The Sports Report: Rams are frozen out of the playoffs

Howdy, I’m your host, Houston Mitchell. The magic is officially over for Baker Mayfield, closing after one week. The Rams are officially eliminated from playoff contention with their loss Monday.

From Gary Klein: Baker Mayfield’s short-lived magic touch expired.

So did the Rams’ near impossible playoff hopes.

Both were put in the freezer on Monday night after a 24-12 loss to the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field.

On a night when it was 15 degrees at kickoff – with a windchill factor of seven – the defending Super Bowl champion Rams dropped to 4-10 and inevitable finally became official:

The Rams will not pull off a miracle and play in the postseason.

Could coach Sean McVay have imagined that after winning the title the Rams would be 4-10?

“You certainly can’t,” he said, “but this is the reality that we’re in. And this is where we’re at.”

The Rams’ fate had been apparent for weeks as a seemingly endless stream of offensive lineman continued to fall and star players such as star quarterback Matthew Stafford, star receiver Cooper Kupp and star defensive lineman Aaron Donald suffered injuries.

Mayfield gave the Rams a glimmer of hope with a heroic performance against the Las Vegas Raiders. But that faded into the darkness and chill of perhaps the NFL’s most iconic stadium.

It was fitting that Rams were eliminated with a defeat in frigid conditions.

The cold reality is that the winners of Super Bowl LVI are on their way to one of the most historic post-championship nosedives in NFL history.

It is only the second time since the then 30-year-old Sean McVay was hired in 2017 that the Rams missed the playoffs.

The first time was 2019, not coincidentally after the Rams played in Super Bowl LIII and lost to the New England Patriots.

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LAKERS

From Dan Woike: The numbers on the scoreboard weren’t predetermined, but they were definitely predictable.

Even with Devin Booker out because of a groin injury, the imbalance between the Lakers and their division rival was always going to be severe.

Chris Paul, Mikal Bridges and Deandre Ayton were in the Suns’ beautiful purple throwback uniforms. LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook and Austin Reaves were sidelined in patterned jackets, hoodies and sweatsuits, the Lakers wildly undermanned against one of the best in the West on the second night of a back-to-back.

Oddsmakers had the Suns as double-digit favorites even before the Lakers ruled out James, Westbrook and Reaves and the Lakers spent most of the night trying to keep the game within twice that.

Phoenix rolled to a 130-104 win, the Lakers never getting closer than 13 after falling behind by double-digits in the first quarter.

“I feel like our guys competed to the best of their ability,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham said.

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Hernández: Anthony Davis injury shouldn’t deter Lakers: Trade those draft picks

UCLA FOOTBALL

From Ben Bolch: The five-star high school quarterback didn’t grow up on the West Coast. He had no family ties to UCLA. He had never visited campus until this month. He didn’t even list the school among the 10 finalists he was considering before verbally committing to Oregon.

None of that mattered.

Dante Moore is now a Bruin.

In the ultimate comeback story, UCLA flipped the commitment of the Detroit King High standout Monday in the most colossal recruiting win of the Chip Kelly era.

“It’s definitely the biggest recruiting flip I’ve seen on the West Coast,” longtime 247Sports national recruiting analyst Greg Biggins said of the recruiting site’s No. 3 overall prospect in his high school class. “I’ve never seen a school go from just nowhere involved to just landing such a high-profile kid.”

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UCLA hires San Diego assistant Alfred Reft to lead women’s volleyball

USC FOOTBALL

From Ryan Kartje: One of the best pass catchers in the Pac-12 is trading Arizona for USC, handing Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams a tailor-made replacement for his departing top receiver.

Dorian Singer led the Pac-12 in receiving yards last season (1,105) as the lead target in Arizona’s potent passing attack. But after entering the NCAA transfer portal two weeks ago, Singer committed on Monday morning to USC, where he should pick up right where he left off as one of the conference’s top offensive weapons.

He certainly impressed USC’s staff during the Trojans’ trip to Tucson earlier this year. Singer torched USC during that October meeting, scoring three touchdowns while adding 141 yards as the Trojans narrowly escaped the desert with a win.

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CHARGERS

From Jeff Miller: He has raved about his defense’s performance and energy over the past two weeks, the Chargers seizing control of their postseason fate behind consecutive smothering efforts.

Coach Brandon Staley particularly noted Monday how the unit has been versatile enough to match up against the very different offensive styles of the Miami Dolphins and Tennessee Titans.

Also of note: The Chargers have done this without one of their best performers on defense, a player recognized specifically for both his energy and versatility.

How much more improved might the Chargers be when Pro Bowl safety Derwin James Jr. returns?

“We expect to play better with one of the top players in the league out there,” Staley said. “I think that that will be a great infusion of leadership, production and energy.”

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Chargers’ J.C. Jackson arrested in connection to a ‘family issue’

DODGERS

From Bill Plaschke: He was never their best player. He was never their biggest star.

He never won a batting title. He never scored a Gold Glove. He never signed a historic contract.

It required a mass organized effort to vote him into his first All-Star Game. When his team recorded the final out of his only championship, he wasn’t even on the field.

Despite being in the middle of the greatest nine-year stretch in franchise history, Justin Turner was never the most famous, celebrated or accomplished of Dodgers.

But he was the Dodger who signed baseballs for military heroes. He was the Dodger who passed out lunches to children. He was the Dodger who smoothed waters in the clubhouse. He was the Dodger who churned up dirt on the field.

He once hit a walk-off playoff home run on the anniversary of Kirk Gibson’s blast. He once saved a title with a diving tag in base line chalk. He would forever saunter to home plate with a pine tar splotch on his back and a playful gleam in his eyes.

