The Kings kept their fading playoff hopes alive on Thursday night at Staples Center with a 2-0 win over the Buffalo Sabres.
The game was scoreless until the 3rd period when Jerome Iginla got the Kings on the board 36 seconds into the final frame. It was Iginla’s 3rd goal since being traded to the Kings, which was set up by the hard work of Anze Kopitar and Dustin Brown.
About 14 minutes later, rookie Adrian Kempe scored his second goal as King with a beautiful wrist shot from the right circle. Brown earned his second assist of the game on the play.
Jonathan Quick would slam the door after that. The Kings netminder made 26 saves and earned his 1st shutout of the season.
The win helped the Kings keep pace with the St. Louis Blues, who defeated the Sharks on Thursday to remain 4 points ahead of LA in the race for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. Both teams have 12 games left.
“We need to win every game,” forward Tyler Toffoli said earlier this week. “We need to get rolling here and find a way to get two points in all these games coming up.”
LA finished their 7 game home stand with a 4-2-1 record, which sounds good, but not under the circumstances. The Kings started the homestand just 2 points out of a playoff spot, and now they are 4 points back after critical losses to the Blues and Coyotes.
Now the Kings hit the road for two more critical games. The first comes Sunday night at Calgary, followed by Monday night in Edmonton. Perhaps one of the few bright spots for LA in their chase for the final playoff spot is that they have a total of 6 games remaining against the Flames and Oilers, who can still be caught before the season is over.
USC came back from a 17 point deficit in Dayton on Wednesday night to defeat Providence 75-71, in a First Four game and advance in the NCAA tournament.
Bennie Boatwright scored a career-high 24 points and the Trojans got some payback for losing to Providence at the buzzer in last year’s opening round of the tournament.
The Friars used a 15-0 run and a stifling zone defense in the 1st half to jump out to a 44-29 lead at halftime.
However, USC would put together a furious comeback and close the deficit to five points by the 10-minute mark. Chimezie Metu finally gave the Trojans the lead with under 7 minutes left after making a jump shot. Metu finished the game with 15 points and 8 rebounds.
The big surprise of the night was freshman Nick Rakocevic, the 6’11 forward scored 9 points off the bench in 19 minutes, but provided a great deal of energy for USC to feed off of and get back in the game. He also had the best plus-minus in the game, finishing with a +10.
“This win’s probably his,” guard Elijah Stewart said. “Honestly, we should be at the crib right now.”
After digging themselves a whole in the first half, USC coach Andy Enfield fired up his players, but was also displeased according to several of them.
“I think it’s just — give Coach a heart attack or something,” Rakocevic said. “I don’t really know why we do it.” According to Elijah Stewart, Enfield said “What are you scared of?”
It turns out in the 2nd half they weren’t scared of anything. The Trojans will now face #6 SMU in the opening round of the tournament on Friday in Tulsa, Oklahoma. USC defeated SMU earlier in the season, but they’ll be facing a much improved team since then.
The Lakers are taking this whole tanking thing to a new level. This time they lost to Houston 139-100 on Wednesday in Texas. It was their 2nd 39-point loss to the Rockets this season.
Corey Brewer blamed it on the Lakers youth. “We’re young, we’re young,” Brewer said. “We don’t know what it takes yet. I’ve been in it for a long time, we don’t know what it takes. No matter what’s happening, in an NBA game, you can get back in it. I’ve been down 25, 30 points and got back in games and won games like that. You gotta understand you always have a chance if you’re playing hard and doing the right things.”
James Harden had 18 points, 13 assists, and 12 rebounds for Houston, and Lou Williams scored 30 points against his former team. The Lakers lost for the 11th time in 12 games.
Julius Randle had a career-high 32 points, to go along with eight rebounds and two assists. Brandon Ingram scored 18 points, and Jordan Clarkson also scored 18. Clarkson again started in place of D’Angelo Russell at point guard. He added two steals, three assists and three turnovers.
It was a rough night for Russell, who is adjusting to his new role. He fouled out for the first time in his career after playing 25 minute. He made two of 10 shots, missing all five of his three-point attempts. He finished with five points and committed seven turnovers.
Russell didn’t sound very confident about his new role. “Still trying to figure it out,” he said. “Different role and stuff like that. It’s whatever.”
The Lakers still have the 2nd worst record in the league with 14 games left, and they are two games worse than the 3rd worst Phoenix Suns. That’s important to watch because the Lakers only keep their 1st round pick if it ends up in the top 3.
The Lakers will return home on Friday to take on the Bucks at Staples Center.
Rickard Rakell scored his 30th goal of the season as the Ducks defeated the Blues 2-1 on Tuesday night at the Honda Center.
