NBA News

Last season was a dream for SEC men’s basketball with a record 14 teams in the NCAA field and Florida winning the national title. There’s been an expected regression from that historic campaign, but the league is still expected to have double-digit teams participating in March Madness and the postseason tournament shaping up to another balanced competition with several contenders …

Over the last month of the men’s college basketball regular season, there’ve seemingly been safe spots in the NCAA tournament at-large pool available for the taking. Most teams, however, haven’t taken them. As a result, more than a handful of teams enter tournament week with work to do to push their way to the right side of the proverbial bubble. …

Bam Adebayo scored 83 points – the second highest number in an NBA game – as the Miami Heat beat the Washington Wizards 150-129. The center said it was a “special moment” when he passed Kobe Bryant’s 81-point tally, set in 2006. Advertisement Wilt Chamberlain’s record of 100 points has stood since 1962. Adebayo scored 36 of 43 free-throws – …

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Pakistan awarded ODI debuts to four players and Bangladesh won the toss and elected to field Wednesday to open the three-match series. Sahibzada Farhan, Maaz Sadaqat, Shamyl Hussain and Abdul Samad formed the new-look Pakistan top order. Farhan was rewarded for his outstanding performance at the T20 World Cup, where he scored 383 runs. Advertisement Both …

Game Story You’re still awake? If you are, kudos to you. You’re a true diehard. If not, we don’t blame you. By the time the final buzzer sounded, the clock struck 12:38 a.m. Central. The Los Angeles Lakers came into the night winners in five of their last six games. One of the areas they’ve excelled in has been shooting …

Tonight’s Rockets win over the the 5th place Toronto Raptors was just the thing for a Rockets team that was soundly thrashed by the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday. Almost everything a Rockets fan might want was there tonight. We saw a defense that held the Raptors to 18 points below their season scoring average, and also below 100 points. …

LOS ANGELES — For the second straight game, we saw the vision of how the Lakers want to play around Luka Doncic starting to manifest. There is Austin Reaves as the secondary playmaker, putting up 31 points on Tuesday night and getting downhill (plus having two four-point plays). Then, with LeBron James out again, the Lakers start Marcus Smart and …

Erik Spoelstra has walked the sidelines for more than 1,600 games as the head coach of the Miami Heat. But he’d never seen one quite like the one he coached on Tuesday. “This was just an absolutely surreal night,” Spoelstra told reporters after Miami’s historic 150-129 win over the Washington Wizards. “You know, obviously we have been blessed to have …

MIAMI (AP) — FIFA said Tuesday night that it anticipates Iran’s national team will be allowed to come to the United States, even with war going on between the countries, and compete in the World Cup that begins in about three months. Iran and is scheduled to play in Inglewood, California, against New Zealand on June 15 and Belgium on …

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Brooke Carlson scored 17 points, Madelyn Bragg added 15 and Colorado State pulled away in the fourth quarter to beat Air Force 56-42 on Tuesday night for the Rams’ first Mountain West Conference championship since 2016. No. 3 seed Colorado State (27-7) took a 34-32 advantage into the final period and outscored Air Force 22-10. Carlson …

ATLANTA (AP) — After a season of jarring change and inconsistent play, the Atlanta Hawks appear to be coming together at just the right time. The Hawks won their seventh straight game — the team’s longest streak since the 2021-22 season and best active run in the NBA — by holding off the woeful Dallas Mavericks 124-112 on Tuesday night. …

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Mathew Barzal scored in overtime to cap the New York Islanders’ rally from a three-goal deficit for a 4-3 win over the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday night. In addition to his goal at 2:11 of the extra period, Barzal had two assists. Calum Ritchie had a goal and an assist and Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Bo …

Only 10 players in NBA history had ever scored 70 points in a single game. Only Wilt Chamberlain and Kobe Bryant had ever scored 80 points in a game. Bam Adebayo broke both barriers on Tuesday night as his Miami Heat blasted the Washington Wizards 150-129 at home in one of the most shocking individual scoring displays in league history. …

