The Sports Report: Lakers snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

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

From Dan Woike: The timer signaling for Anthony Davis to take his feet out of the purple ice bucket kept ringing, but no one stopped it. Davis, eyes frozen and fixated on the door, didn’t move, his hands folded on his lap, the disappointment from the night filling all the empty space in the locker room.

The Lakers hadn’t experienced a loss in Los Angeles this season, and they definitely hadn’t felt one quite like this at any point this season.

Franz Wagner hit a game-winning three-pointer with 3.3 seconds left, giving the Magic a 119-118 win and ending the Lakers’ undefeated start at home.

Shooting with a two-point lead and 18.9 seconds left, Davis missed a pair of free throws that would’ve lifted the Lakers to their seventh consecutive win. Instead, Davis sat in the locker room in stunned stillness.

“We lost the game,” Davis said quietly. “I missed three free throws down the stretch. Come down, hit a three, take the lead. My free throws are very important, very crucial. Missed them.”

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DODGERS

From Jack Harris: The coronation was nothing new.

The narrative that came with it, however, reflected just how much has changed in one year.

For the third time in his decorated Major League Baseball career, Shohei Ohtani won most valuable player honors Thursday, claiming the National League’s top individual accolade by a unanimous vote from 30 members of the Baseball Writers Assn. of America.

While no designated hitter had won an MVP, the award was not a surprise. In his first season with the Dodgers, Ohtani led the NL in home runs (54), RBIs (130) and on-base-plus-slugging percentage (1.036). He was second in batting average (.310). And with 59 steals, he became the first player in history with a 50-homer, 50-steal season.

Unlike his previous two MVP awards in 2021 and 2023 with the Angels, the two-way star didn’t win this one while pitching, limited to hitting last season after undergoing a revision of the Tommy John surgery he had.

“The fact that I knew I wasn’t going to be able to pitch this season,” Ohtani said through an interpreter, “just made me focus more on my offensive game.”

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RAMS

From Gary Klein: After the Rams hired Sean McVay in 2017, general manager Les Snead was eager to see the 30-year-old’s head-coaching process at work.

During McVay’s first seven seasons, Snead often observed McVay in the coach’s office, busily scheming plays. Reading motivational books. Meeting with coaches, players and team executives.

So Snead was shocked last August when he witnessed something totally unexpected:

McVay making faces and cooing baby talk on a video call.

“Of all the things I thought I would see Sean McVay do,” Snead said, “that was not on the list.”

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USC FOOTBALL

From Sam Farmer: You win some, you lose some. At USC, that’s the recipe for a terrible football season.

The 5-5 Trojans, who play UCLA at the Rose Bowl on Saturday night, have blown fourth-quarter leads in all five of their losses. It’s a dramatic departure from the promise of two years ago, when head coach Lincoln Riley went 11-3 in his debut season.

Meanwhile, the 4-6 Chicago Bears have dropped four in a row, averaging 11.5 points in that losing slide. There’s turnover at the top of roughly one-quarter of the 32 NFL teams in a given year, and Chicago’s Matt Eberflus is a leading candidate for replacement. By all indications, he needs to get on a winning streak to save his job, and the Bears have a brutal remaining schedule that includes two games each against Detroit and Minnesota, plus San Francisco, Seattle and Green Bay.

The Bears used last spring’s No. 1 overall draft pick on quarterback Caleb Williams and need to capitalize on that investment. It doesn’t take much to connect the dots between Williams and his old quarterback whisperer at USC.

“Who would you rather put with Caleb Williams than Lincoln Riley?” asked CBS college football analyst Rick Neuheisel, who has coached in both college and the NFL. “If the Bears make a move on Eberflus, why wouldn’t you want to put Caleb with a guy who made him that comfortable?”

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SPARKS

From Anthony De Leon: It’s a new era for the Sparks once again.

Longtime collegiate head coach Lynne Roberts enters into the spotlight as the Sparks’ new coach, making the leap to the WNBA with the mission of revitalizing a franchise coming off its worst season in history.

Over her 27-year coaching career, Roberts has successfully transformed college programs, achieving complete turnarounds at Chico State, Pacific and Utah. Now she faces the challenge of replicating that success at the next level, navigating the heightened pressure that comes with coaching in Los Angeles.

“No one’s going to put more pressure on me than I put on myself,” Roberts said. “I put a ton of pressure on myself to succeed. As a competitor and someone who thrives under pressure, being in this market, being in L.A. — it sounds like heaven to me.”

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THIS DATE IN SPORTS

1945 — Jim Benton of the Cleveland Rams is the first NFL player to have more than 300 receiving yards in a game. Benton has 10 receptions for 303 yards and a touchdown in a 28-21 victory over the Detroit Lions.

1950 — The Fort Wayne Pistons edge the Minneapolis Lakers 19-18 in the lowest-scoring game in NBA history. John Oldham leads the Pistons with five points and George Mikan had 15 of the Lakers’ points.

1959 — The AFL holds their first player draft. First round choices are Boston, Gerhard Schwedes; Buffalo, Richie Lucas; Dallas, Don Meredith; Denver, Roger LeClerc; Houston, Billy Cannon; Los Angeles, Monty Stickles; Minneapolis, Dale Hackbart; New York, George Izo.

1965 — Muhammad Ali knocks out Floyd Patterson in the 12th round to retain the world heavyweight title in Las Vegas.

1981 — Kellen Winslow of the San Diego Chargers catches five touchdown passes in a 55-21 rout of the Oakland Raiders.

1986 — Mike Tyson becomes the youngest heavyweight champion ever when he knocks out Trevor Berbick in the second round to win the WBC heavyweight title in Las Vegas.

1986 — Wayne Gretzky, playing in his 575th NHL game, scores his 500th goal in the Edmonton Oilers’ 5-2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks.

1992 — North Carolina wins its seventh straight Division I women’s soccer title with a 9-1 win over Duke. The Tar Heels also set the record for most goals in a championship game.

1998 — John Elway of the Denver Broncos joins Dan Marino as the only players with 50,000 yards as the Broncos post a 40-14 victory over the Oakland Raiders.

2003 — The Montreal Canadiens beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-3, in the NHL’s first outdoor game. The game marking the 86th anniversary of the founding of the league is played in front of a record crowd of 57,167 at a football arena in Edmonton.

2003 — Utah ends BYU’s NCAA-record streak of 361 consecutive games without being shutout when the Utes beat the Cougars 3-0 in Provo, Utah. Wind and snow limits both offenses. Bryan Borreson’s 41-yard field goal is the all the 9-2 Utes need to clinch the Mountain West conference title. The Cougars had scored in every game dating back to Oct. 3, 1975.

2006 — Teemu Selanne scores his 500th career goal in the Ducks’ 3-2 loss to Colorado. Selanne, the 36th player in NHL history to reach the milestone, joins Jari Kurri as the only Finnish-born NHL players to score 500 goals.

2008 — Abilene Christian sets a record for points in an NCAA playoff game, beating West Texas A&M 93-68 in the second round of the Division II playoffs.

2010 — Alex Kovalev records his 1,000th point with a power-play goal midway through the first period of Ottawa’s game against the Kings.

2012 — New England embarrasses the New York Jets with a 35-point second quarter in a 49-19 victory to give and Bill Belichick his 200th NFL victory. Belichick is the eighth coach in NFL history with 200 career victories, including the playoffs.

2014 — Samaje Perine of Oklahoma sets the single-game FBS record by rushing for 427 yards in the Sooners’ 44-7 in over Kansas. Perine breaks the single-game FBS record of 408 set by Wisconsin’s Melvin Gordon a week earlier.

Compiled by the Associated Press