Ryan Getzlaf added a goal and Jonathan Bernier made 26 saves as the Ducks have regained 2nd place in the Pacific Division.
As many hockey players are, Rakell sounded very selfless. “It’s fun to score to goals. I always wanted to score goals as much as I could. But as long as we win, I just want to help the team in any way,” he said.
Rakell scored 6 minutes into the game after the Ducks took advantage of a turnover by the Blues. Getzlaf got the puck to him to help make it happen.
At the 6:37 mark of the 2nd period, Getzlaf made it 2-0 with a wrist shot that beat Jake Allen. It was his 14th of the season, and turned out to be the game winner.
The Blues got on the board at 9:52 of the 3rd period on Ivan Barbashev’s goal but they wouldn’t come any closer.
The Ducks return to action on Friday at home against the Sabres.
Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton had 16 points apiece, and the Bucks hung on for a 97-96 victory against the Clippers on Wednesday night at Staples Center.
DeAndre Jordan had 22 points and 17 rebounds, and Blake Griffin added 18, but missed a shot at buzzer that would have won the game. Griffin drove the lane and put up a shot that just rolled off the rim.
The Bucks led by seven with less than three minutes to play, but Jordan scored to bring the Clippers within a point. Then with 5.1 seconds left, LA called timeout and ran a play for Griffin moments later.
“It was a decent look,” Griffin said. “Wish we had two more seconds to let it develop.”
It was an off-night for Chris Paul, who shot just 2-10 from the field, while scoring six points and turning it over six times.
Milwaukee scored 30 points in the fourth quarter, giving the Clippers their second consecutive loss.
The Clippers are just 5-6 in their last 11 games, but head Coach Doc Rivers isn’t too worried. “It’s just a point in the season. Cleveland’s lost four of five, but if won then it’s a different (reaction). Maybe because they won a world championship. I have a lot of confidence in where we’re headed,” he said.
The Clippers will travel to Denver tomorrow night to take on the Nuggets. They plan on leaving Griffin and Jordan home to rest.
For the 2nd night in a row, the Kings were dealt another devastating blow to their playoff hopes. This time, a 3-2 loss to Arizona in shootout at Staples Center. The shootout took 11 rounds, but the Coyotes prevailed on a goal by Anthony DeAngelo.
Even though the Kings got 1 point in the standings, it’s not nearly enough with just 13 games left in the season, and 4 points out of a playoff spot. LA would need to win 10 of their final 13 games, and that’s if St. Louis or Edmonton play .500 hockey the rest of the way.
The Kings actually had the lead twice in this one. After a scoreless 1st period, Tyler Toffoli scored his 1st of two goals on the night at the 5:03 mark of the 2nd period. The Coyotes would tie things up in the 3rd period on Max Domi’s 8th goal of the season. It looked like the Kings we’re going to come away with 2 points when Toffoli struck again on the power play with 1:36 left. His 14th of the season. However, the Coyotes would answer. Domi would take advantage of a broken play in front of Kings goalie Ben Bishop, to tie the game with 45 seconds left.
In overtime, both teams had their chances, but Bishop and Coyotes goalie Louis Domingue made some big saves. Arizona even had a 4-on-3 power play in the final seconds of OT, but the Kings managed to get the game to a shootout.
That set the stage for the drama in shootout. Jeff Carter got things started off nicely for the Kings with a goal on a beautiful wrist shot that beat Domingue. Brandon Perlini answered for the Coyotes with a goal of his own. 10 rounds later, Bishop and Domingue continued to make save after save, until DeAngelo won it for Arizona in the 11th round.
Bishop made 30 saves and played a strong game, but he’s still winless since being traded to the Kings. Once again, the LA dominated on the stat sheet, but not on the scoresheet. The Kings outshot the Coyotes 46-32, and dominated the faceoff circle 49-29.
Well at least there’s good news for Bob Miller. The Kings last two games of the season probably won’t be stressful when he’s calling the final two games of his career, because the games will likely be meaningless. After the Kings lost 3-1 to the Blues on Monday at Staples Center, their playoff hopes are fading fast.
Magnus Paajarvi scored a power-play goal, and Jake Allen made 38 big saves as the Blues extended their lead over the Kings to 5 points for the final playoff spot in the West. There are 14 games left to play, and that means that even if the Blues win half of their remaining games, the Kings would have to win 10 of their final 14 just to pass them in the standings. LA hasn’t won 10 of 14 games during this entire season.
The game was scoreless after the 1st period, in a very cautious twenty minutes from both teams. Then in the 2nd, David Perron dug the puck out from underneath Jonathan Quick, and pushed the puck into the net after the Kings goaltender made the initial save.
