Month: November 2017

LeBron James shook off a blow to the face and scored 23 points in the fourth quarter — including 18 straight for Cleveland — as the Cavaliers won their sixth straight, 119-109 over the Brooklyn Nets on Wednesday night.

Stevens noted that Los Angeles’ compacted schedule could be impacting the team’s play. The Vegas game was the Kings’ fifth in eight days, and with days off Monday and Tuesday, he hopes to have a re-energized team hit the ice against Winnipeg.

“We did not score enough and gave up too much in these last five games,” Stevens said. “It was the end of a tough week. I thought that if we came out strong in the first 10 minutes against Vegas we would have been fine.”

“To have him go down is a huge, huge setback for us,” tight end Vernon Davis said. “Chris Thompson is one of the best in the league when it comes to running the ball, catching and making plays. To lose him is tough. It’s hard to replace a guy like that with his talent and his ability to do what he does. It’s a tough situation to be in.”

“It’s hard to replace a guy like that,” Moses said. “You might not be able to replace a guy like that, what he brings to the offense, what he brings to the locker room. … But we can’t [dwell] on it.”

Alex Smith entered Week 11 as the NFL’s top-rated passer and is on pace to set career records for touchdowns and yards. But Smith is trending the wrong way. His three games with a passer rating of less than 100 have come in the past five, and he was at his worst in Sunday’s loss to the Giants. He threw two interceptions and failed to have a touchdown pass for the first time this season. — Adam Teicher

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s proposed extension still is on track to get done despite the recent battle surrounding the negotiations, and many expect it to be completed at or before the owners’ Dec. 13 meetings in Dallas, sources familiar with the deal told ESPN.

Linebacker Von Miller: “He’s the head guy. His comments — he’s the boss. … I was kind of taken aback by it, which you should be. If you have any kind of emotion about you … your reaction should be: ‘What? I’m not soft.’ But if you take a look back at it, the truth is, that’s what we’ve been putting out there. That’s the type of team that we’ve developed into. That’s what we got. It’s the truth. He’s telling the truth.”

Broncos president and general manager John Elway said the team, currently in a five-game losing streak, “exhaled” after starting off the season strong and needs to learn how to overcome difficulties to get things back on track.

“I was talking about everybody in the organization. … Sometimes success will make you soft and you won’t pay attention to some of the details that you need to pay attention to,” Elway said in an interview with Orange and Blue 760. “And I’d put myself first in line there.”

Elway added: “I knew before I said it that some guys weren’t gonna like it.”

Speaking after an event Friday night at Sports Authority Field at Mile High, Elway first made the comments that reverberated throughout the organization. The Broncos are 3-7 and in last place in the AFC West.

Chris Kreider and Jesper Fast scored two goals apiece, including Kreider’s first just 52 seconds into the game, and the New York Rangers rolled to a 6-1 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday night.

Mika Zibanejad and Paul Carey followed Kreider with goals in the first 11 minutes as the Rangers jumped out to a commanding lead. Kreider got his second goal 20 seconds into the third, and Fast scored twice in the final period to turn it into a rout.

The Rangers have scored at least three goals in 13 of their last 16 games. … Teravainen has 11 points in his last five games and Aho has 10. … Hurricanes forward Justin Williams played his 1,100th NHL game. He became the eighth active player to reach that mark. … Rangers D Ryan McDonagh missed the game with an abdominal strain and C David Desharnais was a healthy scratch. … D Klas Dahlbeck and C Victor Rask were healthy scratches for the Hurricanes.

“I know Marquise was hurting bad, real bad, and he will for a while and I know his wife will, too,” the San Francisco coach said during his Monday press conference. “I don’t know how sure he was right away. I think he was up alone throughout the night and then he got here.

“By the time I was able to talk to Marquise he was hurting but he was adamant he wanted to play, and that’s something as a coach you respect. You don’t want someone just to tell that to you because that’s what you want to hear as a coach. You want someone to tell it to you because they mean it. And you could tell ‘Quise meant it.”

Goodwin had the play of the game, snagging an 83-yard touchdown pass from rookie quarterback C.J. Beathard to aid in the Niners’ first win of the season.

Goodwin sank to the ground in the end zone and let his emotions flow as his teammates rushed over and surrounded him.

If players such as Sierra Calhoun, Linnae Harper, Alexa Hart, Asia Doss, Makayla Waterman and Jensen Caretti all play to their potential, the Buckeyes could be a force.

They’ll get a little sense of what a Final Four might be like early on. The Buckeyes host Stanford, which advanced to its 13th Final Four last season, on Nov. 10 at St. John Arena. Then in a Nov. 12 doubleheader at Nationwide Arena, where the Final Four will be played, Ohio State meets Louisville and Stanford takes on 11-time NCAA champion UConn.

