The Los Angeles Clippers’ impressive climb up the Western Conference standings, from 15 games below .500 to a spot squarely in the play-in tournament, outwardly seemed undone by the jettisoning of James Harden and Ivica Zubac at last week’s trade deadline.

Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard and his unyielding teammates appear to believe otherwise.

Behind another sensational performance from Leonard, the Clippers thumped the Minnesota Timberwolves 115-96 on Sunday despite the absences of Harden and Zubac, as well as the players they received back in those separate trades.

The Clippers anticipate Darius Garland, Bennedict Mathurin and Isaiah Jackson will make their debuts Tuesday in the first of back-to-back road games against the Houston Rockets.

Leonard posted 41 points, eight rebounds and four steals in the road victory over Minnesota, marking his career-best fourth 40-point game this season. Despite being short-handed and presumably disinclined to make a playoff push following the departures of Harden and Zubac, the Clippers proved they have plenty of fight remaining for the stretch run of the regular season.

“We’re always ready to go,” Clippers forward John Collins said. “We’ve got great guys ready to step up and take advantage of their opportunity, as well as Kawhi Leonard. What more can I say?”

A sweep of the two-game set in Houston would lift the Clippers to a .500 record at the All-Star break. Such a mark seemed improbable in mid-December, but moxie is difficult to measure.

“We’ve got a good group,” Leonard said. “Guys are levelheaded, they love to play basketball, so we’re just going out and competing every night. That’s all we’re doing.”

The Rockets are also seeking to carry momentum into the break. After dropping consecutive home games to the Boston Celtics and Charlotte Hornets last week, Houston rallied to claim the finale of a three-game season series with the Oklahoma City Thunder 112-106 on Saturday.

The Rockets have displayed a tendency to play to the level of their competition this season, often saving their best for their most challenging opponents. Houston has labored against inconsistency, with vacillating effort and intensity addressed during last week’s back-to-back.

“That was the message even before the Charlotte game,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. “We wanted to play well these last five, didn’t do so in those first two, but it was good to get back to playing with the effort and intensity it takes to win a game against Oklahoma City.

“And that’s the case with the Clippers. We want to finish on a good note. We got two days off to recover really quickly, get this back-to-back in, and obviously, it’s a race to the finish, those 29 games. Good to get us into the All-Star break on the right foot and then build off of that.”

Against the Thunder, the Rockets received critical contributions from Tari Eason and Jabari Smith Jr., who combined for 48 points and 18 rebounds in support of the All-Star tandem of Kevin Durant and Alperen Sengun.

If the Rockets are to meet their lofty preseason expectations, they will require similar efforts from their role players during the closing sprint to the playoffs.

“We’re going to have to deal with that throughout the rest of the season,” Durant said of the attention opposing defenses focus on himself and Sengun. “It was a good test for us.”

–Field Level Media

MILAN — The U.S. and Canada will be “out for blood” as they renew their rivalry at the Milan Cortina Games, U.S. veteran Alex Carpenter told reporters on Monday, with an upcoming group stage game that has the feel of a championship contest.

The only teams to take the top of the podium since the women’s ice hockey tournament joined the Olympic program 28 years ago, the arch-rivals meet at Santagiulia arena on Tuesday in what is expected to be a preview of the gold medal game.

“As soon as we get on the ice here or any other international event, we’re all out for blood,” said the alternate captain Carpenter, who helped the United States past Switzerland 5-0 on Monday with one goal and one assist.

The prolific scorer has recorded a goal in all of the United States’ Group A games so far in Milan and is part of a team hungry for revenge after Canada denied them the gold in Beijing four years ago.

Buoyed by a group of young talent, including defensive standout Laila Edwards, the Americans have only had one goal scored on them since they arrived in Milan, as they previously beat Czech Republic and Finland in the tournament.

They expect a tougher fight against Canada, whose 5-1 win over Czech Republic on Monday was overshadowed by injury concerns for their “Captain Clutch” Marie-Philip Poulin.

The game against Canada will be the last for the United States in the group stage, while Canada are set to play Finland on Thursday.

All five teams from Group A will advance, with their seeding in the last eight depending on placings in the preliminary standings.

“The stakes are higher, the intensity is higher. But we’ve just got to remind ourselves it’s still hockey and we do pretty good at hockey,” said Edwards.

“I think when we just stick to our brand, we’re intimidating.”

–Reuters, special to Field Level Media

A circuit court judge in Alabama denied Charles Bediako’s motion for a preliminary injunction to continue the resumption of his college basketball career Monday, rendering him ineligible once again.

Bediako last month won a temporary restraining order from the Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court that allowed him to rejoin the Alabama basketball team for the rest of 2025-26, in a challenge to NCAA eligibility rules.

Bediako, 23, played two seasons for Alabama before entering the 2023 NBA Draft and going undrafted. He signed a two-way contract with the San Antonio Spurs but was released before playing in an NBA game. He proceeded to play in 82 games in the G League.

Those factors were enough for County Circuit Court Judge Daniel F. Pruet to decide that Bediako did not have a “reasonable expectation” to be allowed to return to the college game as no prior case existed where a player was granted eligibility under the same circumstances.

Pruet said Bediako “failed to establish that he would suffer irreparable harm,” “failed to establish that he has no adequate remedy at law without the issuance of the injunction” and “failed to demonstrate that he has at least a reasonable chance of success on the ultimate merits of those claims.”

It marks a perhaps unlikely victory for the NCAA at a time when its rules regarding player eligibility have been challenged and overturned in court with frequency.

The NCAA had allowed James Nnaji and other former G League players to be eligible to play because they were not previous college players who left, and because they had not signed NBA contracts. That is where the NCAA drew the line.

“To obtain the benefits promised to him for participation in NCAA basketball, the Plaintiff must be eligible to participate in NCAA basketball,” the judge said. “Eligibility to participate in the NCAA is controlled by the Defendant’s application of the eligibility rules legislated by the NCAA membership.”

Bediako’s original TRO was granted by a different judge, James H. Roberts Jr., who later recused himself from the case on the NCAA’s request because he was listed as an Alabama athletics booster who had made a lifetime contribution of between $100,000 and $249,000 to their foundation.

NCAA president Charlie Baker said in a statement Monday that “Common sense won a round” in the ongoing eligibility tug-of-war.

“The court saw this for what it is: an attempt by professionals to pivot back to college and crowd out the next generation of students,” Baker said. “College sports are for students, not for people who already walked away to go pro and now want to hit the ‘undo’ button at the expense of a teenager’s dream. While we’re glad the court upheld the rules our members actually want, one win doesn’t fix the national mess of state laws. It’s time for Congress to stop watching from the sidelines and help us provide some actual stability.”

Less enthused about the ruling was Alabama coach Nate Oats, who called himself “super disappointed” and felt the case shouldn’t have reached the courts to begin with.

“To me, the NCAA’s point of why Charles shouldn’t be eligible was all these rules that they have, but they’re not applying those rules to all these other players they’ve made eligible,” Oats said on his weekly radio show Monday night. “To me, it was very disappointing in the whole case. Disappointing for Charles.”

A 7-foot center, Bediako played five games (two starts) for Alabama under the temporary restraining order and averaged 10.0 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.4 blocked shots per game. The Tide went 3-2 in those games.

–Field Level Media