pace

Sidney Crosby scored two goals while moving into sole possession of sixth place on the NHL’s career scoring list, and the Pittsburgh Penguins ended their skid at four games with a 5-2 victory over the Kings on Saturday night.

The 39-year-old Crosby broke his tie with Kings great Marcel Dionne by scoring his 1,772nd point when Evgeni Malkin’s one-timer deflected in off him in the second period. Crosby added a late empty-net goal, diving face-first on the ice to tip it home.

Tommy Novak got two goals in the first six minutes and Egor Chinakhov also scored for the Penguins (6-9-2), who moved Crosby and the 40-year-old Malkin onto their top line before the game in an effort to spark their struggling lineup. Sergei Murashov made 26 saves as Pittsburgh opened a three-game California trip with just its third win in 11 games.

Corey Perry and Alex Laferriere scored and Darcy Kuemper stopped only 14 shots for the Kings (5-8-2), who have lost two of the last three during their seven-game homestand.

Novak put the Penguins ahead less than two minutes after the opening faceoff after controlling a rebound in front. Less than 3½ minutes later, he carried the puck into the zone and followed behind Ben Kindel to cash in another rebound for his seventh career multi-goal game.

Perry scored midway through the first when Mikey Anderson’s high shot off the end boards ricocheted down toward the crease, where he slapped it out of mid-air for the second goal of his 22nd NHL season.

Chinakhov scored on a power play late in the first to put the Penguins up 3-1, but Laferriere scored on a power play early in the second.

Artemi Panarin appeared to score a tying rebound goal for the Kings late in the second period, but it was disallowed after a video review determined the Kings’ zone entry had been offside. Moments later, Erik Karlsson’s backhand pass set up Malkin’s shot off Crosby.

Up next for the Kings: vs. Nashville at Crypto.com Arena on Tuesday.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Shai-Gilgeous Alexander scored 34 points, Ajay Mitchell had 18 off the bench, and the Oklahoma City Thunder stayed undefeated with a 108-101 victory over the Clippers on Sunday night.

Isaiah Hartenstein added 12 points and 12 rebounds for Oklahoma City, which won its third straight to start the season but lost three players to injury, including All-Star guard Jalen Williams, who went down hard on a drive to the basket with 1:14 left. Williams left the court on a stretcher with towels covering his left leg.

Guard Cason Wallace (left shoulder soreness) and forward Jaylin Williams (right wrist soreness) left the game in the first quarter and did not return. Mitchell was eight-for-14 shooting with six rebounds, four assists and three steals in 28 minutes.

Darius Garland scored 16 points for the Clippers (1-2). Kris Dunn and Brook Lopez had 15 points each for the Clippers, who pulled to 97-96 on a three-point shot by Derrick Jones Jr. with three minutes left but never tied the game or took the lead.

Up next for the Clippers: vs. the Lakers at Intuit Dome on Wednesday night.

Gains and losses were shaped by quarterly earnings, technical momentum (for CSGP), sector-specific news such as SpaceX’s interest in cell sites (boosting CCI), and factors like changes in investment guidance (pressuring BNL) or reduced revenue from amortization (impacting CCI).

Ferrari have an upgrade on their car this weekend, focused on a new floor, but Leclerc was downplaying expectations.

“It felt good but it is not the gain I have seen or heard about,” Leclerc said. “It is small gains but we could still see them on the car. It is a small step forward and we started the weekend on the right foot with a good balance and that is the outstanding thing with this Friday.

“It has been a very clean Friday for me, but the others seem to be gaining more than us from Friday to Saturday and seeing the little gap there is, it is not going to be so easy tomorrow.”

Leclerc picked up on Verstappen’s complaints about the track surface on Thursday by saying: “It was very poor. The first sector is particularly poor and very bumpy.”

McLaren’s Lando Norris was seventh fastest, although the world champion did not set a time on his qualifying simulation run on soft tyres after making a mistake at Turn 16.

Norris was the fastest on the long runs, at about 0.2secs on average faster than Verstappen, but cannot be compared as he was running the hard tyre.

McLaren have introduced the first of three consecutive planned upgrades this weekend, but he was not happy with his performance.

“Difficult,” Norris said. “The pace is not bad. We seem a step away from Red Bull and Ferrari, probably Mercedes as well, but the car is very difficult to drive, too difficult to be consistent and get a nice feeling consistently.

“To get the car be quick we just have to try so hard to be perfect and you can’t be perfect. I am sure everyone has similar problems in a way but we are just not quick enough yet to be there consistently enough.”

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was eighth quickest, ahead of Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar and Haas driver Oliver Bearman.

First Test, Durban (day three of five)

Australia 390 & 33-0: Maddinson 17*

South Africa 284: Bedingham 49; Cummins 3-54

Australia lead by 139 runs

Scorecard

Australia’s modern Test side remain a fascinating one to unpick.

Viewed by many in England as there for the taking in last winter’s Ashes despite a 4-1 win, they are also labelled too old by many observers at home.

The victims of recent shock defeats by West Indies and Bangladesh, they are still unbeaten in their past nine Test series.

But while their struggling batting line-up was bailed out by Matt Renshaw across the first two days of the first Test in Durban, they took control over South Africa on day three in an all-too familiar way.

Nine years after they first appeared together as Australia’s bowling quartet, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon produced their latest relentless performance to dismiss South Africa for 284. There was even some magic from Steve Smith thrown in too.

Cummins took three wickets, Starc, Hazlewood and Lyon two apiece, in doing so brushing off any doubts about their effectiveness at the start of a run of Tests against the world Test champions, in-form New Zealand, India and England.