The Sports Report: Clippers lose Kawhi Leonard and the game

Howdy, I’m your host, Houston Mitchell. Let’s get right to the news.

From Broderick Turner: It was one thing for the Clippers to lose forward Kawhi Leonard to back spasms that forced him to leave Crypto.com Arena on Tuesday night, but what upset Coach Ty Lue the most was how his team wasn’t “being mentally tough” after losing their All-Star and how his group succumbed to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the aftermath.

Lue essentially called his team out after the Clippers lost, 118-110.

The Clippers built a 22-point lead in the second quarter after Leonard left the game having played 12 minutes in the first quarter. But the Clippers eventually went down by 22 points in the second half, a stunning turn of events considering how important this game was for both teams in the Western Conference standings.

Lue said Leonard, who had six points, two rebounds and two assists before departing, had been dealing with back issues for a while but he still wanted to play.

“Yeah, he’s been dealing with it for a couple of days. Back spasms and…Wasn’t sure if he was going to go this morning,” Lue said. “But he came to shoot-around, got some treatment, did what he had to do and tried to get on the court and play today and it just didn’t loosen up for him.”

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LAKERS

From Dan Woike: The similarities are too obvious to ignore. Sacramento, like Denver, has an unselfish center who is an expert passer. Sacramento, like Denver, has a point guard who can score at all three levels — in the paint, at the midrange and from three. Sacramento, like Denver, has shooting all around the perimeter.

And Sacramento, like Denver, keeps beating the Lakers.

“They’re a high-level team, man,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham said of the Kings on Tuesday. “The beautiful thing about it — well, losing to them is not beautiful — but when you experience a game against them or any other team that forces you to do something different, it allows you to add something to the war chest. And allows you to get better in different areas.”

There’s optimism ahead of the Lakers’ game in Sacramento with the Kings on Wednesday that the defensive answers they’re searching for could at least be translatable to Denver.

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DODGERS

From Jack Harris: Early on this spring training, Shohei Ohtani told Dodgers coaches he wanted to take 50 at-bats before the start of the regular season.

To reach the mark before the team’s opening day series in South Korea next week, the two-way star knew it would take more than just a handful of Cactus League exhibition games.

That’s why, when Ohtani discussed his 50 at-bat target with reporters last month, he noted three ways he could build toward his total.

• Getting normal plate appearances in official spring games.
• Taking live batting practice against Dodgers teammates on the Camelback Ranch backfields.
• Facing a robotic pitching machine called Trajekt Arc.

If the latter sounds out of the ordinary for traditional preseason training methods, that’s because — in the latest example of baseball’s rapid technology revolution — it very much is.

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USC BASKETBALL

From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: The Trojans weren’t the only ones leaving MGM Grand Garden Arena as major winners Sunday night.

Amid the celebration of USC’s first Pac-12 tournament title since 2014, a fan shouted at USC forward Rayah Marshall that the Trojans, 8.5-point underdogs to top-seeded Stanford, had just won him $10,000. Marshall shouted back: “Fight on!”

“We’re in Vegas,” the junior said afterward. “Anything is possible.”

But USC‘s rapid rise from forgotten powerhouse to Pac-12 champion is not just a lucky run. Third-year coach Lindsay Gottlieb has been stacking up wins behind the scenes, from recruiting to strength and conditioning, that Marshall credited as “a culture shift” leading the Trojans back into the national spotlight.

“It’s a reflection of our success on the floor,” Marshall said.

“Now literally we just won,” the junior forward said before correcting herself, “she just won the last Pac-12 championship.”

Gottlieb didn’t leave the NBA to do anything less than this, even if it looked so far away when she took over in 2021. The Trojans hadn’t felt relevant in decades. USC hasn’t won an NCAA tournament game since 2006 and hasn’t advanced to the second weekend of the Big Dance since 1994.

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From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: Andy Enfield wasn’t greatly moved by a great win. The USC coach shrugged off the Trojans’ first victory over a top-five team since 2008.

“We’ve won a lot of games against good teams over the years,” Enfield told reporters after the Trojans shocked then-No. 5 Arizona at Galen Center on Saturday.

The win ended USC’s six-game losing streak in the series and signaled the start of a bigger mission. Needing a miraculous conference championship run to earn their fourth consecutive NCAA bid, the Trojans hope to carry the momentum into the Pac-12 tournament beginning Wednesday at 12 p.m. against eighth-seeded Washington at T-Mobile Arena.

The No. 9 seed Trojans (14-17, 8-12 Pac-12) are on a season-long three-game winning streak but face a daunting task in Las Vegas. Since the conference expanded in 2012, only two teams — Colorado in 2012 and Oregon in 2019 — have managed to win four games in four days to steal the Pac-12 title.

