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MILWAUKEE — Bennedict Mathurin scored 28 points, John Collins had 22 and Kawhi Leonard finished with 20 as the Clippers got past the short-handed Milwaukee Bucks 127-113 on Sunday for their fifth consecutive win.

Darius Garland added 15 points and 11 assists and Derrick Jones Jr. 13 points for the Clippers, who made 45 of 77 shots (58.4%).

Gary Trent Jr. had a season-high 36 points to pace Milwaukee, which had only eight players available. Taurean Prince added 18 points and AJ Green scored 15 for the Bucks, who have lost 10 of their last 12 games.

The Bucks stayed close early, trailing 29-25 after one quarter with Trent scoring 11 points, including sinking three of five from three-point range.

The Clippers began to pull away in the second, holding a 57-46 lead at the half after leading by as many as 16. Leonard had 15 first-half points.

Brook Lopez, a member of the Bucks’ 2021 NBA championship team, was honored with a video tribute in his first visit back to Milwaukee. He was whistled for a technical foul as the teams were headed to the locker room at halftime.

The Clippers outscored Milwaukee 39-28 in the third and extended its lead to as many as 24 points in the fourth before the Bucks pulled within 11 in the late stages.

Sloppy play hurt Milwaukee, which committed 22 turnovers leading to 33 Clippers points.

Giannis Antetokounmpo sat out a seventh consecutive game for Milwaukee with a left knee hyperextension and bone bruise. The two-time MVP has played in a career-low 36 games this season.

The Bucks also were missing Kevin Porter Jr. (right knee), Bobby Portis (left wrist sprain), Kyle Kuzma (Achilles tendinopathy), Ryan Rollins (left hip flexor), Myles Turner (right knee), Gary Harris (personal reasons) and Thanasis Antetokounmpo (left calf).

Green and Ousmane Dieng fouled out in the fourth, leaving the Bucks with six available players to finish the game.

Up next for the Clippers: vs. the Portland Trail Blazers at Intuit Dome on Tuesday.

Netflix has confirmed Bridgerton’s fifth season is currently in production but fans aren’t happy about the direction of the hit period drama

Bridgerton season five will officially focus on middle daughter Francesca with Hannah Dodd taking the lead in Netflix’s popular period romance drama.

Dodd will be starring alongside Masali Baduza as Michaela Stirling, marking the first time the hit streaming series will spotlight a same-sex couple.

The upcoming instalment, which is currently in production, will be set after the death of Francesca’s husband John Stirling (played by Victor Alli) as she begins to explore her complex feelings for his outgoing cousin.

A synopsis confirms: “The fifth season of Bridgerton spotlights introverted middle daughter Francesca.

“Two years after losing her beloved husband John, Fran decides to reenter the marriage mart for practical reasons.

“But when John’s cousin Michaela returns to London to tend to the Kilmartin estate, Fran’s complicated feelings will have her questioning whether to stick to her pragmatic intentions or pursue her inner passions.”

A first-look teaser for the upcoming season has given fans a tantalising glimpse of the pair together, giving each other a tender glance as inspiring music swells.

While countless fans are thrilled to see Fran and Michaela’s romance develop, others have criticised the decision to delay Eloise Bridgerton’s (Claudia Jessie) storyline to season six.

In Julia Quinn’s original novels, 28-year-old Eloise finds love in the fifth book, To Sir Phillip, With Love, after exchanging letters with widower Sir Phillip Crane, played by Chris Fulton in the TV adaptation.

“Big mistake it should have been Eloise next, no buzz here l’m sorry to say,” one viewer fumed on X, adding a shrug emoji.

Someone else exclaimed: “BIG Mistake! should’ve been Eloise first, Fran should’ve had time to grieve.”

Another said: “im actually mad because wdym im not seeing [Eloise’s] season till 2030.” A third wrote: “THEYRE DOING FRANCESCA BEFORE ELOISE?? WHATTT.”

The conversation continued on Reddit, where one user reasoned: “I’m not sure how to feel about this I’m excited for them and their story but honestly what are they going to do with Eloise for another season, i just can’t see what they do with her.”

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“I mean great but I have mixed feelings. I just really wanted Eloise to be the next,” another agreed.

