National Basketball Association

National Basketball Association

The 2026 Winter Olympics have concluded, and the United States, unsurprisingly, did not place atop the medal table. The United States usually excels more at the Summer Olympics; the Americans haven't won the medal count at a Winter Games since 1932, but they have topped the medal table in seven of the past eight Summer Games. (China was the only exception at the 2008 Beijing Games.)

So when he bounced around the Allen Fieldhouse court after Kansas upset then-No. 1 Arizona on Feb. 9, embracing his players as if the clock had just struck midnight on New Year's Eve, it shocked them. "That's three hugs in my career," sophomore Flory Bidunga said after the game. "He's giving hugs now? We've got to cut him off." Rare as it is, Self's celebration matched the moment: The Jayhawks had just handed the 23-0 Wildcats their first loss of the season.

PHOENIX -- Portland Trail Blazers All-Star guard Deni Avdija left Sunday's game against the Phoenix Suns because of a lower back injury and the team said he wouldn't return to the game. Avdija was listed as questionable coming into the game but decided to play. He lasted just one minute before leaving the court and going back to the locker room.

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Entering the game, Towns had attempted 728 field goals in Brown's offense. At the same point last season? He had attempted 880. That's an average of three fewer shots a game than he averaged last season, which might go a long way toward explaining why he doesn't seem all that happy in Brown's offense. That unhappiness has reared its ugly head again and again, most recently in the Knicks' ugly loss to the Pistons on Thursday.

Indiana Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton has been diagnosed with shingles and will be away from the team for a few weeks, coach Rick Carlisle said Sunday. Haliburton hasn't played at all this season due to the torn Achilles he suffered in Game 7 of last year's NBA Finals, but he has still been on the team's bench during games.

Arizona (25-2, 12-2), which opened the season 23-0, won its second straight game following consecutive losses to then-No. 9 Kansas and then- 16th-ranked Texas Tech, that knocked the team out of the No. 1 spot in the AP Top 25 poll. The Wildcats were down by two before scoring the next 12 points to make it 60-50 with about five minutes remaining. The Cougars missed eight consecutive shots and had three turnovers in that stretch to allow Arizona to build the lead.

Alex Sarr is out with a right hamstring injury and I'm not sure that we'll see him again this season, while Vukcevic is the only guy to fill the void he'll leave. Vukcevic can help fantasy managers with points, rebounds, steals, blocks and 3-pointers, and came back from a two-game absence due to an illness for a masterful 12 points, five rebounds, five steals, a block and two 3-pointers in just 17 minutes against the Pacers on Thursday.

The only good reason to be mad at him is that he has leveraged the unlimited resources and power of Klutch Sports, CAA, Spotify, and The Ringer to make daytime SportsCenter simulacrum without the catchphrases. Paul and Kellerman's FanDuel-sponsored podcast is bad. It's bad in the sort of banal way that most podcasts are bad-the hosts don't say much of substance, they are stricken with red light syndrome, and their riffs are obtuse and unimaginative.

I already apologized to Steve, OK? It's the only reason I sent him to the locker room. I thought he literally made a dirty play and tried to wipe the guy out. Once I saw the film, I mean, he still got an F-1. To be honest with you, I don't even know if he deserved that.

Look, we're a team that really scores well inside ... And we literally couldn't generate any scoring there at all all night,