The Sports Report: Lakers rally for an unexpected victory

Howdy, I’m your host, Houston Mitchell. Let’s get right to the news.

From Dan Woike: The Lakers couldn’t miss. Then they could. And then they couldn’t again.

Best to keep the inexplicable simple.

Despite being outscored by 32 points in the second quarter, the Lakers came back from 25 down to beat Portland 121-112 on Sunday night.

LeBron James had 37 points, Denis Schroder scored all but two of his 24 points in the second half, and Thomas Bryant had 31 points and 14 rebounds, punctuating the game with a pair of monster slam dunks in crunch time.

To orchestrate one of the wildest comebacks in NBA history, the Lakers first had to be historically bad.

And were they ever.

The Lakers made their first six shots of the game and led by 14 points early before the Trail Blazers pushed back into the game.

Portland won the second quarter 45-13, tied for the second-biggest scoring margin in one quarter since the addition of the three-point line.

The numbers were staggering.

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Unraveling the Lakers’ trade deadline dilemmas: Who might be coming to L.A.?

CLIPPERS

From Andrew Greif: The Clippers did something unusual this week. Twice, actually.

Amid a stretch of three games in four days, they practiced Monday. On Saturday, only 14 hours after the team had played in San Antonio, they held another.

The alternative would have been taking the days off, and more often than not, a franchise that has shown a conservative approach to limiting players’ workloads has opted for rest and recovery than practice. But more than halfway through a season in which the Clippers’ preferred lineups have rarely been on the court together, and facing the sobering realization that a team with championship aspirations is “not where we want to be right now,” center Ivica Zubac said, the team put on practice jerseys and got to work.

The unusual move led to something just as rare, Sunday afternoon — the start of a Clippers winning streak, one born out of attention to detail and not sheer talent, as they ran away from Dallas in a 112-98 win.

“We were just all on the same page,” guard Terance Mann said, “because of these practices.”

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UCLA BASKETBALL

From Ben Bolch: You can’t win them all? UCLA did just that for two dazzling months, finding a way even when it was not at its best.

The fun run finally ended Saturday. The fifth-ranked Bruins’ 58-52 loss to 11th-ranked Arizona at the McKale Center snapped a 14-game winning streak while shining an uncomfortably bright spotlight on some deficiencies.

This team lacks shooters. It’s also short on players who can create their own shot. Among those who played Saturday, only Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Tyger Campbell fit that description, and teams are increasingly finding ways to counteract Jaquez’s moves around the basket.

The fan overreaction to one loss for a team that remains in first place in the Pac-12 Conference standings was predictable. But it was also a reminder that some fixes have been needed for a while now, even before the Bruins (17-3 overall, 8-1 Pac-12) stumbled for the first time since late November.

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Emily Bessoir and Gabriela Jaquez each scored 13 points to help No. 9 UCLA beat Washington State 73-66 on Sunday.

A three-pointer by Bessoir with 8:21 remaining gave UCLA an 11-point lead — its largest of the contest. Bessoir hit three of the Bruins’ nine three-pointers.

USC BASKETBALL

The USC women’s team received a season-high 20 points from Destiny Littleton, including 6-for-6 from the free-throw line in overtime as the Trojans won their fourth straight, 63-54, at Washington. With the road win, USC is off to its best start in 29 years, now at 15-4 overall and 5-4 in Pac-12 play. Washington is now 10-8, 2-6.

DODGERS

From Jack Harris: In the weeks following his signing with the Boston Red Sox last month, Justin Turner started receiving presumptuous pieces of mail to his Southland home.

“We had like six or seven letters in our mailbox from realtors saying, ‘Hey, we want to sell your house,’” Turner recalled with a laugh. “It was like, whoa, no one said we are boxing up and leaving.”

But after an awkward end to his memorable nine-year tenure with the Dodgers this winter, the Southern California native still was adjusting to the fact Los Angeles is no longer his professional home.

“It’s still fairly fresh,” Turner said during a charity event Sunday, his first public appearance in L.A. since finalizing his two-year, $22-million contract with the Red Sox.

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KINGS

Jaret Anderson-Dolan scored twice and the Kings beat the Chicago Blackhawks 2-1. Kevin Fiala had two assists and Pheonix Copley stopped 18 shots to help the Kings snap a four-game losing streak. Defenseman Ian Mitchell scored his first goal of the season for Chicago, spoiling Copley’s shutout bid with 3:15 remaining. Petr Mrazek finished with 25 saves. The Blackhawks had won three straight and six of their previous seven.

GOLF

While Jon Rahm had plenty of chances to pump his right first after nice shots on Sunday, the look of relief on his face after holding off rookie Davis Thompson put into perspective his victory at The American Express at PGA West in La Quinta.

The Spanish star took advantage of mistakes by Thompson over the adventuresome final three holes and closed with a four-under 68 to win by one stroke, his second PGA Tour win in as many starts this year.

“I’m, in a weird way, glad that today went the way it went,” Rahm said. “I’ve enjoyed some runaway victories, I’ve enjoyed some comebacks, but today was certainly a struggle. Out of the five birdies I made, what is it, one, two, three of them were tap-ins and the other two were basically 6-footers. So that tells you the story.”