Though someone else argued: “Ayyy, my girls!! So excited to see them lead, I know it’s going to be a fantastic season! Hopefully they can advance Eloise’s plotline as well, like how Fran’s story got a headstart in S3.”

Production starting this spring indicates the next season should arrive on Netflix at some point in 2027.

Hopefully that also means fans won’t be waiting too long before Eloise finally gets her time to shine.

Bridgerton is available to stream on Netflix.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has a lead over her challengers in her bid for reelection, but more than half of voters view her unfavorably, according to a poll released Sunday.

Bass was supported by 25% of voters, while City Councilmember Nithya Raman drew 17% and conservative reality TV star Spencer Pratt came in third at 14% in the poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times.

About a quarter of voters were undecided, the poll found.

Bass has come under heavy criticism for her handling of the devastating Palisades fire. More than a year later, 56% of those polled said they had an unfavorable view of her, while 31% viewed her favorably.

The survey of 840 likely voters between March 9 and 15 provides one of the first snapshots of the mayoral race, less than three months before the June 2 primary.

Beyond the top three, leftist Rae Huang notched support from 8% of those polled, while tech entrepreneur Adam Miller drew 6%.

Despite Bass’ lead, the poll is “borderline catastrophic” for her, because the field of candidates is so weak, said Dan Schnur, a politics professor at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine.

“That she’s having this much trouble against this field, against such a little-known field of opponents, bodes very, very poorly for her,” Schnur said. “The only thing saving her at this point is that the top tier of potential candidates who were considering running against her decided to stay out of this race.”

The mayoral race solidified in early February, when Raman shocked the political establishment by jumping in against her ally Bass, hours before the filing deadline.

By that time, other well-known politicians, including billionaire developer Rick Caruso and L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, had opted to stay out of the race. Former Los Angeles schools Supt. Austin Beutner dropped out following the death of his 22-year-old daughter.

Those decisions have left Angelenos with a field of candidates they hardly know. While they have strong views about Bass, slightly more than half of those polled said they didn’t know enough about Raman to have an opinion. Even more voters were unfamiliar with the other candidates.

Bass was on a diplomatic trip to Ghana when the Palisades fire ignited on Jan. 7, 2025, killing 12 people and destroying thousands of homes. She was unsteady in her initial public appearances and has since come under attack by Pratt, Caruso and others over the LAFD’s management of the fire and the pace of the recovery as well as allegations that she ordered an after-action report on the fire to be watered down.

Bass’ campaign has pointed to declining homelessness and crime as among the successes of her first term as mayor.

“It’s clear Angelenos are frustrated by decades of inaction on major issues,” Douglas Herman, a spokesperson for the Bass campaign, said in a statement. “This campaign will show that it’s Karen Bass who changed the direction on these issues and that others running responded with reports while Karen Bass took action.”

Raman, who represents Los Feliz and parts of Silver Lake and the San Fernando Valley, was viewed favorably by 26% of those polled and unfavorably by 23%. The 51% who said they didn’t have an opinion of her could be an indication that she has yet to expand her name recognition citywide.

She has said that her decision to run was driven in part by her frustration with city leaders’ inability to get the basics right, such as fixing streetlights and paving streets.

“I am very grateful that our campaign to make our city more affordable is resonating with so many Angelenos,” she said in a statement.

Former City Councilmember Mike Bonin, who runs the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State L.A., said that after the shock of Raman’s entry into the race, the mayoral campaign has taken on a sleepier pace.

“Candidates are raising money and doing their due diligence … but it’s felt like a staid, quiet race,” he said. “This poll reflects that.”

Bonin said the most important number is the gap between Raman and Pratt.

If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote in the primary, the top two finishers will proceed to a November run off. According to Bonin, Raman and Pratt will likely be jockeying to face off against Bass.

“While voters are clearly looking for an alternative [to Bass], they haven’t chosen one,” Bonin said.

The poll showed Bass — the city’s first female mayor and first Black female mayor — with strong support from Black voters, at 43%, while Raman has 6%.

Raman, who if elected would be the city’s first South Asian mayor, leads with Asian and Pacific Islander voters at 34%, with Bass at 10%.

Bass performs better with older voters, while Raman and Huang are appealing to younger voters, the poll found. Huang led the pack at 19% with voters between 18 and 29 years old.