The Blues made it 2-0 just 1:10 into the 3rd period, when Paajarvi deflected in a shot from Patrick Berglund, after Quick once again made the initial save on the play. It was a power play goal for St. Louis, which was just the 4th time the Kings have given up a power play goal in the last 55 penalty-kill opportunities.
Dustin Brown got the Kings on the board with just over 3 minutes left, putting home a rebound after a big scramble of bodies in front of the Blues net.
However, the Kings would get no closer. Jake Allen continued to respond with big save after big save, and Alexander Steen closed the scoring with an empty-netter. So how do the Kings approach the next 14 games?
“Just not pay attention to standings, not pay attention to what other the other teams did. And just worry about us and win every single game for the rest of the season,” defenseman Drew Doughty said.
The Kings face another must win game on Tuesday night against Phoenix at Staples Center. LA is 5-5-2 in back-to-back games this season.
The Lakers shuffled their starting lineup on Monday against the Nuggets, but it didn’t matter. Denver dominated LA 129-101, despite moving D’Angelo Russell to the bench and starting Jordan Clarkson in his place.
Will Barton and Jamal Murray scored 22 points apiece. Danilo Gallinari and Nikola Jokic each added 18 points for the Nuggets, who now have a 2 game lead over Portland for the final playoff spot in the West with 15 games remaining.
Ivica Zubac was the lone bright spot for LA, scoring a career-high 25 points to go along with 11 rebounds. Jordan Clakrson had 19, and Brandon Ingram scored 14, as the Lakers lost for the 10th time in the last 11 games.
Russell scored 10 points and had 3 assist on 4-14 shooting in 27 minutes. However, Walton said the move was made more for evaluation purposes. “D’Angelo has been playing great when you look at his numbers, but we’re 1-7 after the break and I want to see some other looks,” coach Luke Walton said before the game.
The Lakers trailed by as many as 32 points early on in the 3rd quarter. They managed to cut the lead to 93-76 after 3 quarters, but couldn’t get much closer. However, Denver went on an 11-0 run in the 4th to build a 28 point lead.
With 15 games left, the Lakers have the 2nd worst record in the league. They’ll take on the Rockets on Wednesday in Houston.
“We’re gonna continue to look for opportunities to look at new things so we can gain as much information as possible going into the off-season,” Walton said.
The Clippers shot well in the 1st half, but the Jazz had a big 3rd quarter, and defeated LA 114-109 on Monday night in Salt Lake City.
Gordon Hayward had 27 points and George Hill added 19 as Utah defeated the Clippers for the first time in nine tries at home. Chris Paul had 33 points for LA in a losing effort.
The victory gave the Jazz a two-game lead over the Clippers in the race for the No. 4 playoff seed in the Western Conference and home-court advantage in the first round.
“They wanted this game,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said. “They took the game. We played great in the first half and had a lead. I thought we should have had a bigger lead at halftime to be honest. I thought that was our chance to separate and we didn’t.”
The Clippers had a 56-49 lead at the half, behind 18 points from Paul, and 8 straight points from Austin Rivers. It was just a 7 point lead despite shooting 56% from the field, and 50% from behind the arc.
The Jazz exploded for a 40 point quarter in the 3rd, which was a season-high for any quarter. Hayward, whose back-to-back 3-pointers gave the Jazz a 103-92 lead. Hill finished with 19 points and Joe Ingles scored 18 off the bench.
Chris Paul was still fairly optimistic despite the loss. “We got to get it together,” Paul said. “I’d much rather be playing the right way and be playing consistently on both ends and lose a couple of games, but know going into the playoffs we’ve got our principles. We’re still working on them.
“It sucks, but you got to do it. If we were ready for everything right now, we might be peaking too soon, so hopefully we hit it at the right time.”
The Clippers return home to face the Bucks on Wednesday at Staples Center.
The Lakers introduced Rob Pelinka as their new General Manager on Friday. I heard a lot of good things from Pelinka, and it’s exciting, not just because he looks like Rob Lowe. However, I also heard something a little concerning as well. I heard a lot of talk about free agency. If there’s anything we’ve learned over the past five seasons of Laker basketball, it’s that free agency by itself is a lousy way to build a team, and it’s about to get a lot lousier with the new CBA. However, when you do an excellent job of drafting and developing players, you give yourself the opportunity to get elite free agents, and elite talent via trade. Rob Pelinka probably has some great relationships with players, but hopefully he’ll have more than that to sell to free agents during the offseason. As for the Lakers, here’s a summary of their season in 30 seconds……
On to college hoops, where March Madness is upon us, and the NCAA tournament bracket is set. That means UCLA’s fate has been determined after their disappointing showing over the weekend in their conference tournament. The Bruins blew a major opportunity to get a a #2 seed in the West, and have a very favorable path to the Final Four. Now their potential 2nd round matchup won’t be easy, and then they’ll probably have to face Kentucky and UNC to get to the Final Four. The bigger concern is the fact that UCLA reminded us over the weekend that they live and die by the 3-point shot, and that they can revert back to not playing any defense at any time. Lonzo Ball is banged up, Bryce Alford can’t get any shots off other than 3-pointers, and suddenly, I’m feeling a lot less confident about Steve Alford coaching the Bruins now that’s it’s March.
