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The chants started in a purple-and-gold-clad cluster in the upper deck at Kaseya Center. As Luka Doncic’s scoring total crept up with each step-back three, free throw or fadeaway shot, the cheers grew louder, coming from every corner from fans dressed in every color.

“M-V-P! M-V-P!”

“That’s what I think every player wants to hear,” Doncic said.

Doncic’s season-high 60 points — the first 60-point game for a Lakers player since Kobe Bryant’s swan song in 2016 — led the Lakers to a 134-126 win over the Miami Heat on Thursday. It was another exceptional feat in Doncic's late-season campaign for the NBA's most valuable player.

Read more:Luka Doncic scores 60 and LeBron ties NBA games record in Lakers' eighth straight win

The NBA’s leading scorer poured in 100 points in less than 24 hours, helping the Lakers extend their winning streak to eight games. Doncic is averaging 40.9 points per game over the streak, shooting 42.2% from three-point range. He became just the seventh Laker to record a 60-point game, joining franchise legends Bryant, Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, George Mikan, Jerry West and Shaquille O’Neal.

“It was a superhero performance,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said.

Doncic’s dominance has rescued the Lakers, propelling them to season-best winning streak. The team’s previous best winning streak was built by taking down bottom-feeding teams including New Orleans, Utah and Dallas. This streak is against some of the league’s best: Six wins are against teams with a .500 record or better and five were against .600 teams. The Lakers have climbed from sixth to third in the Western Conference in two weeks, netting critical tiebreakers against rivals Minnesota, Denver and Houston.

Doncic, in his first full season with the Lakers, began the year as one of the betting favorites to win MVP. But the Lakers went through December doldrums losing four out of five. He missed two games while traveling to Slovenia to be present for the birth of his second daughter, Olivia. When he returned, Doncic shot 24.5% from three over the next five games.

Doncic’s defense was criticized, along with his consistent complaining to referees. Reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who leads the Western Conference-leading Oklahoma City Thunder with 31.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 6.6 assists, figures to still be the favorite in the MVP race, especially with the Thunder on a conference-best 10-game winning streak.

Doncic’s productions never dipped — he has maintained the league’s top scoring average for most of the season — but his play still lacked the same zip that made him a must-watch star in Dallas.

The Lakers embodied some of their star’s struggles. The team was sorting through injuries while trying to integrate new pieces. The chemistry “wasn’t there,” guard Marcus Smart said.

Finally, it all clicked, starting with Doncic.

“Just trusting my game,” Doncic said of how he’s reached this level at this stage of the season. “I know some games I won’t have it. ... I've been there, so you just got to trust in yourself. I got all the support from my teammates, which helps me a lot.”

Teammates cheered, jumped and raised their fists from the Lakers bench when Doncic made his final free throw to finish off his 60-point night. On a night when LeBron James tied the NBA’s regular-season games played record, appearing in his 1,611th game and notching a 19-point, 15-rebound, 10-assist night, it was Doncic’s final points that seemed to make James smile the widest.

Doncic, who said the crowd’s chants gave him goosebumps, added it “makes my heart happy” seeing the reaction from all of his teammates.

“We all know the talent that Luka is,” Smart said. “And when he gets in those modes, man, it's definitely a sight to see, and you don't want to miss it.”

Before the game, Redick sarcastically wouldn’t even utter the name of the award Doncic has positioned himself for, only saying he believed Doncic should be in the "M-word conversation."

If it’s not the cheers from the crowd, Doncic doesn’t care about the chatter either.

“It’s you guys, the media,” Doncic said. “I ain't got nothing to do with it.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

The Cleveland Cavaliers nearly coughed up a 29-point second-half lead to a bad Chicago Bulls team before escaping with a narrow 115-110 victory.

The stats in the table below are taken from Cleaning the Glass.

Now, let’s dive into the numbers.

• James Harden put up 36 points in a vintage performance. He did a good job of attacking off the dribble, getting to the line, and facilitating for his teammates. This led to him going 10-23 from the field with nine assists, seven rebounds, and five turnovers.
• Harden went 7-13 from three. The step-back triple — which has infuriated “purists” for nearly two decades — was in perfect form. He also did a good job of nailing catch-and-shoot opportunities. Overall, he’s been lethal from the outside since coming to Cleveland. He’s now shooting 46% from three in his 17 gams in a Cavaliers’ uniform.