In the poll, Angelenos ranked their top priorities for the next mayor to address. Building more affordable housing came in first, followed by fixing streets, sidewalks and streetlights and then moving homeless Angelenos indoors.

One potential bright spot for Bass was policing.

The poll found that 39% of Angelenos think the LAPD needs to increase in size, with 29% saying the department should stay the same size and 19% saying it should shrink.

Bass has called on the City Council to hire more police officers.

Raman, meanwhile, has said that she believes the police force is the right size at around 8,700 officers, down from a peak of 10,000 in 2020.

“Bass is going to make Raman look like AOC’s liberal sister,” said Schnur, referring to progressive U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). “If she ends up in a runoff against Raman, she can run as a tough-on-crime centrist.”

SACRAMENTO — Californians have never been forced to choose between Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris, two homegrown political darlings, during any election.

But if the state’s registered Democrats picked now, Newsom would trounce Harris as their party’s next nominee for president and have the edge over other Democratic contenders, according to a poll released Friday by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.

Twenty-eight percent of the California Democrats who were surveyed selected the governor as their top choice in the 2028 presidential election. U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) followed with 14% and former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg received 11%. Harris came in fourth, with only 9% of voters in her own state naming her as their preferred Democratic nominee.

“It’s quite a positive result for Newsom,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS Poll. “He’s separated himself from the rest of the pack, and especially when you compare him to the other major Californian in the considerations, he’s three times as much as Kamala. That’s quite impressive.”

The political careers of the governor and former vice president have orbited each other but never crossed since Newsom was sworn in as San Francisco’s mayor and Harris as the city’s district attorney on the same day in 2004. Now the two Bay Area natives are both flirting with the 2028 presidential contest as they travel the country promoting their life stories on respective book tours.

It’s early days and neither politician has said they will or won’t launch official campaigns for the Oval Office. The possibility remains that Californians might finally see a matchup that the two Democrats have long avoided.

Newsom set his sights on the governor’s office in 2010 before dropping out and running for lieutenant governor, a largely powerless post in which he served in the shadow of Gov. Jerry Brown for eight years. Harris won election that year as California attorney general.

Harris’ and Newsom’s paths diverged again when she chose to run for U.S. Senate in a 2016 contest to replace former Sen. Barbara Boxer and he announced his candidacy for governor in the 2018 election.

When Harris jumped into the 2020 and 2024 races for the White House, Newsom said he wouldn’t run against her. He’s discredited the idea that the two politicians have some kind of a sibling rivalry and noted that their trajectories ran adjacent and never collided.

Newsom was asked again last month whether he would vie against Harris in a presidential contest. The governor said he hasn’t “gotten in the way of her ambition ever,” and he doesn’t imagine that he would in the future. His answer changed when he was pressed to respond specifically to the potential for 2028.

“That’s fate. I don’t, I don’t know,” Newsom said to CNN’s Dana Bash, throwing up his hands. “You know, you can only control what you can control.”

Newsom and Harris had greater support from Black and Latino voters than white and Asian American Democrats in the new poll. She performed well among Democrats younger than 30 compared with other age groups, while Newsom fared better with older Democrats. More women selected Newsom as their first or second choice than they did Harris.

Neither California heavyweight performed particularly great among Democratic voters in the Bay Area, which DiCamillo called a curious finding for two politicians from the region. Support was higher for Harris and Newsom in almost every other region of the state.

DiCamillo believes the presence of Ocasio-Cortez on the list probably pulled some support from Harris. California voters in other recent polls were also sour on a third presidential run by Harris.

An Institute of Governmental Studies poll in August gauged interest in the potential candidacy of Newsom and Harris. About 45% of the state’s registered voters said they were enthusiastic about Newsom running, compared with 36% for Harris. Almost two-third of voters in that survey, and half of Democrats, said Harris should not run for president again.

Although Newsom clearly beat the field of candidates in the most recent poll, DiCamillo said receiving support from a little more than a quarter of those surveyed in his own backyard isn’t exactly wonderful. The governor’s approval rating is also down.

The poll found that 48% of California registered voters say they approve of the job Newsom is doing, with the same share disapproving of his performance. That marks a drop from 51% approval the last time DiCamillo asked in August. Disapproval also climbed, by 5 percentage points.

