sport world

After a dogfight in the first half, the No. 2-seeded Sparks pulled away from the fifth-seeded Phoenix Mercury, and the defending WNBA champions won their playoff opener and the first game of their semifinal series Tuesday. The Sparks defense helped them stifle Phoenix in the second half of a 79-66 victory. “It went just like I thought it would, you’ve got champions over there,” said Sparks coach B...

SAN FRANCISCO – Breathe. In. Out. The Dodgers’ 17-game out-of-body experience finally came to an end Tuesday night – they hope – with a white-knuckler of a 5-3 victory over the San Francisco Giants. The win ended an 11-game losing streak, the longest since the franchise moved to Los Angeles in 1958, and was only their second in the past 18 games (both started by Clayton Kershaw). With it, the Dodg...

The Lakers appear set to retire Kobe Bryant’s jersey on Dec. 18, less than two years after he last donned it in a dazzling and dramatic 60-point sendoff. The only question will be which number hangs from the rafters: No. 8? No. 24? TMZ reported early Tuesday moing that the Lakers had informed season-ticket holders to “hold on to tickets” for the Dec. 18 game against Golden State for a “special e...

THOUSAND OAKS >> No dramatic moment, no speech, no loud applause. The Rams simply conducted their defensive meetings Monday with Aaron Donald in attendance, and that normalcy had to feel superb. Donald, the Rams’ star lineman who ended his six-week contract holdout Saturday, got back to work at team headquarters. The plan, according to Coach Sean McVay, is for Donald to be on the field when ...

SAN FRANCISCO >> After losing 10 games in a row and 15 of their past 16, the Dodgers arrived at AT&T Park on Monday afteoon willing to go to extremes if that’s what it took to tu things around. They would have to. The dark clouds that have followed them the past two weeks dropped rain on AT&T Park, two separate delays – one before the game even started and another after just one ...

COSTA MESA >> You can count them all on one hand. There is John Lee, an All-America kicker at UCLA whose NFL career lasted 11 games. There isxa0Hines Ward, the five-time Pro Bowl receiver who spent the first months of his life in Seoul. There is Kyle Love, the Panthers defensive tackle whose father was a U.S. Army colonel once stationed in South Korea. The Chargers have made Younghoe Koo the n...

ANAHEIM >> Mike Trout and Huston Street, like everyone else, have been watching the nightmarish scenes on television from Houston, and they wanted to do something about it. Trout announced via Twitter on Tuesday that he was donating $27,000 – an amount to correspond to his jersey No. 27 – to aid the relief effort of Tropical Storm Harvey. Street, a Texas native, said via his Twitter account ...

LOS ANGELES >> USC will trot out veteran pass catchers for quarterback Sam Daold when it opens its season on Saturday against Weste Michigan. As part of the depth chart it revealed Sunday, its three starting receivers include fourth-year juniors Deontay Buett and Jalen Greene, along with fifth-year senior Steven Mitchell. “If you’ve been out there before, you kind of know how to handle...

Ranked No. 4 in the CIF Southe Section’s Division 4 poll, the Downey High football team expected a better start to the season than what it got against Santa Margarita. The Vikings were totally overmatched against a Trinity League opponent in a 56-0 loss last Friday night. Particularly uncharacteristic for the Vikings was an offensive line that struggled to slow down the Eagles’ pass rushers. “Th...

Ranking the top 10 sports events Aug. 28 to Sept. 3 you won’t want to miss: NO. 1: COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEASON OPENERS USC vs. WESTERN MICHIGAN Details/TV: At the Coliseum, Saturday at 2:15 p.m., Pac-12 Network UCLA vs. TEXAS A&M Details/TV: At the Rose Bowl, Sunday at 4:30 p.m., Channel 11 Admire Sam Daold while he’s still in got some Coliseum eligibility and a Heisman campaign. Also keep in mi...

LOS ANGELES >> Is it possible for USC to have any surprise players when the Trojans are ranked No. 4 and one of the most scrutinized programs in the nation? Even in the social media age, it is possible for players to exceed expectations or surprise the public. One of my picks is tight end Cary Angeline, a 6-foot-7 freshman who looks fast enough to be a receiver. Angeline might only make two ...

ANAHEIM >> It took three men to extract a pigeon from the Angel Stadium baseball diamond Monday. Texas Rangers first baseman Mike Napoli coered the clumsy bird, which had spent a half-inning meandering around the right side of the infield, between himself and first base umpire Gary Cederstrom. Cederstrom then chased the pigeon slowly from fair territory toward the first-base dugout. Rangers manager Jeff Banister finally emerged, picked up the pigeon with his bare hands, and carried it back...

Ranking the top 10 sports events Aug. 21-27 you won’t want to miss: NO. 1: BOXING: FLOYD MAYWEATHER JR. vs. CONOR McGREGOR Details/TV: At T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Saturday, 6 p.m., pay-per-view (suggested price: $99.95) It’s the latest piece of non-circumstantial evidence that sports has eclipsed sanity, with or without a special pair of $100 glasses to watch it sear our retinas. All the time, space, ink, verbiage, video, expectations and deviations dedicated to this Battlestar Galactica pre...

Even before his first regular-season game, Rams Coach Sean McVay showed he won’t be afraid to delegate responsibilities. McVay, formerly the offensive coordinator in Washington, announced shortly after his hire in January that he would call plays for the Rams, but McVay said Sunday that his offensive coordinator, Matt LaFleur, called plays during the second half of Saturday’s preseason victory over Oakland. Most notably, LaFleur, formerly the quarterbacks coach in Atlanta, called plays when the ...

LOS ANGELES >> A text from UCLA offensive line coach Hank Fraley flashed across Michael Alves’ phone screen. “You’re going with the ones tomorrow,” it read. Instead of being excited about his promotion from second-string guard to the first group, Alves was conceed. “Is someone injured or something?” the redshirt freshman recalls thinking after hearing of the change. But it wasn’t an injury that shook up UCLA’s once-solid No. 1 offensive line. It was Alves’ consistent improvement. He’s prac...

There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who brush their teeth at the gym, and those who don’t. Likewise, there are two kinds of people in the world of sports: Those who play fantasy football, and those who choose to act like adults. As you probably just guessed, I’m not a fantasy owner, and that goes for real life, as well. My most significant investment to date has been my current car, which I purchased without hesitation despite an odometer that read in excess of 100,000 and an engin...

Even in Major League Soccer, time will eventually run out. That’s approaching rapidly for the Galaxy. Including Saturday night’s meeting against New York City FC, the Galaxy have 12 games remaining, and to complicate matters, the club begins the week in ninth place in the Weste Conference, nine po...

LOS ANGELES >> Once you get past quarterback Sam Daold, there are a few other unique parts of USC’s offense that sometimes get buried in the Heisman hype. Perhaps an underplayed identity of this team is that the Trojans feature two tailbacks who weigh more than 200 pounds and possess breakaw...

Ranking the top 10 sports events Aug. 7-13 you won’t want to miss: NO. 1: NFL EXHIBITIONS: CHARGERS vs. SEAHAWKS Details/TV: At StubHub Center, Sunday, 5 p.m., Ch. 7 RAMS vs. COWBOYS Details/TV: At the Coliseum, Saturday, 6 p.m., Ch. 2 Well, we got a bit of a look at the two local teams. And the two...

Willie Reed, a backup center who signed a one-season, $1.5-million contract with the Clippers last week, was arrested early Sunday moing in Miami on a misdemeanor battery charge stemming from a domestic violence incident, according to multiple reports. Reed was arrested at a downtown Miami condo, ...