NBA

9:07 PM ET NEW YORK — Spencer Dinwiddie strained his right knee and will miss the remainder of the Brooklyn Nets‘ game against the Charlotte Hornets, the team said. In the third quarter of Sunday’s game, Dinwiddie drove against Bismack Biyombo and planted his right leg awkwardly. Dinwiddie was on the floor, grabbing his right

8:33 PM ET Minnesota Timberwolves star Karl-Anthony Towns suffered a dislocated left wrist and is expected to miss several games before he’s cleared to return. No surgery will be required, the team said Sunday, and the organization is terming his timeline on the basis of a weekly evaluation. There’s optimism that will require a relatively

5:51 PM ET The Dallas Mavericks set an NBA shot-clock era record by leading the Los Angeles Clippers by 50 points at intermission Sunday en route to a 124-73 victory. Yes, Kawhi Leonard was out, but it’s safe to say even someone of his talent couldn’t have helped the Clippers, who trailed 77-27 at intermission.

5:09 PM ET LOS ANGELES — The LA Clippers trailed by a historic 50 points at halftime to the Dallas Mavericks, who set the record for largest halftime lead in NBA history on Sunday. Playing without the injured Kawhi Leonard (mouth laceration) and Marcus Morris (knee), the Clippers couldn’t do much in the first half

3:40 PM ET Golden State Warriors center Marquese Chriss suffered a right ankle fracture in Saturday’s practice and will have surgery later this week, the team announced Sunday. The Warriors said Chriss “suffered a right syndesmosis ankle injury with a fibular fracture,” and a timeline will be set after the surgery. The 23-year-old found some

2:54 PM ET LOS ANGELES — Anthony Davis will sit out Sunday’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves because of a right calf contusion, Los Angeles Lakers coach Frank Vogel said after L.A.’s morning shootaround. “Well, we just want to be responsible with it,” Vogel said on a video conference call with reporters. “We want to

2:16 AM ET Fresh off a four-day forced quarantine, which followed weeks of his desire to be traded dominating headlines, Houston Rockets superstar James Harden had a performance Saturday night that reminded people why he’s a perennial MVP candidate. It just wasn’t quite enough to carry an extremely short-handed Houston team, missing six players due

10:31 PM ET NEW YORK — An MRI confirmed that Knicks rookie Obi Toppin has a right calf strain, the team announced on Saturday. Toppin will be reevaluated in seven to 10 days. The Knicks are scheduled to play four games in the next week. Toppin was injured in the Knicks’ season opener against the

9:20 PM ET Eric WoodyardESPN In Sunday’s New York Times, an advocacy group took out a full-page advertisement calling on the NBA and its owners to force Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores to sell his team because of his ownership of a prison telecom company. “It hurts,” Gores said during Saturday’s media availability ahead of

12:28 PM ET Associated Press LeBron James told the world in 2020 that Black Lives Matter. He helped convince many who had never voted to finally head to the polls. He found more ways to continue elevating the lives of people in his hometown. If that weren’t enough, he won another NBA championship. James’ on-court

12:37 PM ET Associated Press DETROIT — Kevin Love will be back in the starting lineup for the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday night against the Pistons after the star forward missed the season opener with a calf injury. Love had been sidelined since the team’s first exhibition game against Indiana on Dec. 12, when he

11:33 AM ET Four Houston Rockets players — center DeMarcus Cousins, point guard John Wall, shooting guard Eric Gordon and two-way guard Mason Jones — who were considered close contacts under the NBA’s COVID-19 protocols will be forced to quarantine until Wednesday, a league source told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. The players had already been ruled

1:15 AM ET A bloodied Kawhi Leonard was forced to leave the LA Clippers‘ 121-108 win at the Denver Nuggets in the fourth quarter after taking an inadvertent elbow to the face from teammate Serge Ibaka. Ibaka was going up for a rebound when his elbow collided with Leonard’s face. Leonard immediately collapsed to the

7:23 PM ET Eric WoodyardESPN Inside a fan-less Fiserv Forum on Friday, the Milwaukee Bucks beat Golden State Warriors 138-99 in their home opener — the second-largest margin of victory ever on Christmas Day. And although superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo struggled offensively, finishing 4-for-14 with 15 points, he has already noticed a big change in the

7:27 PM ET After being blown out in both of their first two games of the season, Golden State Warriors star guard Stephen Curry wants his young team to keep its perspective as the group tries to find its way together. “This year’s different,” Curry said after his team’s 138-99 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks

8:55 PM ET Tim BontempsESPN BOSTON — Kyrie Irving found himself back on the Boston Celtics‘ famed parquet floor on Christmas Day, wearing his customary No. 11 jersey — the same number he said he hoped would one day hang from the rafters here inside TD Garden. Only this time, Irving wasn’t playing for the

7:27 PM ET The Los Angeles Lakers have begun engaging with starting point guard Dennis Schroder in contract extension talks, and those discussions are expected to pick up again as soon as mid-February, sources told ESPN. Before the start of the season, Schroder turned down an initial Lakers offer to extend his contract for an

6:03 PM ET The Houston Rockets are traveling to Portland with nine players — one more than the minimum required to play an NBA game — for Saturday’s road game against the Trail Blazers. The Rockets, whose season opener against the Oklahoma City Thunder was postponed due to a lack of available players, have six