Voters held positive opinions about Newsom’s participation in international conferences, which was described in the poll as the governor “offering an alternative to the policies being promoted by President Trump on issues like climate change and the economy.” The poll found 59% of statewide registered voters approve and 37% disapprove.

Cristina G. Mora, co-director of the poll, said the results suggest Newsom’s more aggressive stance with Trump seems to resonate in his own state.

“Though Californians may hold mixed views on his gubernatorial tenure, they overwhelmingly see him as the strongest counter to Trump and MAGA candidates,” Mora said. “Harris’s earlier presidential defeat, compounded by persistent voter biases against women and candidates of color, may also be shaping these early numbers.”

The Berkeley IGS/Times poll surveyed 5,019 California registered voters online in English and Spanish from March 9 to 14. The results are estimated to have a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points in either direction in the overall sample, and larger numbers for subgroups.

SACRAMENTO — Delaney Shiring, a 5-foot-10 senior at El Dorado High, kept delivering clutch baskets when her team needed them most during a nerve-racking second half that enabled the Golden Hawks to win their first state girls’ basketball championship with a 42-40 win over San José Valley Christian in the Division III final on Friday at Golden 1 Center.

“It’s amazing,” said Shiring, who finished with 15 points and six rebounds. “It’s meant to be. Everything is so historic. We bought into those big moments.”

El Dorado (24-14) appeared to have a comfortable nine-point lead midway through the third quarter when Kenedi Nomura, who scored 18 points, helped ignite a Valley Christian rally. A basket by Shiring near the end of the quarter ended a 5-0 Warriors run.

Shiring’s biggest basket came with 47 seconds left for a 41-38 lead. The lead dropped to 41-40 with 38 seconds left on a basket by Anaya Bannarbie. Then Riley Morikawa made one of two free throws with 13.1 seconds left for a two-point advantage. Valley Christian never got off a potential tying shot.

Kennedy Wood of El Dorado focus on making free throw in Division III state final.

(Greg Stein)

“They had some really good defenders,” Shiring said. “I really focus in big moments when the shot matters.”

El Dorado made the Southern Section playoffs as an at-large team before surging in the postseason under coach Matt Raya, winning a Division 4 section title and Division III regional title.

In “Rooster,” a genial comedy premiering Sunday on HBO, Steve Carell, comfortable as an uncomfortable person, plays Greg Russo, the author of a best-selling series of books whose hero is named Rooster. He has come to leafy, fictional Ludlow College to give a reading, but also because it’s where his daughter, Katie (Charly Clive) teaches art history, and because it’s all over school that her husband, Archie (Phil Dunster), a history professor, has left her for Sunny (Lauren Tsai), a graduate student in neuroscience. He’s a concerned father.

“They are light; they are fun. The characters that you like have sex, the ones you don’t get shot in the face,” Greg tells poetry professor Dylan (Danielle Deadwyler) of the “beach read” books he writes, as she ushers him to an auditorium. Unlike his fictional alter ego, Greg is by his own account a self-conscious introvert, heightened by the fact that his ex-wife, Elizabeth (Connie Britton) — “a philanthropist, a pioneer in corporate gender equality and an accomplished CEO” whose name adorns the school’s new student center — left him five years earlier and he never moved on. Additionally, Greg likes nuts and cocoa, can toss a penny into a jar from across a room, and played minor league hockey, which will put him back on skates here.

College president Walter Mann (John C. McGinley) decides it would be “a feather in his cap” to hire a reluctant Greg, “a best-selling author that the parents have actually heard of,” as an artist-in-residence — a deal he makes impossible to refuse by agreeing to keep Katie on staff after she accidentally burns down Archie’s house. (She was only trying to burn his first edition of “War & Peace.”) It’s a role quite like the one McGinley played/plays on “Scrubs,” but more politic and better dressed, when dressed — he takes meetings in his backyard sauna.

And they’re off.

Poetry professor Dylan (Danielle Deadwyler) and author Greg (Steve Carell) become colleagues when Greg is named artist-in-residence.