If the 2016 Pro Bowl selection regains his form, Ajayi is likely to emerge as the No. 1 back for the Eagles (7-1). Roseman, however, said LeGarrette Blount will remain the starting running back for an Eagles offense that already ranks third overall in production at the midpoint of the season.

That’s how the evening ended. It began much differently, with Magic Johnson perched in the tunnel, watching the Dodgers thrash the Cubs on the Jumbotron while reminiscing about his own debut 38 years ago. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar hit a game-winning hook shot from the free-throw line at the San Diego Sports Arena, Johnson jumped into his arms, and Abdul-Jabbar chided the zealous rook for overreacting.

Here was Ball, another prodigal point guard, again facing the Clippers. “I can’t imagine being him,” Johnson said.

“Jimmy made big catches in the middle of some drama,” Sherman said. “There are fake reports out there that say we are trading Jimmy Graham. Thankfully our GM and our head coach come out and they are very transparent about everything and put those to rest.”

Pederson homered in the seventh against Joe Musgrove, connecting off the right-hander for the second time in three games and making it a record 24 long balls that have been hit in this Series.

McCullers started Game 3 of the World Series, but he struggled with his command, walking four batters and giving up three runs in 5? innings, before eventually getting credit for the win in Houston’s 5-3 win.

A similar situation played out last season with Ohio State and Penn State. Even though Penn State beat Ohio State, the one-loss Buckeyes were ranked higher than the two-loss Nittany Lions in each of the committee’s rankings, even after Penn State won the Big Ten championship. It simply viewed the Buckeyes as the better team.

Other one-loss teams to watch are Clemson, which lost to Syracuse but has an otherwise impressive résumé, and Notre Dame, whose only loss was to Georgia. If Clemson is in the top four, it will show that the committee can forgive a bad loss, even before a conference title has been won to compensate for it.

He has not been the same pitcher since that elbow surgery, which Cain had in 2014 to remove bone chips. He’s been dogged by everything from a flexor strain to nerve pain to pulled hamstrings. The six-year, $127.5 million deal he signed in ’12—at the time the largest for a righty in history—is set to expire after this season. He didn’t reach the innings floor that would have triggered his ’18 option.

Kyle Busch is the first driver into NASCAR’s championship race, using an overtime pass of teammate Denny Hamlin to win Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.
This is the game, one of three race rounds in which winning trumps anything else. Don’t hate the players. NASCAR has hedged its hopes that more days like Sunday will allow it to stop the free fall of attendance and ratings declines.

Darvish quickly exited the clubhouse after the Dodgers’ 3-1 win in Game 6 on Tuesday night, before the rest of his teammates had even finished showering; but McCullers went out to right field and played catch, going through his pitches as fans were still exiting the ballpark.

Miami’s nonconference schedule (Bethune-Cookman and Toledo) doesn’t compare to that of some one-loss teams. The ACC opponents Miami has beaten have a combined record of 15-25, and some of those games have been nail-biters. Miami also has yet to play any ranked opponents, but unlike Wisconsin, there are still opportunities in the regular season to do so, starting Saturday against No. 13 Virginia Tech, followed by No. 5 Notre Dame on Nov. 11.

The committee isn’t looking ahead, though, so Miami will be judged only on what it has done to date. How far will these undefeated teams fall, or will the committee reward them in spite of their weaker schedules?

“I’m surprised by that,” Forte said. “We knew the weather was going to be like this and then it continued to rain the entire game and I think we ran the ball (22 times) and it should have been one person getting 20 carries or something like that.”

The Jets missed a chance to increase a 17-16 lead early in the fourth quarter when Chandler Catanzaro missed his second field goal of the game, going wide right on a 48-yard attempt.

“I know Colin has been fighting to get in the room to speak with the corporate people from the NFL, and thus far he hasn’t been able to. We’re just going to keep working on getting him in the room. He told me that he was explicitly told that he had no place being there [in the last meeting].”

The Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns failed to work out a trade that would have sent quarterback AJ McCarron to Cleveland, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

The Bengals said they would listen to offers for McCarron for the right price, and it seemed almost certain that McCarron would be elsewhere by the time the 2017 season came around. The team claimed quarterback Jeff Driskel off waivers last year with the intention of developing him if they got an acceptable offer for McCarron.

At the end of last season, McCarron expressed his appreciation to the organization, which sounded like he was preparing to say goodbye. However, a trade never materialized, and McCarron once again entered the season as Dalton’s backup. He has taken three snaps in 2017.

Oh, Browns. They need a quarterback, and the Bengals were willing to deal backup AJ McCarron. But according to ESPN Cleveland’s Tony Grossi, Cleveland didn’t get the deal done because it didn’t call it into the league office before the deadline.

