clippers played their second game after Bradley Beal was lost for the season with a fractured hip on Saturday. Kawhi Leonard missed his sixth consecutive game with a sprained ankle.
Before she came to USC, it had never occurred to Jazzy Davidson how charmed her basketball upbringing had been. Growing up outside of Portland, nearly all of her years playing the game were spent with the same tight-knit group of girls — girls who’d been best friends since before the fifth grade and who, after all that time, could anticipate her every move before she made it.
“They’re basically my sisters,” Davidson says.
They’d been that way pretty much as far back as she could remember. Allie, she met in kindergarten. She and Sara joined the same squad in second grade. By 10, Dylan, Reyce and Avery were on the club team, too. For the next eight years or so, up through March’s Oregon girls 6A state championship, they were inseparable, the six of them spending almost every waking moment together.
But now, a few days before the start of her freshman season at USC, Davidson is in Los Angeles, while her former teammates are scattered across the Pacific Northwest playing with various other Division I schools. It’s an odd feeling, she admits, but a thrilling one, too — to be here with a new team, continuing her basketball journey without the girls who’d been there the whole way.
Reyce Mogel, left, Avery Peterson, Dylan Mogel and Jazzy Davidson played together on youth and high school teams.
(Courtesy of Reyce Mogel)
“Being here made me realize how comfortable I was with them,” Davidson said. “It’s definitely different now, definitely a learning experience.”
Within that well-worn dynamic, Davidson developed into one of the top women’s hoops prospects in the nation, all while she and her friends led Clackamas High on an unprecedented, four-year run of success. Now, early in her freshman season at USC, Davidson steps into circumstances that no one would have anticipated when she signed with the school.
At the time, the expectation was that she could be brought along as a talented No. 2 while the Trojans’ generational star JuJu Watkins commanded all the outside noise and nightly double teams. But then Watkins injured her knee in March, forcing her to sit out the 2025-26 season. Suddenly, the Trojans’ top prospect also became their saving grace.
No one, for the record, is saying that out loud at USC. Nor does anyone in the building expect Davidson to step seamlessly into Watkins’ shoes.
“Those are very unique shoes,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb says. “But the fact that Jazzy can step into our program and already just make a really unique and incredible impression on everybody is pretty wild.”
By her own admission, Davidson has never been the fastest to warm up with new people. Most outside of her circle would probably describe her as “quiet” or “reserved.” It’s only once you get to know her that you really see who she is and what she’s capable of.
USC got a brief glimpse Sunday, with the Trojans trailing by a point to No. 9 North Carolina State and 10 seconds on the clock. Coming out of a timeout, the 6-1 Davidson cut swiftly through two defenders toward the basket, caught an inbound pass and, without taking a step, laid in the game-winning bucket.
The stage gets even bigger on Saturday, when No. 8 USC meets No. 2 South Carolina at Crypto Arena in the first of several grueling tests awaiting on a slate that includes four games against the top three teams in the Associated Press preseason top 25 poll. Any hope of the Trojans reaching the same heights as last season hinges in part on their star freshman quickly finding her potential.
No one has seen Davidson fulfill that promise like the girls who have been there since the start. As far as they’re concerned, it won’t be long before the world sees what they have.
“If you know Jazzy,” says Allie Roden, now a freshman guard at Colorado State, “you know she can do anything she wants, pretty much.”
When Davidson’s mother saw that her 5-year old daughter was unusually tall, she signed Jasmine — who would later be known as Jazzy — up for basketball. Roden was on that first team. She has seen the video evidence of the two of them, both still in kindergarten, launching basketballs over their heads at the backboard.
“We were terrible,” Roden says with a laugh, “but we thought we were really great.”
Davidson moved down the street from Roden in the fourth grade, and by that point, she’d figured something out. Enough at least to catch the attention of Clackamas High coach Korey Landolt, whose daughter played for the same club program.
“I saw [Davidson] working with a trainer and just thought, ‘Huh, this kid is different,’” Landolt says.
From left to right, Avery Peterson, Sara Barhoum, Dylan Mogel, Jazzy Davidson, Reyce Mogel, Allie Roden played together for years, leading Clackamas High in Oregon to a state championship.
(Courtesy of Reyce Mogel)
Once the others joined forces a year later on the club team Northwest Select, there wasn’t much anyone could do to stop them. The six girls seemed to fit seamlessly together on the court. Off it, Roden says, “we were inseparable pretty much as soon as we met.” She doesn’t recall their team losing a game against their age group for two full years at one point.
It was around that time that Davidson separated herself from the pack as a prospect. She’d grown to 5-foot-10 by the seventh grade, only for the pandemic to shut down essentially the entire state, including all high school sports.
So Davidson threw herself into basketball. She and Sara Barhoum, who’s now a freshman at Oregon, started working out together during free time between online classes, doing what she could to add strength to her spindly frame. Then they’d shoot together at night, each pushing the other to improve.