(Katrina Marcinowski / HBO)

The series was created by Bill Lawrence (“Ted Lasso,” “Shrinking,” “Scrubs,” “Bad Monkey”) and frequent collaborator Matt Tarses, and as men of at least a certain age, the view is slanted from experience back toward innocence; students play a secondary, though not insignificant role in the story. There are some pro forma jokes about the sensitivities of the young, with Greg getting into not-very-hot water over misunderstood references to “white whale” and the Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian.” (“Liberal arts college used to be havens for free thought, Greg,” says Walt. “When did you and I become the bad guys?”) Not that the olds are reliably smart about life — the ways in which they’re not power the series — but they have a better notion of where they’re stupid.

“No one must be humiliated,” Greg says to Archie, quoting Chekhov, as Archie goes off to talk to Katie. (The quote is in the animated opening titles as well, so you can take it as important.) But no one here is out to humiliate anyone, which is nasty and unkind and not at all the sort of humor Lawrence trades in. Of course, characters will be put into embarrassing positions, or embarrass themselves, embarrassment being the root of all comedy, or near enough. (There’s a good bit of slapstick knitted in.) And though we’re told that “there are real villains lurking around this place,” niceness reigns — at least through the six episodes, of 10, available to review — with the possible exception of Alan Ruck as the dean of English. (“There’s no way she wrote all these poems,” he says of Emily Dickinson.)

Though there are couples, and ex-couples and new couples, one doesn’t necessarily feel invested in their getting together, or staying together, or getting back together. Indeed, as in other Lawrence projects — which typically feature divorced or separated characters — romance is a sort of side dish, less the issue than whether people are managing to treat one another well. We knew Ted Lasso wasn’t going to get his wife back, but it wasn’t the point (nor was winning games, really); kindness was what mattered. Greg’s possibly pre-romantic friendship with Dylan is no more significant than his cross-generational friendship with a group of goofball students (led by Maximo Solas as Tommy); they treat each other as peers, while knowing they aren’t. He teaches them that peanut butter can make celery better, and they teach him that he’s cooler than he thinks.

Katie, who says she still loves Archie — who says he still loves her — will also call him “a run-of-the-mill narcissistic a— who sometimes smells like wildflowers.” (As for Sunny, practical and deadpan — that no one gets her jokes is a running joke — not even Archie can see what she sees in him, a problem you might have as well, but, as is true of most everyone here, we’re not meant to merely write him off. Funny secondary characters, who get some of the best business, notably include Rory Scovel as a cop who can’t keep track of his gun, Robby Hoffman as Sunny’s intense, anti-Archie roommate and Annie Mumolo (co-writer of “Bridesmaids”) as Walt’s arch assistant.

Old-but-not-that-old-fashioned, “Rooster” has a tinge of Gen X nostalgia, underscored by the ’80s college radio classics that line the soundtrack. (R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe co-wrote and sings the series’ theme, and Greg, drunk and in a mood, will kill a party getting the DJ to play “Everybody Hurts.” Directed by Jonathan Krisel (“Portlandia,” “Baskets”), it’s low stakes, soft-edged, humane, basically gentle, a little fantastic, a little farcical, well cast and well played in every instance — qualities I happen to like, and maybe you do, too.

Berger, who has not won on the PGA Tour since 2021, put himself on course for the £3m top prize thanks to a clean run on the back nine which included three birdies.

“I actually feel like I played better [today] – the course was a little tougher,” he said.

“I’m looking forward to the next couple of days and seeing the challenge they bring.”

Americans Sahith Theegala and Collin Morikawa and Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg are tied for third on seven under, with American Ricky Fowler one shot further back.

McIlroy, who birdied four of the first seven holes on the back nine, said: “I played the last 10 holes really, really well.

“Overall I am really pleased. I played a very sort of controlled, patient round of golf, which you need to do around here.”

American world number one Scottie Scheffler bogeyed the 18th in a round of 71 that left him three under.

England’s Tommy Fleetwood, who was four over after the first round, shot three birdies on the back nine in a second-round 69 to make the cut on one over.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton struck the first blow of the new Formula 1 era with first and second fastest times in opening practice at the Australian Grand Prix.

Leclerc replaced Hamilton in top spot with a late lap that moved him 0.469 seconds clear of the seven-time champion.

Until then, less than 0.1secs had separated Hamilton, Leclerc and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

Verstappen’s new team-mate Isack Hadjar was fourth fastest, 0.820secs off the pace, ahead of 18-year-old Briton Arvid Lindblad, making his debut for the Racing Bulls team.