• Harden drew two fouls on three-point shots. One of these fouls resulted in a seven-point possession. According to the FanDuel Sports Network Cleveland broadcast, this was the eighth and ninth times he’s drawn shooting fouls on three-point shots since coming to the Cavs. In total, he’s drawn a league-leading 50 fouls on outside attempts this season.

• Harden finished with double-digit free-throw attempts for the second game in a row and the fourth time since the trade. He went 9-11 from the charity stripe in the victory.
• Evan Mobley scored over 25 points for the third time in four games. He totaled 26 points on 12-19 shooting. The Cavs are now 4-2 on the season when he registers 25 or more points.
• Mobley feasted in the restricted area, converting 10 of his 14 shots at the rim (71.4%).
• Neither team could consistently finish at the basket, with both being below the 10th percentile in rim-shooting accuracy. The Cavs converted just 50% of their shots at the rim (4th percentile) while the Bulls converted just 51.3% (7th percentile).
• Cavaliers outside of Mobley went just 6-18 (33.3%) on shots in the restricted area. For context, the league average is 66.9%.
• Harden assisted on five of Mobley’s 12 made baskets.
• Four of Harden’s assists to Mobley came off screens. Their two-man game has continued to grow. After the victory, Harden told sideline reporter Serena Winters that they’ve been forced to use games as practice, given their limited time together. Performances like this show how they’ve been able to develop chemistry. All four baskets are in the clip below.

• Mobley led the team in plus/minus by being a +11. The Cavs played their best basketball with Mobley on the floor. Harden wasn’t far behind at +9.
• Mobley went 2-6 at the free-throw line. This has become an alarming trend for Mobley, who once again missed two clutch free throws. He’s now shooting just 48.3% from the line in March.
• The Cavs went just 21-31 (66.7%) on free-throw attempts.
• Cleveland converted 1-9 three-point attempts (11.1%) in the fourth quarter. The Cavs’ inability to consistently score late, combined with shaky defense, led to them almost choking away a 20-point fourth-quarter lead.
• The Bulls put up 37 fourth-quarter points. They did most of their damage in the paint during the final quarter as they went 10-14 in the fourth on their paint shot attempts (71.4%).
• Chicago’s bench outscored Cleveland’s reserves 43-22. The Bulls had three bench players finish with double-digit points: Rob Dillingham (17), Leonard Miller (10), and Guerschon Yabusele (10). The Cavs had none.
• Max Strus found his way into the closing lineup, despite going 0-5 from the field. Strus was held without a point and had a team-worst plus/minus of -7. This wasn’t Strus’s best game despite showing good activity off-ball and being a helpful rebounder.
• Cleveland won the second-chance points battle 14-8. The Cavaliers did a good job of controlling the glass, despite opting for several small-ball lineups. It’s worth pointing out that the Bulls are one of the smaller and faster teams in the league.
• Chicago was in the 27th percentile for transition offense efficiency. The Bulls picked up two wins against the Cavs earlier this season, largely due to their ability to run in the open floor. Cleveland did a much better job of limiting that this time around.
• Keon Ellis provided four stocks. He remains one of the most active defenders in the league for his size. Ellis finished with three steals and a block.
• Jaylon Tyson provided 18 points and 11 rebounds. Tyson needed this game after his struggles the last few weeks.
• The Cavs are now 5-4 when Donovan Mitchell doesn’t play. The Cavs have been at their best this season when Mitchell is on the floor. Even though this was an ugly win, victories have been hard to come by without their best player. He missed Thursday’s game with a left eye contusion.

Jordan Walsh’s season has already had two distinct phases.

Back in mid-November, he stepped into the starting lineup and stayed there for the next 20 games. The Celtics went 15–5 during that stretch, and his role made sense within what Boston needed at the time. He defended across positions, ran the floor, and kept the offense moving without forcing anything.

The production followed. In November, Walsh averaged 6.5 points and 5.6 rebounds in 24 minutes per game. In December, that jumped to 9.5 points on nearly 70%(!) shooting, with his three-point percentage climbing above 50%. For a young wing on one of the best teams in the league, that’s no joke, especially for someone who, two months prior, most of us were still trying to figure out.

Since then, the shape of his season has changed. His minutes have dropped each month, from 20.6 in December to 15.8 in January, then 14.0 in February, and under 12 per game in March. The production has come down with it.

So what changed?

A role that fit what Boston needed

When Walsh entered the starting lineup on Nov. 12, it made a lot of sense.

