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Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Eleven shots separated Phil and Tiger Sunday at Pebble Beach as Lefty secured his 40th Tour win. Jason Sobel had hole-by-hole reports.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
AP fileI felt that as soon as the Celtics hired Danny Ainge to run the team last May 9, it was just a matter of time before a coaching change was made, but I am surprised that Jim O'Brien is gone before the end of the season.
NO MEETING OF THE MINDS
Ainge said that O'Brien offered his resignation this morning, after a meeting between the two to discuss philosophical differences.
To me, Ainge giving O'Brien a two-year contract extension through the 2005-06 season was a hollow move, especially since that didn't happen until after Ainge looked at potential replacements for O'Brien.
I thought, however, that O'Brien would stay on at least through the regular season.
And if the Celtics did make the playoffs, I felt how they fared would also figure into any decision involving O'Brien's status.
But it seems that the Ainge-O'Brien combination wasn't a fit at all and so the coach chose to exit with the team at 22-24 and in second place in the Atlantic Division, behind the Nets, who on Monday fired Byron Scott as their coach, replacing him on an interim basis with Lawrence Frank.
Ainge named assistant coach John Carroll as the Celtics' interim head coach for the rest of the season.
ROSTER MOVES HAVEN'T PAID OFF
Ainge has made numerous moves since being hired by the Celtics and those moves have certainly impacted the makeup of the team and O'Brien's approach to coaching.
The one move that seemed to really surprise O'Brien was the mid-December deal that sent two players the coach really liked in Eric Williams and Tony Battie to the Cavaliers and in return brought Ricky Davis to Boston.
I could just tell that the trade had the potential to be the straw that broke the camel's back as far as O'Brien's future with the Celtics.
Williams and Battie were vital in O'Brien's defense-oriented style of coaching the Celtics.
Playing good defense became even more important this season for Boston since before the season, Ainge dealt Antoine Walker to Dallas, leaving Boston without a scoring threat to complement Paul Pierce.
Ainge just never embraced Walker's play, but whether you like Walker's game or not, he is a guy who can score 20 points a game, pass the ball and do a lot of different things.
For Walker, Boston got back Raef LaFrentz, who is out for the season after knee surgery.
I wouldn't call the Walker deal a recipe for failure, but when a team goes from two top-scoring threats to one, it has to hurt.
The Celtics also suffered a blow when troubled power forward Vin Baker got suspended indefinitely for the third violation of his aftercare program for the treatment of alcoholism.
NO LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE
The Celtics are who they are -- a team that is hanging around in the middle of the pack in the Eastern Conference playoff mix and changing coaches I feel won't change that.
They do have to worry about Pierce because if he runs out of gas, the team may go into a significant slide and drop out of playoff contention.
Changing coaches has become the thing to do in the NBA, with a lot of teams making moves for various reasons, but making them nonetheless.
This is rendering head coaching in the NBA pretty insignificant in my view and what's happening is ridiculous.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
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