Here are three things to watch for USC in the tournament:

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UCLA BASKETBALL

From Ben Bolch: Mick Cronin’s team had lost five of its last six regular-season games, its offense failing to keep pace with a sturdy defense. The coach vowed to find other players who could get the job done if his current ones continued to falter.

Sound familiar?

The year was 2010. Cronin was coaching at Cincinnati. It was the last time he missed the NCAA tournament.

A repeat scenario could play out this week unless Cronin’s fifth-seeded UCLA Bruins (15-16) get on a roll and win the final Pac-12 Conference tournament at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, the resulting automatic bid providing their only possible path to the NCAA tournament.

Cronin has been to 12 consecutive NCAA tournaments — nine with the Bearcats, three with the Bruins — since his 2009-10 team won two games in the Big East tournament before falling to West Virginia and advancing to the second round of the National Invitation Tournament.

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Keeping it in the UCLA family, Adem Bona wins Pac-12 defensive player of the year

RAMS

From Gary Klein: A day after adding two free agents to their offense, the Rams began remaking the defense Tuesday — and they did it by turning to a familiar face.

The Rams agreed to terms with cornerback Darious Williams, who played for the Rams from 2018 to 2021, a person with knowledge of the situation said. The person requested anonymity because deals cannot become official until the NFL’s new league year begins Wednesday.

The Rams also placed a second-round tender on left tackle Alaric Jackson, a restricted free agent.

For the second day in a row, general manager Les Snead steered clear of making a splashy deal and instead continued to methodically address team needs.

TENNIS

Second-ranked Carlos Alcaraz avenged a previous loss to Fabian Marozsan, winning 6-3, 6-3 on Tuesday to reach the quarterfinals of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells as the top remaining seed in the men’s draw.

A day after “lucky loser” Luca Nardi stunned No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the third round at Indian Wells, Alcaraz advanced easily over the Hungarian who ousted him from the Italian Open in May. Marozsan was a qualifier and the No. 135 player in the world when he upset Alcaraz — then on the verge of taking the top spot in the rankings — 6-3, 7-6 (4) in the third round in Rome.

“Honestly, I was nervous before the match. I’m not going to lie,” Alcaraz said. “Playing against someone that beat you. ... Today I knew what I had to do.”

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DUCKS

Connor Bedard had a goal and four assists to set his single-game high in points, Philipp Kurashev scored twice and had two assists, and the Chicago Blackhawks beat the Ducks 7-2 on Tuesday night.

Ryan Donato, Seth Jones, MacKenzie Entwistle and Tyler Johnson also scored for Chicago, which has won two straight games for just the second time this season.

Brett Leason scored both goals for the Ducks, who dropped their third straight.

Bedard, the top overall pick in last year’s draft and a leading candidate for rookie of the year, earned his fifth point when he assisted on Johnson’s power-play goal midway through the third period. The 18-year-old Bedard has eight points in two games and 10 in the last four.

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THIS DATE IN SPORTS

1894 — J.L. Johnstone of England invents the starting gate for horse racing.

1961 — Floyd Patterson knocks out Ingemar Johansson in the sixth round to retain the world heavyweight title in Miami Beach.

1982 — Elaine Zayak of the United States wins the world figure skating championship.

1983 — Randy Smith’s consecutive game streak ends at 906 games, the longest in NBA history. Smith played for Buffalo, San Diego (twice), Cleveland and New York during the streak.

1997 — The America’s Cup, the oldest trophy in international sports and yachting’s most coveted prize, is all but destroyed by a Maori protester who struck it repeatedly with a sledgehammer in Auckland, New Zealand.

1998 — Bryce Drew hits a leaning 3-pointer as time expires to give Valparaiso a shocking 70-69 upset of Mississippi in the first round of the NCAA Midwest Regional.

2007 — Lance Mackey wins the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, becoming the first musher to win major long-distance North American sled dog races back-to-back.

2008 — Bode Miller clinches the men’s overall World Cup ski title. Miller earns his second title in four years with a 12th-place finish in the super-G combined, along with Didier Cuche’s announcement that he would not enter the season-ending slalom in Bormio, Italy.

2012 — BYU pulls off the biggest comeback in NCAA tournament history on a wild opening night. Noah Hartsock scores 16 of his 23 points in the second half and the Cougars rally from 25 points down to beat Iona 78-72 in the first round. It marks the biggest comeback in an NCAA tournament game. It’s the second incredible turnaround of the night in Dayton. With President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron watching, Western Kentucky comes back from a 16-point deficit in the final 5 minutes to beat Mississippi Valley State 59-58.

2022 — After a 40-day retirement, quarterback Tom Brady announces he will play at least one more season in the NFL with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Compiled by the Associated Press