“It was a big time for me,” Davidson says. “That was when I honed in on everything.”
Two or three times per month, the team would travel out of state to test themselves. On one particularly memorable trip, just the six of them entered a tournament in Dana Point. They ended up winning the whole thing, beating some of the nation’s best teams, despite the fact they’d stayed up late playing Heads Up and were sunburned from a beach visit the day before.
Those middle school trips only cemented their bond — as well as Davidson’s place as a top prospect. By her freshman season, with all of them together at Clackamas High, the secret was out. College coaches came calling. Gottlieb, who had just taken the job at USC, was one.
Even then, there was a certain grace with which Davidson played the game — as if it flowed from her naturally. “She’s so fluid,” Gottlieb explains. “She glides.” But there was also a fearlessness in getting to the rim against much older, stronger players.
“She had to hold her own,” Landolt says. “But people couldn’t stop her inside. They couldn’t stop her outside. She was just so versatile. She could do everything.”
As a gangly freshman, Davidson stuffed the stat sheet with 22 points, eight rebounds, four steals, three assists and one block per game on her way to being named Oregon’s Gatorade Player of the Year. She won the award again as a sophomore … as well as the next two years after that.
When those four years were up, Davidson was the all-time leading scorer in Oregon Class 6A girls basketball history with 2,726 points. Still, some of her teammates contend she was even better on the defensive end.
“Jazzy is good at everything she does,” Barhoum said. “But she’s probably the best defender I’ve ever seen.”
USC guard Jazzy Davidson blocks a shot by North Carolina State’s Devyn Quigley on Nov. 9 in Charlotte, N.C.
(Lance King / Getty Images)
The girls played on the same team for six years when Clackamas made a run to the 6A state championship game. They’d spent so much time with each other, their coach says, that it could be “a blessing and a curse.” Sometimes, they bickered like sisters, too.
Landolt would urge them to hang out with other friends, only half-kidding. But all that time together made their connection on the court pretty much telepathic.
“There were so many passes I threw to Jazzy that no one else would’ve caught, but she was just there.” said Reyce Mogel, who now plays at Southern Oregon. “We were always on the same page. And not just me and Jazzy. Everybody.”
Davidson was on the bench, in foul trouble, for a long stretch of the state championship game against South Medford. But she delivered two key blocks in the final minute as Clackamas won its first state title.
Two years later, when they returned to the state championship as seniors, Davidson was again forced to sit for a long period after twisting her ankle. This time, her absence “took the wind out of everyone’s sails,” Landolt says. Clackamas blew a 19-point, third-quarter lead from there, even as a hobbled Davidson tried to give it a go in the final minutes.
The six girls found each other after the final buzzer, heartbroken. They knew it would be the last time.
Their final record together at Clackamas: 102-14.
“We all were hugging,” Barhoum says, “and just saying to each other, we’re all off to do better things. We all made history. And now everybody is going to make history somewhere else.”
They may live apart now, but the six girls, all now playing on separate for college basketball programs, still talk all the time.
“I FaceTime one of them at least every day,” Davidson says.
Her Trojan teammates are still getting to know her, still learning her tendencies. That will come with time. But the reason she ultimately chose USC, over every other top program, was how much it felt like home.
Through two games, Davidson seems to have settled seamlessly into a starring role at USC, inviting the inevitable comparisons to Watkins that Gottlieb would rather avoid.
USC guard Jazzy Davidson puts up a three-point shot against North Carolina State on Nov. 9 in Charlotte, N.C.
(Lance King / Getty Images)
“You do not need to be anything other than what your best self is,” Gottlieb insists.
Her friends have seen up close how far Davidson can take a team at her best. But no one, not even the six of them, understand the circumstances Davidson has stepped into quite like Watkins.
Her advice was simple. But it still resonated with Davidson on the doorstep of the season.
“She just told me not to be anxious about any of this,” Davidson says. “You’re good. Just go play how you play, and you’ll be fine.”
Alex DeBrincat had two goals and an assist and the Detroit Red Wings beat the Ducks 6-3 on Thursday night to end a three-game losing streak.
DeBrincat has 18 goals and 33 points in 20 games against the Ducks.
Moritz Seider and Dylan Larkin each had a goal and an assist, and Axel Sandin-Pellikka scored his second career goal. Michael Rasmussen also scored after being a healthy scratch for Detroit’s 5-1 loss to Chicago on Sunday.
Jonatan Berggren, Patrick Kane and Lucas Raymond added two assists apiece.
Seider and DeBrincat scored on power plays, reviving a Detroit unit that had gone one for 20 during its previous five games.
John Gibson and Cam Talbot combined for 25 saves for Detroit. Gibson departed after two periods because of an undisclosed injury.
