The Sports Report: Lakers move into playoff position with win over Jazz

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

From Dan Woike: The big story waited in Los Angeles, where the road weary Lakers hoped to get to at some point after their game with the Jazz provided yet another snowstorm didn’t sabotage their itinerary.

Wednesday, the Lakers will finish off a five-game trip in unique fashion – playing at home in Los Angeles – in a road game against the Clippers.

It’s the big game. But, for the Lakers, it couldn’t be the biggest.

They had work in front of them.

That, as much as anything, is what the Lakers had to fight Tuesday in Utah against the short-handed Jazz. “Trap” is a word players in the Lakers’ locker room used pregame and by the time the fourth quarter rolled around, it was no longer just a prediction.

After seemingly putting the game on ice, the Lakers were in a fight to hang on to a win, playing high-leverage possessions on a night when they all could’ve used a break.

Former Laker Damian Jones hit two free throws with 11 seconds to cap a 10-0 run to force overtime, the Lakers with a foot on the team plane before the fourth quarter wrapped.

And with the Lakers needing a stop in the final 40 seconds of overtime, Talen Horton-Tucker drove right past Jarred Vanderbilt, who Darvin Ham played for the first time since the third quarter.

But Horton-Tucker split the free throws, opening up a crack for LeBron James.

James spun throw the defense and scored on a right-handed layup to put the Lakers up, the team sealing the 135-133 win with one last stop on a missed Horton-Tucker jumper.

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CLIPPERS

From Andrew Greif: Before catching a flight back to Southern California late Saturday night, the player who spent high school in Lawndale and college in Westwood threw on a Dodgers cap.

Russell Westbrook’s history is intertwined with Los Angeles. That will continue Wednesday, when the 34-year-old point guard will be at the center of one of the most consequential games between the Clippers and Lakers in recent memory.

With each rival stuck in the muddled morass that is the Western Conference standings, and each desperately attempting to avoid the NBA’s play-in tournament — with its slimmer margin for error than a seven-game first-round series — Westbrook will be the Clippers’ starting point guard as he faces his former team for the first time since the Lakers dealt him at February’s trade deadline.

Westbrook understands the scrutiny that will follow his reunion with the team whose union went from celebrated to sour in a year and a half, but said it would not change how he approaches the game.

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NBA standings
Western Conference

Top six teams make the playoffs, Nos. 7-10 qualify for tournament for last two playoff spots

1. x-Denver Nuggets, 52-27
2. x-Memphis Grizzlies, 50-29, 2 GB
3. x-Sacramento Kings, 48-31, 4 GB
4. Phoenix Suns, 44-35, 8 GB
5. Clippers, 41-38, 11 GB
6. Lakers, 41-38, 11 GB
7. Golden State Warriors, 41-38, 11 GB
8. New Orleans Pelicans, 40-39, 12 GB
9. Minnesota Timberwolves, 40-40, 12.5 GB
10. Oklahoma City Thunder, 38-41, 14 GB
11. Dallas Mavericks, 37-42, 15 GB
12. Utah Jazz, 36-43, 16 GB
13. e-Portland Trail Blazers, 33-46, 19 GB
14. e-San Antonio Spurs, 20-59, 32 GB
15. e-Houston Rockets, 20-60, 32.5 GB

x-clinched playoff spot; e-eliminated from playoff contention.

DODGERS

From Mike DiGiovanna: The Dodgers traded their feast-or-famine offense for a Happy Medium Meal on Tuesday night, combining a solid-but-not-spectacular offense with some stout pitching from Julio Urías for a 5-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies before a sellout crowd of 52,290 in Chavez Ravine.

A lineup that produced 31 runs and 33 hits in their three wins and scored two runs on nine hits and went 0 for 13 with runners in scoring position in two losses managed just seven hits on Tuesday night, though three were home runs by Will Smith, Jason Heyward and Max Muncy.

