The Sports Report: Lakers have no problem with the Pistons

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

From Dan Woike: Early in the second half of a mostly lopsided game Tuesday night, Austin Reaves tried to flip the ball behind his back to LeBron James.

For most of the first half, the Lakers were in Harlem Globetrotter form, the ball whistling around from one player to the next. It was the kind of offensive rhythm they’ve been in over the last month or so, as they’ve transformed into a top-10 offense during that stretch.

But this time, the Lakers were too loose, the ball squirting free to trigger a three-on-one fast break for the Detroit Pistons early in the third quarter.

In most situations, this would mean trouble. But when the one Laker back is Anthony Davis, the equation flips.

Davis easily erased Jaden Ivey’s layup at the rim, Davis drew a foul, and on the next possession, D’Angelo Russell hit a three-pointer — the kind of sequence Davis has triggered all season.

In the Lakers’ final home game before the All-Star break, Davis dominated all over the court, shooting, scoring, passing and defending as his team beat the lowly Pistons 125-111.

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CLIPPERS

From Helene Elliott: Consider it a warning from soft-spoken Kawhi Leonard. And it wasn’t the first such warning he has issued to his Clippers teammates.

Leonard has been saying recently that the Clippers have been winning on sheer talent, and that they’re still falling short of their maximum potential in many areas. He said it again Monday, and pointedly so, after the Minnesota Timberwolves took the Clippers apart in the third quarter of the visitors’ 121-100 victory at Crypto.com Arena.

His voice was quiet, but his meaning was loud and clear: They can’t rely on talent alone, and they must back that up every game with consistent effort and discipline at both ends of the floor.

“There’s going to be games like this moving forward as well. That’s up to you all to write about,” Leonard said to reporters at a postgame news conference. “But like I said, we have to look at what we’re doing, the things we’re not doing well, and try and get better at it before it starts getting real.”

It’s getting near the time when things get real.

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UCLA FOOTBALL

From Ben Bolch: The tears started before the rookie coach said his first word. They flowed again only 35 seconds into his opening remarks.

“Being the head coach here at UCLA,” DeShaun Foster said Tuesday morning, trying to hold it together, “you guys have no idea, just …”

Foster paused in a losing battle to compose himself, his gentle sobbing drowned out by the roaring applause from a few hundred donors, family members, players and alumni inside Pauley Pavilion’s pavilion club.

From star running back on UCLA’s last team to play in a Rose Bowl to longtime running backs coach to head coach, Foster marinated in the realization that he had made it to the top at his alma mater.

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GALAXY

From Kevin Baxter: Chess, Dejan Joveljic says, is all about thinking ahead, being patient and working the board to your advantage. And if you do all that correctly and in concert, you can bend an opponent to your will.

Which explains how Joveljic put the Galaxy in check this winter.

Joveljic is a national master in chess, rating him among the top 1% of players worldwide, while in soccer he has started for Serbia in qualifying for the European Championship. But since joining the Galaxy in the summer of 2021, he has felt like little more than a pawn in the team’s plans, starting fewer than half the games in which he appeared.

That’s not exactly the role he envisioned.

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HORSE RACING

From John Cherwa: Trainer Dan Blacker was suspended 90 days and fined $15,000 for 527 violations of the California Horse Racing Board rule that says a horse must be inspected by a veterinarian no more than 72 hours before conducting a workout.

Since the suspension was more than 60 days, Blacker must move all of his horses to other trainers and remove any signage at his barn at Santa Anita. The suspension was scheduled to run from Feb. 26 to May 25.

Darrell Vienna, Blacker’s attorney, filed an appeal and request for a stay on the penalties Tuesday but did not comment beyond that.

KINGS

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen stopped 33 shots for his fourth career shutout and Jordan Greenway scored twice and added an assist to lead the Buffalo Sabres to a 7-0 rout of the Kings on Tuesday night.

Rasmus Dahlin, JJ Peterka and Alex Tuch each had a goal and assist to help the Sabres end a three-game home skid in which they combined to score three times. Kyle Okposo and Zach Benson also scored in an outing the slow-starting Sabres flipped the script by scoring the opening goal for the first time in eight outings, and holding a lead after 20 minutes for the first time in 11.

The seven goals were the most by Buffalo since a 9-3 win over Toronto on Dec. 21.

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DUCKS

Nick Suzuki had two goals and an assist and the Montreal Canadiens cruised to a 5-0 victory over the Ducks on Tuesday night.

The red-hot Suzuki extended his points streak to a career-high eight games — producing 13 points in that span — and is up to 51 points in 53 games.

Cayden Primeau faced little action, making 13 saves in his first start since Jan. 20 as Montreal earned its first shutout.

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THIS DATE IN SPORTS

1936 — Maribel Vinson wins her eighth U.S. figure skating singles championship and Robin Lee wins his second consecutive men’s title.

1951 — Sugar Ray Robinson wins the middleweight title with a technical knockout in the 13th round over Jake LaMotta in Chicago.

1966 — Philadelphia’s Wilt Chamberlain scores 41 points in a 149-123 win over Detroit to become the NBA’s all-time scoring leader, passing Bob Pettit (20,880 points).

1975 — Julius Erving of the New York Nets scores 63 points in a 176-166 quadruple overtime loss to the San Diego Conquistadors. Erving sets an ABA record by shooting 25-for-46 from the field and the 342 points are an ABA record.

1988 — Bobby Allison outduels his 26-year-old son Davey to win the Daytona 500 and becomes the first 50-year-old to win NASCAR’s premier event.

1992 — Bonnie Blair becomes the first American woman in 40 years to win two gold medals in the Winter Olympics when she takes the 1,000-meter speed skating event.

2004 — Anaheim’s Sergei Fedorov is the first Russian-born player to collect 1,000 points with an assist on Keith Carney’s goal in the second period of the Ducks’ 2-1 win over Vancouver.

2010 — In Vancouver, an American breaks through the Nordic combined barrier, winning the first Olympic medal in the sport dominated by Europeans. Jason Lamy Chappuis of France overtakes American Johnny Spillane on the final straightaway for the gold medal, winning four-tenths of a second ahead of Spillane.

2015 — Mikaela Shiffrin becomes the third woman to win back-to-back slalom titles at world championships. She finishes in a combined time of 1:38.48, edging Frida Hansdotter of Sweden by 0.34 seconds.

2018 — Snowboarder Shaun White wins America’s 100th Winter Olympic gold medal, throwing down a spectacular final run in the men’s halfpipe at the Pyeongchang Games. The United States is the second country to win 100 winter golds, trailing Norway, which started the day with 121.

Compiled by the Associated Press