NFL PLAYOFFS

From Sam Farmer: Relying on a smothering defense and a grind-it-out running game, the San Francisco 49ers held on Sunday for a 19-12 victory over the Dallas Cowboys in an NFC divisional playoff game at Levi’s Stadium.

For the third time in the last four years, the 49ers advanced to the conference championship game. They will play at Philadelphia on Sunday.

It was another frustrating postseason defeat for the Cowboys, who have not won a divisional round game since 1995, when they last won a Super Bowl.

Dallas fell prey to some familiar problems — interceptions by quarterback Dak Prescott and a blocked extra-point attempt by Brett Maher.

Prescott, who was tied for the NFL lead this season with 15 interceptions, saw two of his passes picked off by the 49ers. Maher was coming off a game in which he missed a league-record four consecutive PATs.

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Joe Burrow and the Bengals overcome the elements to reach AFC title game again

Bills’ Damar Hamlin attends his first game since cardiac arrest

SUPER BOWL POLL

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NFL PLAYOFF RESULTS, SCHEDULE
All times Pacific
Divisional round
Saturday
Kansas City 27, Jacksonville 20
Philadelphia 38, New York Giants 7

Sunday
Cincinnati 27, Buffalo 10
San Francisco 19, Dallas 12

Conference championship
Sunday, January 29

NFC: San Francisco at Philadelphia, Noon, FOX, FOX Deportes
AFC: Cincinnati at Kansas City, 3:30 p.m., CBS, Paramount+

Super Bowl
Sunday, February 12
3:30 p.m., Fox

THIS DATE IN SPORTS

1944 — The Detroit Red Wings defeat the New York Rangers 15-0 to set an NHL record for consecutive goals.

1959 — In the NBA All-Star game in Detroit, St. Louis’ Bob Pettit and Elgin Baylor of Minneapolis become the first co-winners of the MVP award, leading the West to a 124-108 victory.

1979 — Willie Mays is named on 409 of 432 ballots and elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

1980 — George Gervin of San Antonio scores 55 points in a 144-130 victory over the Indiana Pacers.

1987 — Hana Mandlikova upsets Martina Navratilova 7-5, 7-6 to win the Australian Open.

1988 — Steffi Graf wins the Australian Open with a 6-1, 7-6 victory over Chris Evert.

1993 — Mike Gartner of the New York Rangers sets an NHL record when he reaches 30 goals for the 14th consecutive season. Gartner, with three goals in the Rangers’ 8-3 victory over Los Angeles, surpasses Phil Esposito, Bobby Hull and Wayne Gretzky.

2001 — Sam Cassell scores 22 points and the Bucks hit a franchise record 14 3-pointers to beat the Knicks 105-91 and snap New York’s NBA-record 33-game streak of holding opponents to under 100 points.

2005 — Jennifer Rodriguez becomes the first American woman in nine years to win the World Sprint Speedskating Championship.

2008 — Baylor, which waited 39 years to get back into the Top 25, plays five overtimes in its first win as a ranked team. Curtis Jerrells scores a career-high 36 points, including 11 in the fifth overtime to lead No. 25 Baylor to a 116-110 win over No. 18 Texas A&M.

2010 — Lindsey Vonn makes it five wins in five downhills this season. Her 30th World Cup victory ties her with Croatia’s Janica Kostelic for eighth place on the career list and nearly halfway to Austrian leader Annemarie Moser-Proell’s 62 wins.

2011 — Francesca Schiavone wins the longest women’s match in Grand Slam history — a 6-4, 1-6, 16-14 victory over Svetlana Kuznetsova that takes 4 hours, 44 minutes at the Australian Open. Schiavone saves six match points, then converts on her third match point in the longest women’s match at a major in terms of time in the Open era.

2011 — Aaron Rodgers runs for a touchdown and makes a saving tackle, B.J. Raji returns an interception for a score and Sam Shields has two interceptions to lead the Green Bay Packers to a 21-14 win over the Chicago Bears in the NFC championship game. The Packers, with road wins in Philadelphia, Atlanta and Chicago, become the first NFC No. 6 seed to advance to the Super Bowl.

2011 — The Pittsburgh Steelers advance to their third Super Bowl in six years with a 24-19 victory over the New York Jets.

2012 — Skylar Diggins matches a season high with 27 points and No. 2 Notre Dame routs No. 7 Tennessee 72-44, holding the Lady Vols to their lowest scoring output in modern school history.

2015 — Klay Thompson sets an NBA record for the most points in a quarter, a 37-point third period that powers the Golden State Warriors to a 126-101 victory over the Sacramento Kings. Thompson makes all 13 shots and finishes with a career-high 52 points.

2022 - Buffalo wide receiver Gabriel Davis scores an NFL playoff record 4 TDs in the Bills’ epic 42-36 overtime loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in their divisional-round playoff at Arrowhead Stadium

Compiled by the Associated Press

And finally

On Jan. 22, 2006, Kobe Bryant scores 81 points. Watch and listen here.