Aston Martin, whose dire form has been in many ways the story of the new season so far, had a predictably difficult session.

Fernando Alonso was not able to run at all because of a problem with his Honda power-unit. Team-mate Lance Stroll managed just three laps before an engine problem was also discovered on his car.

Team principal Adrian Newey had stunned F1 on Thursday when he said that the vibrations from the Honda engine were so bad that Alonso felt unable to do more than 25 laps without risking permanent nerve damage in his hands.

But this appears to have been a different reliability issue for an engine that is well below the required standard in F1 following the introduction of new rules this season.

She was a two-time state champion in high school coming out of the Syracuse area. She then was a four-time NCAA champion at UConn. She’s won three WNBA titles, three World Cup gold medals, three Olympic gold medals, even two EuroLeague titles.

And now, add an Unrivaled title to the mix — a league that she co-founded.

Breanna Stewart has won it all.

Stewart and Mist are the queens of Unrivaled for 2026, topping Phantom 80-74 in the championship game Wednesday night to cap the league’s second season. Stewart scored 32 points, setting the tone by scoring Mist’s first 12 points of the second half and her team — which went 0-2 against Phantom in the regular season — wouldn’t trail again.

“What I’ll remember the most about this Mist team is we might not be the loudest, but we’re going to work the hardest,” said Stewart, who was picked as MVP of the final — and whose team will split a $600,000 winners’ pool.

It ended somewhat controversially: an offensive foul on Stewart was overturned to a block on review, giving her a free throw to win the title. Stewart swished the shot, and confetti fell from the roof in celebration.

“Just focused on doing it for my team,” Stewart said.

Sparks star Kelsey Plum carried Phantom with 40 points on 14-for-21 shooting, along with six rebounds and five assists.

It was a brilliant effort — but Stewart and Mist had just a bit too much.

“It’s hard when it ends like this,” Plum said. “But overall, it was an amazing season.”

Arike Ogunbowale had 19 and Allisha Gray scored 12 for Mist, while Kiki Iriafen scored 13 and Tiffany Hayes had 12 for Phantom.

“There was complete faith in this group,” Mist coach Zach O’Brien said. “I’m just glad we got it done.”

Stewart and Napheesa Collier are credited as the co-founders of the league, one that if nothing else has filled a void on calendar for the women’s pro game.

“I think that there was a space that wasn’t kind of being used as far as what professional women’s basketball players were doing,” Stewart said. “We used to have a seven-month blackout period where you didn’t know what these professional basketball players were doing. And now you know.”

The question is what comes next.

The WNBA and its players do not have a labor agreement for next season, one that is slated — at this point — to start in about two months. The WNBA has told the players’ union that it needs to get a deal in place by this coming Tuesday to start the season on time.

And for now, there’s no indication that’ll happen. That means the Mist-Phantom final could be the last pro women’s game in the U.S. for a while.

Some will point to poor television ratings as a sign of trouble, while others can point to crowds drawn this season in Brooklyn and Philadelphia as signs of potential for Unrivaled. Players say it works, and there’s no plans to stop now.

“People probably doubt us, that we can sustain it,” Unrivaled CEO Alex Bazzell said. “That’s what drives us and that’s also what drives these players They’re all competitors and we are, too.”

Unrivaled — a 3-on-3, full-court game played on a 72-foot floor, shorter than an NBA or college court — sells itself on being fast-paced, with an 18-second shot clock, 7-minute quarters and plenty of open space for players to create.

Kelsey Plum dribbles against Veronica Burton in the second quarter.

(Leonardo Fernandez / Getty Images)

The title game didn’t disappoint in that regard.

They were the top two seeds entering the playoffs — Phantom 1, Mist 2 — and Wednesday was back and forth. It was 24-24 after one quarter, 43-43 at the half, neither team having led by more than seven at any point.

Mist led 68-62 going to the fourth, an untimed final quarter where 11 points get added to the leading score as the end-of-game target.

To win the title: first team to 79 wins. Mist scored the first six points of the final quarter, going up by 12. Plum answered with five straight points, pushing her total to 35 for the night and getting Phantom within 74-67.

But Mist held the lead the rest of the way, and Stewart — as she has so many times — had a title to savor.

“It was our goal from Day One to be here, to be on this podium,” O’Brien said.