Cutter Gauthier, Chris Kreider and Mikael Granlund scored for the Ducks, and Lukas Dostal made 27 saves. Leo Carlsson’ss 11-game points streak ended. The Ducks have lost two straight after a seven-game winning streak.
Detroit took a 3-2 lead in the second period after a scoreless first.
The Red Wings broke the deadlock at 5:57 of the period after the Ducks’ Mason McTavish was whistled for his third penalty of the game. Seider scored on a shot from the point but the Ducks tied it less than two minutes later on Gauthier’s team-high 12th goal.
Rasmussen and Kreider traded goals before Sandin-Pellikka scored from the point for his second career goal.
DeBrincat gave the Red Wings a 4-2 lead 50 seconds into the third period when he tipped in Seider’s shot during a power play. Larkin scored on a two-on-none breakaway to answer Granlund’s goal. DeBrincat added an empty-netter.
With heavy rain expected this weekend, the chance for high school football players in Los Angeles to run, tackle and enjoy playing in the mud is more than possible. There’s eight City Section teams hosting playoff games Friday night with grass fields that have little grass left.
That means fun times ahead.
“It’s not going to be pretty,” Venice coach Angelo Gasca said of his field’s condition for a game against Franklin.
The coaches might not like mud, but Gasca said his players are excited.
“Everyone is looking forward to it,” Gasca said.
San Pedro, Venice, Eagle Rock, Cleveland, San Fernando, Santee, Jefferson and Wilson have either not changed their fields into all-weather turf or chose to keep grass. Eagle Rock next season is switching to all-weather, so coach Andy Moran might have a final home game in the mud against Dorsey.
San Pedro lost to Eagle Rock in the rain in 2022. Pirates coach Corey Walsh has not forgotten. He prepared with wet footballs in practice this week for Friday’s game against Crenshaw.
“We’re super excited,” he said.
The people who aren’t excited are the bus drivers who will have to clean their buses; fans who will break out umbrellas, plastic hats and boots; parents who will have to clean uniforms; sportswriters trying to keep stats with no covering.
Yes, Southern California is not used to playing high school football in the rain. One of the most famous games was Servite beating Edison 16-6 in the 2009 Pac-5 championship game at Angels Stadium. The lead sentence in the Los Angeles Times story was, “Playing in conditions more suitable for sea gulls and ducks.”
Former NBA champion Jason Williams was discussing Thompson’s shooting struggles this season with his “Hoopin’ N Hollerin’” co-hosts, fellow ex-NBA player Patrick Beverley and Barstool Sports personality Rone.
Thompson, who won four NBA titles with the Golden State Warriors, is 35 and playing in his 13th NBA season, not counting the two-plus seasons he missed from 2019-2021 while recovering from tears to the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and his right Achilles tendon.
Nonetheless, Thompson’s relationship with the Grammy-winning hip-hop star was mentioned as a possible explanation for his career-low statistics (8.5 points per game, 32% shooting) after 11 games this season. The couple went public with their relationship during the offseason, and the “Not My Fault” singer has been seen in attendance at multiple Mavericks games since then.
Williams used an extremely explicit term for a female body part to make his point.
“I’m from West Virginia, man. I’ve been taught a lot by some old folks, old white folks. They say p—’s powerful,” Williams said. “They say it’s so powerful … it only takes one … to drag a battleship across a desert, that’s how powerful it is.
“Klay Thompson — I ain’t saying that’s what it is, but that might be what it is. That ain’t taking nothing away from Megan Thee Stallion. She might be a great girl, great for him. But I don’t know if she’s great for the shot.”
A video clip of the discussion — that added a graphic that featured a photo of Thompson and Megan Thee Stallion together and the caption “What’s going on with Klay Thompson?” — was posted to the podcast’s Instagram account. Thompson called out the show’s hosts in the post’s comment section.
“Referring to my GF as a ‘p—’ is so disgusting and disturbing,” Thompson wrote. “Especially from someone who played in the NBA . How would yall feel if I referred to your wives in such a way ? …
It’s more than two hours before Sherman Oaks Notre Dame’s football team plays in a Southern Section playoff game, and there’s one big teenager lying on his back at the 50-yard line with headphones on. Samson Fatu, 6 feet 5 and 305 pounds, is using the all-weather turf as his “Sleep Number bed.”
“Here I Am,” a song by J Boog, is playing on his headphones. This is the way Fatu focuses before a game.
He’s a starting offensive tackle for Notre Dame, which hosts Chino Hills in a Division 3 playoff game on Friday. His father, Rikishi, is in the WWE Hall of Fame. Three brothers are pro wrestlers and don’t be surprised if Samson one day becomes the latest Samoan family member to start throwing people down. He’s that big and strong and anyone named Samson has star power.
He’s finally healthy after getting injured last season. Get your photos of the big kid with lots of hair. One day you might be watching him on TV in football or wrestling.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].