NEW YORK (AP) — Malachi Davis and Greg Gordon each scored 24 points and Long Island University beat Mercyhurst 79-70 to claim the NEC title on Tuesday night. The top-seeded Sharks (24-10) entered the contest already having secured an NCAA Tournament bid as No. 3 seed Mercyhurst (17-17) is still completing its four-year conversion to Division I membership from Division …

Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo set a franchise-record following his first half performance against the Washington Wizards on March 10. Adebayo torched the Washington defense for a team-record 31 points in the opening quarter, the most in Heat history for points scored in the first quarter. Advertisement Adebayo played the entire first quarter. He shot 10-for-16 from the field, including …

CHICAGO (AP) — David Coit scored 17 points, Elijah Saunders added 15, and Maryland defeated Oregon 70-60 in a first-round game of the Big Ten Tournament on Tuesday. Maryland held Oregon to 3-for-22 shooting (14%) with 0 for 10 from 3-point distance in the first half and the Terrapins led 33-12 at the break. Maryland scored the first nine points …

Tyrese Maxey is set for an extended absence. The All-Star Philadelphia 76ers guard has a tendon injury in his right pinkie and will be re-evaluated in three weeks, ESPN’s Shams Charania reports. The news is a blow for the 76ers as they fight to make the playoffs. The 76ers entered Monday in eighth place in the Eastern Conference at 34-30. …

We have been in peak Luka Doncic barking at the officials season lately, even for one of the notorious complainers in the Association. Even the Lakers’ home broadcast has been calling him out on it lately. All those words were not what earned Doncic a $50,000 fine announced by the NBA on Tuesday, it was “directing an inappropriate and unprofessional …

NEW YORK (AP) — Luka Doncic has been fined $50,000 for making a gesture toward an official during the Lakers’ 110-97 win over the Knicks, the NBA announced Tuesday. The incident occurred with 4:35 remaining in the third quarter on Sunday when Doncic fell backward after contact from Knicks forward Mohamed Diawara, who was driving to the basket. Doncic threw …

There’s a new (old?) team atop the USA TODAY Sports NBA power rankings. As the NBA calendar turns to the final month of the regular season, races for playoff seeding are tightening. In the East, the difference between the top two teams, the Detroit Pistons and Boston Celtics, is just 2 ½ games. In the West, that margin between the …

NEW YORK (AP) — The WNBA and the players’ union are set to meet Tuesday to continue discussions on reaching a new collective bargaining agreement as a deadline to get the season started on time is at hand, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature …

The High Score 100 — the top 100 players in Yahoo’s newest fantasy basketball format — is a running reflection of year-to-date performance and trending production. Each weekly update captures who’s actually delivering value and who’s fading. Here’s a breakdown of the biggest movement heading into the final week of the fantasy regular season — with the complete High Score …

Top-ranked Duke has lost starting point guard Caleb Foster to a broken right foot that will keep him out for an extended period, while starting big man Patrick Ngongba II won’t play in the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament while dealing with his own foot issue. Foster was hurt in the first half of Saturday’s rivalry win against No. 19 North …

PERTH, Australia (AP) — Japan kept its perfect defensive record intact to reach the quarterfinals of the Women’s Asian Cup without conceding a goal as Taiwan and the Philippines also qualified Tuesday. On a day when the action on the field was overshadowed by five players from the Iranian team being granted asylum by host nation Australia, Japan’s 4-0 win …

Auditions for next year’s roster continued in earnest Monday night when the shorthanded Utah Jazz took on the equally decimated Golden State Warriors at the Delta Center. News surfaced earlier that day that the Jazz released guard Vince Williams Jr, adding more incentive for players like Elijah Harkless, Blake Hinson, Oscar Tshiebwe and Cody Williams to make a statement that …