As for the Trojans, they narrowly made the NCAA Tournament, and will be participating in the play-in game on Tuesday vs Providence. USC will be the #11 seed. Sure enough, they are playing the team that played them last season in the 1st round, and beat them at the buzzer. That’s about as surprising as a USC student being hungover for class on Friday, after a Thursday night frat party. The selection committee loves these type of re-matches and creating story lines out of them. The Trojans game against Providence, and potentially SMU after that should be close ones. They are evenly matched, and USC should feel good that they beat SMU back in November. They probably won’t make it too much further though, with Baylor awaiting the winner of that game.
As for the rest of the bracket, Arizona might as well have a bye to the Final Four. You can pencil in Gonzaga to be upset by the Sweet 16 every year, and this year is no different. Congratulations to Kentucky for winning the SEC tournament. Their players are clearly earning all the money they are being paid. Word is President Trump has selected Trump University to win it all in his NCAA bracket. Kansas also has a fairly easy route to the Final Four but you can always count on them to blow it. That’s an annual guarantee like people smoking weed at Coachella.
The Rams went out and spent money on former USC receiver Robert Woods last week. I realize that the Rams needs help at wide receiver, but $15 million guaranteed for Robert Woods? Alshon Jeffrey got $14 million guaranteed and at least he was once a Pro Bowler. When you include Tavon Austin, that’s two receivers the Rams have overpaid for that are really #3 receivers on a good team. They should be directing most of their resources at the offensive line. Andrew Whitworth was a good start, but they need more.
If you think the Rams are having an unspectacular offseason thus far, the Chargers look like they are trying to give their new cross-town rivals a run for their money. The Bolts signed Russell Okung to help their offensive line, but apparently Okung nor the Chargers knew the rules about negotiating with a player who didn’t have an agent. They might have tampered by negotiating with him prior to the period when it was allowed. Based on how Okung played last season though, they probably have more to worry about him protecting Philip Rivers than the tampering issue.
I’m not in denial anymore. The LA Kings aren’t making the playoffs folks. Every time i find myself saying they are only a few points behind one particular team for the last playoff spot, a week later that team is about 10 points ahead of them. The same is about to happen with St. Louis, who is coming to Staples Center tonight. The wins the Kings are picking up now needed to happen back in December and January.
A tragic episode of The Walking Dead went down last night on AMC. SPOILER ALERT for those of you who have yet to see it so read no further if you are watching it later. The Saviors have officially lost their minds, in case we weren’t sure before. Now they are shooting people over a missing cantaloupe. Our favorite killer homemaker finally knows what happened in Alexandria, and Morgan is about to do his Rambo impersonation. It only took 13 episodes, daylight savings time, and a cantaloupe. I don’t remember a cantaloupe causing this much drama since Janet Jackson’s at the Super Bowl. Apparently in the apocalypse your life is worth 1 cantaloupe. Why isn’t Ezekiel bringing Shiva to these meetings? The last three episodes of this season are going to be epic.
Finally, it’s about to go down tonight on The Bachelor. The finals between Vanessa and Raven. However, when it’s over, you’ll think Nick is going to choose Raven, but he’s really going to choose nobody. Which we all agree is better than living in Canada. The producers must have blown the whole budget on the trip to Finland so they had to settle for ice baths for Nick and Vanessa’s date. Either that or Nick was determined to give Vanessa pneumonia. In the last episode, Nick saw more action than Chuck Norris does with 4 different girls in fantasy suites. The only difference is the action Chuck Norris sees can kill him, while the action Nick sees can give him herpes. My favorite part of the last episode was when Vanessa said this is the best relationship she’s been in. Really? The best relationship you’ve ever been in is with somebody who was dating two dozen women at the same time? Corrine and champagne are one of the ultimate duos of all-time. She was going off at Taylor during the women tell all. It felt like Josephine was Corrine’s hype man, supporting her with every word that came out of her mouth. Poor Taylor though….I guess she gave up her career for lent.