But the Dodgers didn’t need to pummel the Rockies to make a winner out of Urias, who allowed five hits, struck out six and walked none in six shutout innings and escaped a bases-loaded, no-outs jam in the third.

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Michael Grove overcomes illness as Dodgers’ young pitching experiment begins

ANGELS

Teoscar Hernández and AJ Pollock each hit two homers and combined to drive in nine runs, and the Seattle Mariners beat the Angels 11-2 on Tuesday night.

Luis Castillo (1-0) turned in a second straight strong outing, giving two hits and striking out six in 5 2/3 shutout innings. Castillo has given up no runs and three hits and struck out 12 in 11 2/3 innings over two starts.

Hernández hit a solo homer in the fourth inning and a three-run shot in the fifth off Jose Suarez (0-1) to put the Mariners up 6-0. It was Hernandez’s 15th mult-homer game, and it came after he opened the season 1 for 17.

The Angels’ runs came in the eighth on Hunter Renfroe’s RBI single and a sacrifice fly.

UCLA FOOTBALL

From Luca Evans: Ball after ball bounced off the netting in target practice, UCLA quarterbacks generally on target but an inch or two shy of perfection.

It was the tiniest of drills inside the Bruins’ first spring practice of the year Tuesday morning — a simple accuracy exercise trying to throw pigskins into three small pockets outlined on a backstop. But this was an early glimpse at the most scintillating story line of the season: Who’ll claim the starting spot behind center after the graduation of Dorian-Thompson Robinson?

“There’s going to be some competition for that QB1 spot,” said senior linebacker Darius Muasau.

For a moment Tuesday, a five-star freshman won. With a lightning-quick windup and a dart through one of the red-stitched pockets, the anointed heir, Dante Moore, danced across the grass at UCLA’s practice fields, throwing his hands up in a “W” sign as he retrieved the ball.

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KINGS

Leon Draisaitl broke a tie with 7:20 left and the Edmonton Oilers vaulted into second place in the Pacific Division with a 3-1 victory over the Kings on Tuesday night in a pivotal game for playoff seeding.

The win not only put the Oilers one point ahead of the Kings, it gave them 100 points for the second straight season. The last time Edmonton reached the century mark in back-to-back seasons was 1987 under a different points structure.

The teams split the four-game season series and are on course to possibly meet in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs for the second straight year. Edmonton had home ice in last year’s series and won in seven games.

THE MASTERS

From Sam Farmer: Tiger Woods is four years removed from his fifth Masters win and the daylight is fading on his glorious career. He doesn’t pretend otherwise.

As he said more than once Tuesday, the buggy — a golf cart — awaits, especially in the wake of a rollover car accident in 2021 that could have cost him his life and certainly his leg.

“Yeah, mobility, it’s not where I would like it but … I’m very lucky to have this leg; it’s mine,” said Woods, 47, speaking to reporters at his regular pre-tournament news conference. “Yes, it has been altered and there’s some hardware in there, but it’s still mine.”

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Love Augusta National? These golf fans built mini Masters paradises in backyards

SOCCER

From Kevin Baxter: ianni Infantino was reelected to another four-year term as FIFA president last month, running unopposed and winning by acclaim. That means no formal vote was taken, saving Infantino the embarrassment of failing to win unanimously in a race no one else was contesting.

Lise Klaveness, president of the Norwegian soccer federation, publicly said she would not back Infantino. But while Klaveness, discouraged by Infantino’s craven ignorance of the human rights issues surrounding last year’s World Cup in Qatar, was prepared to vote with her conscience, most of the other delegates at the FIFA Congress voted with their pocketbooks.

FIFA’s 211 member federations have seen their annual funding from world soccer’s governing body rise from $250,000 to $2 million since Infantino first took office in 2016. The Qatar World Cup left FIFA with $4 billion in reserves, and Infantino is forecasting revenue of at least $11 billion through the next World Cup in North America in 2026.

For an organization that has long seemed to put profit over propriety, that was all worth voting for. But how much has that money cost?