Yes, the Browns flubbed a last-minute deal for a quarterback because of a reporting error.

The Browns argued that the proposed McCarron trade should be allowed to go through, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. The league disagreed, and McCarron is staying with the Bengals. And the Bengals can’t be too happy about it, because they would have received a second- and third-round pick from the Browns in exchange for their backup, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Jim Owczarski.

McCarron isn’t Deshaun Watson, who the Browns could have drafted at No. 12 if they hadn’t traded the pick away to the Texans. He’s not Carson Wentz either, who didn’t even make the Browns’ list of top-20 prospects in 2016.

The additional exams likely will determine whether he should resume his rehab in an effort to play this season, according to the source, but the prospect of Luck playing this season has unquestionably grown dimmer.

From 7/3/2017: “Solid views, including into the ballpark. Beers are basically as expensive as they are in the stadium, though. Layout could definitely have been designed more intelligently to ensure that more patrons can actually watch the game from the roof.”

Brandon Beane said Tuesday not to expect any big moves before the trade deadline, per Vic Carucci of the Buffalo News. Then the Bills went out and got themselves a true No. 1 wide receiver.

Beane, who was hired by Buffalo this offseason as the team’s general manager, was the director of football operations with the Panthers when the team drafted Benjamin with the 28th overall pick in 2014.

Benjamin also reunites with Bills head coach Sean McDermott, who was the Panthers’ defensive coordinator from 2011 through 2016.

What does this mean for the Panthers? It means that Cam Newton is going to have to count on Devin Funchess and Curtis Samuel for the bulk of the receiving workload, and that’s not ideal.

Newton did have his best season in 2015 when Benjamin was sidelined with a torn ACL. But Newton had Greg Olsen on the field. Right now, Olsen is on injured reserve with a broken foot. The team does expect him to return this season, but any kind of setback for the 32-year-old tight end could easily derail those plans.

The players also received a lot of love from the crowd, but none got more than Stephen Curry. The crowd chanted “MVP” when the team captain received his ring last. These fans clearly view Curry above all others, including reigning Finals MVP, Kevin Durant. Curry thanked Dubnation fans before the official 2017 NBA Championship banner dropped from the rafters.

“It’s a league matter,” Kerley said. “My main focus right now is Thursday. It’s a quick turnaround. Any questions about that, I’d love to answer. As far as the suspension, I’m going to leave that up to the league.”

Asked if he expects to play Thursday night against the Bills, Kerley said, “I don’t know. As far as right now, I’m ready to play.”

Coach Todd Bowles also deferred to the league on the matter, but he said they’d be able to adjust if a suspension is handed down before Thursday.

Kerley will be a key loss for the Jets (3-5). He was their No. 3 receiver and played in 55 percent of the offensive snaps over the first eight games, compiling 22 catches (fourth on the team) for 217 yards and a touchdown.

Kerley also assumed the punt-returning role in recent weeks, and his fourth-quarter muff on Sunday proved costly in a 25-20 loss to the Atlanta Falcons.

Without Kerley, the Jets will use one of their two rookies — Chad Hansen or ArDarius Stewart — as the No. 3 receiver, behind Jermaine Kearse and Robby Anderson.

Kerley became the fourth Jets player to be suspended in 2017. Previously, tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins, wide receiver Jalin Marshall and defensive back Nick Marshall served suspensions. Seferian-Jenkins’ two-game ban (Weeks 1 and 2) stemmed from a DUI arrest that occurred in September 2016 while he was playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The Los Angeles Rams are 6-18 straight up and 10-14 against the spread in their last 24 games against the Seahawks. The Rams have won three of the last four games in this head-to-head series, however, and are hoping to pick up another win over their division rivals on Sunday.

Los Angeles is a 2.5-point home favorite over Seattle at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com. This marks the first time that the Rams have been a betting favorite against Seattle since back in 2011, when they lost 24-7 as a 3-point home favorite.

The Rams have been one of the biggest early surprises of the 2017 season with a 3-1 SU and 2-2 ATS start to the year, and a win over Seattle would give Los Angeles an early commanding lead in the NFC West.

The 49ers have lacked consistency in the punt return game since Ted Ginn left, and it seems like a matter of time before Taylor busts one for a touchdown. In the passing game, he is showing confidence that receivers with significant experience lack. With Marquise Goodwin and Aldrick Robinson dealing with drops, Taylor is starting to emerge as the second wide receiver option behind Gar?on.

The title of “best Seahawks newcomer” realistically could only go to one of Griffin or Chris Carson, and while Carson has earned all of the accolades and it’s devastating to lose his services, Griffin is my choice because he’s been thrown into the unenviable role of “The guy quarterbacks target because Richard Sherman is on the other side,” and he’s handled it extremely well.