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Noah Syndergaard confident he can regain 100-mph form with Dodgers

Clayton Kershaw to pitch for U.S. at World Baseball Classic

WORLD CUP

From Kevin Baxter in Qatar: Sunday’s World Cup final, which ended with Lionel Messi finally grasping the one trophy he had never won, was the most dramatic in tournament history. It was great theater, a bare-knuckle brawl that played out over 120 minutes and four rounds of penalty kicks before Argentina was declared the victor after a game that ended in a 3-3 draw.

Which raises one very vexing question: What to do for an encore?

The next World Cup kicks off in North America in 3½ years and will be the largest and most complex ever, with a record 48 teams playing 80 games in 16 cities spread across the United States, Canada and Mexico. It’s not so much a soccer tournament as it is a full-scale invasion.

U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone will be one of those trying to ensure it goes off without a hitch, and she will start that work by looking at what went right and what went wrong over the last month in Qatar.

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Who is the best soccer player of all?

A debate arose on social media after Sunday’s World Cup final: Who is the best soccer player of all time, Messi, Diego Maradona or Pele? What do you say? Click here to vote in our poll.

HOCKEY

From Helene Elliott: Hope sounded like high-pitched shrieks.

Dreams looked like the awestruck smiles of the kids wearing hockey jerseys and shirts and holding encouraging signs at Crypto.com Arena on Monday while the U.S. women’s hockey team faced Canada in the latest edition of one of the fiercest rivalries in sports. Not in women’s sports — in all sports.

The Americans and Canadians are the class of women’s hockey, which pops into public consciousness only during the Winter Olympics. They never disappoint. Their great goaltending acrobatics and clutch scoring produce exhaustingly dramatic matchups at the Olympics and world championships. They shine because of their talent and competitiveness and their persistence despite having been told as kids they shouldn’t play hockey, they were an annoyance, that coaching them would waste time better spent on guiding boys.

It’s during the four years between Olympics, when female hockey players are scrambling for adequate resources and working to establish a stable professional league, that those who govern the game continue to drop the ball when they should be dropping the puck.

Monday’s game, a 3-2 overtime win for Canada, was the fifth in the series, which will resume in Canada in February. The crowd at Crypto.com Arena was lively, initiating chants and singing and roaring with hometown pride when defenseman Cayla Barnes of Eastvale scored Team USA’s first goal. During a busy holiday week, for an event scheduled about a month ago, the attendance of about 8,640 wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t as good as these women deserved.

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THIS DATE IN SPORTS

1921 — Baseball Commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis casts the deciding vote to return to best-of-seven World Series from the best-of-nine format. The American League votes to return to best-of-seven World Series, while National League votes for the best-of-nine format. The a best-of-nine series was used in 1903 and 1919 through 1921.

1966 — The NBA grants a franchise to Seattle, expanding the league to 11 teams for the 1967-68 season.

1973 — Henri Richard of the Montreal Canadiens scores his 1,000th point, getting an assist in a 2-2 tie with the Buffalo Sabres.

1980 — NBC experiments by not providing commentators for the national broadcast of the game between New York Jets and Miami Dolphins. The Jets win 24-17.

1981 — Winnipeg’s Doug Smail scores a goal five seconds into the game to set a NHL record for fastest goal from the start of a game. The Jets beat the St. Louis Blues 5-4.

1983 — Montreal’s Guy Lafleur scores his 500th goal as the Canadiens beat the New Jersey Devils 6-0. Lafleur scores the milestone goal at 8:34 of the third, beating Glenn Resch with a rising 30-footer.

1985 — North Carolina sets an NCAA record with 18 blocked shots in an 87-55 rout of Stanford.

1998 — Green Bay’s Brett Favre becomes the first NFL player to throw for more than 30 touchdowns in five different seasons. Favre connects three times with Antonio Freeman in the first half of a 30-22 win over Tennessee to break a tie with Dan Marino.

2003 — St. John’s provides a perfect ending for coach John Gagliardi’s record-breaking season, snapping Mount Union’s NCAA-record 55-game winning streak with a 24-6 victory in the Division III championship game.

2005 — Kobe Bryant scores a career-high 62 points and the Lakers beat Dallas 112-90. Bryant scores a franchise-record 30 points in the third quarter and sits out the fourth after outscoring the Mavericks 62-61 over the three quarters.

2006 — Bode Miller wins the super-giant slalom in Hinterstoder, Austria, 90 minutes after Lindsey Kildow and Julia Mancuso finish 1-2 in a downhill at Val d’Isere, France. Those successes give the U.S. team five wins and an unprecedented nine podium results over six days. It’s the most impressive streak for the American team since 1983.

2009 — Ben Roethlisberger completes 29 of 46 passes with three TDs and 503 yards, becoming the first Pittsburgh quarterback to throw for 500 yards in a game during a 37-36 win over Green Bay. He hits rookie Mike Wallace for a 19-yard touchdown on the final play.

2009 — Cleveland’s Jerome Harrison scores his third touchdown with 44 seconds left for the winning points and rushes for a team-record 286 yards in a 41-34 win over the Kansas City Chiefs. Joshua Cribbs of the Browns has two kickoff returns for touchdowns.

2014 — No. 1 Kentucky scores the game’s first 24 points in an 83-44 victory over UCLA. The Wildcats lead 41-7 at the intermission. It’s the lowest point total in a half for UCLA and the fewest by a Kentucky opponent since December 1943.

2015 — New England improve to 12-2 with a 33-16 win over Tennessee, and becomes the second team in NFL history with at least 12 regular-season wins in six consecutive seasons.

2017 — Fletcher Magee scores 27 points to help Wofford stun No. 5 North Carolina 79-75, snapping the reigning national champion’s 23-game home winning streak.

Compiled by the Associated Press

And finally

Kobe Bryant scores 62 points in three quarters. Watch and listen here.