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THIS DATE IN SPORTS

1915 — Jess Willard beats Jack Johnson in the 26th round to win the world heavyweight boxing title in Havana.

1927 — Johnny Weissmuller breaks his own 200-meter freestyle record by seven seconds in 2:08. He also lowers his own record in the 100-yard freestyle to 51 seconds, a record that stood for 17 years.

1952 — Henry Wittenberg wins the 191-pound AAU wrestling title for the eighth time. Wittenberg won over 350 bouts in 13 years, including a gold medal in the 1948 Olympics.

1959 — Art Wall birdies five of the last six holes to cap a final-round 66 and edge Fred Hawkins by one stroke to win the Masters.

1967 — ’76er Wilt Chamberlain sets NBA record with 41 rebounds in a game.

1970 — New York beats Detroit 9-5 to take fourth place and the final playoff berth in the NHL’s East Division. The Rangers are the first team to advance to the playoffs on the basis of goals scored when they finish tied with Montreal.

1972 — Major League Baseball for the first time fails to open because of a player strike, which started April 1 and would be settled April 13.

1973 — NFL adopts jersey numbering system.

1984 — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar hits a sky hook with 8:53 left in the Lakers’ 129-115 victory over the Utah Jazz to become the NBA’s top career scorer. Wilt Chamberlain, with 31,419 points, held the record since his retirement in 1973.

1987 — Wayne Gretzky wins seventh straight NHL scoring title.

1989 — Orel Hershiser’s consecutive scoreless streak of 59 innings ends.

1990 — John Stockton reaches 1000-assist mark for NBA record three years in a row.

1992 — 11th NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship: Stanford beats Western Kentucky, 78-62.

1993 — Donald Williams scores 25 points to lead North Carolina to a 77-71 win over Michigan in the NCAA championship.

1993 — MLB expansion teams Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies make their MLB debuts.

1997 — Bruce Baumgartner wins a record eighth World Cup wrestling gold medal, beating David Musolbes 2-1 in overtime at 275 1/2 pounds as the United States routs Russia 25-7.

2004 — Led by 24 points from Emeka Okafor and 21 from Ben Gordon, the Connecticut Huskies outclass Georgia Tech 82-73 to win the men’s national championship.

2005 — 24th NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship: Baylor beats Michigan State, 84-62.

2005 — The Washington Nationals lose their inaugural season opener, 8-4 to the Philadelphia Phillies; first team to represent the nation’s capital since the Washington Senators left after the 1971 season.

2008 — The Boston Celtics sets an NBA record for biggest single-season turnaround with a 101-78 win over the Charlotte Bobcats. The Celtics improve to 61-15, 37 more wins than last season.

2008 — Memphis beats UCLA 78-63 in the NCAA semifinals to go to 38-1 and become the winningest team in a season. Kansas’ Brandon Rush scores 25 points, and the Jayhawks defeat North Carolina 84-66 in the second semifinal.

2009 — Brittany Lincicome sinks a 6-foot eagle putt on No. 18 to win the Kraft Nabisco Championship for her first major title.

2010 — Duke wins its fourth NCAA basketball championship, holding off Butler 61-59 and surviving Gordon Hayward’s last-second desperation shot that hits the rim.

2011 — 30th NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship: Texas A&M beats Notre Dame, 76-70.

2016 — UConn wins an unprecedented fourth straight women’s national championship, capping another perfect season by routing Syracuse 82-51. Geno Auriemma passes UCLA’s John Wooden with his 11th national title and a sixth undefeated season.

2019 — Oklahoma City guard Russell Westbrook becomes first player in NBA history to average a triple-double for the third consecutive season.

2021 — 82nd NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship: Baylor Bears become second consecutive first-time NCAA champions with 86–70 over previously undefeated Gonzaga Bulldogs.

—Compiled by the Associated Press

And finally...

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar becomes the NBA’s all-time scoring leader. Watch and listen here.