Boston needed length on the wing. Someone who could defend multiple positions, stay active, and keep possessions moving when the ball found him. Walsh did that, and then some. He was often the one getting the offense to pick up the pace, and took on defensive assignments that allowed others to conserve energy.

Walsh fits the type of wing Brad Stevens has prioritized for years. Defend, connect plays, don’t hijack possessions. It’s the same connective archetype Boston has leaned into across the roster — the idea of building, as Nate Moskowitz recently put it, an army of Derrick Whites. For a stretch, Walsh executed his role well enough to stay on the floor, and the statistics backed up the eye test. On top of that, most of those minutes came in lineups that were already winning, so there wasn’t much reason to change anything.

Where the rotation started to change

The change didn’t come all at once.

It showed up in smaller moments. A shorter stint against Sacramento, then a lineup change against the Clippers, when Sam Hauser moved back into the starting group. After his minutes began to dip, Walsh didn’t point to matchups or rotation decisions. He went straight to impact.

“I think just leaving a print on the game,” he said in January. “The other team has to feel me… Every time I’m on the court, I’ve got to constantly make it hard for everybody else to kind of survive on the other team.”

That quote gets to the heart of why it’s hard to keep minutes on this Celtics roster. On a team this deep, checking the boxes is the bare minimum. To be a real contributor, you have to impact the game in a way that forces the coaching staff to keep you out there.

Mazzulla framed it from the team side.

“It’s just that we can go do so many different things,” he said. “You saw what Sam was able to do…our offense was obviously different with him out there.”

Nothing broke. The Celtics just have a lot of toys to play with, and they want to see how they all work together before the playoffs arrive.

The “young wolves” are fighting for the same minutes

Jaylen Brown recently called the Celtics’ youthful wings the “young wolves.” That group has been competing for the same rotation spots all season.

Walsh is competing directly with Baylor Scheierman, Hugo González, and the newest wolf cub, Ron Harper Jr., for minutes that don’t have much margin to begin with.

From a statistical standpoint, Walsh’s profile stands out in one specific area. He uses very little of the offense.

Among the group of wolves, Walsh’s usage rate sits near the bottom, around 11%. Scheierman is slightly higher. Harper Jr. and González operate in a similar range, but with more on-ball responsibility in short stretches.

That low-usage role can work (it did earlier in the season), but it comes with a tradeoff. When you’re not creating offense, your value has to show up quickly in other areas.

Walsh does that defensively. Last season, Xavier Tillman dubbed Walsh “The King of the Lockdown.” Bit of a clunky nickname for my liking, but the point stands. His activity, length, and ability to disrupt possessions still give him a clear edge on that end compared to most of the other young players.

Offensively, the gap is slightly visible when it comes to decision-making and versatility.

Scheierman has earned trust as a secondary playmaker as the season has gone on. His assist-to-usage numbers reflect that, showing a real comfort making reads with the ball in his hands. González, even in more limited minutes, has shown flashes of that same ability.

Walsh’s assist rate, by comparison, sits near the bottom of the group. That doesn’t make him ineffective. It just narrows the ways he can put his fingerprints on a possession offensively. When the ball finds him, the play usually needs to move quickly — catch, swing, or finish.

On a roster like this, the players who stay in the rotation tend to give Mazzulla multiple options within the same possession. Shooting, passing, or attacking off the catch. The more paths a player offers, the easier it is to keep him on the floor.

Walsh’s path is more defined. Defend, run, finish plays. Earlier in the season, that path was enough to hold steady minutes. As the rotation tightened and more talent rose to the surface, that path became harder to rely on consistently.

The margin for Walsh right now

There was a sequence against Oklahoma City last week that keeps replaying in my head as I write this article. Sam Hauser jumps a passing lane, pushes it ahead, and Walsh steps into a transition three and knocks it down. Clean, immediate, decisive. No hesitation, no extra dribble, no pause. That version of Walsh fits anywhere in this rotation. You don’t have to think about it and, more importantly, neither does anyone else.

The challenge is not knowing how often that version is going to show up possession to possession. In a tighter rotation, the ball finds different players in similar spots, and the ones who stay on the floor tend to keep the advantage moving in the right direction. Catch, decide, go. When that rhythm stalls, even briefly, the possession shifts somewhere else. On a team with this many options, that’s usually all it takes for Mazzulla to start looking for other answers.

Now, the context around those possessions has changed even more. With Tatum back and his minutes climbing into the low 30s, there are simply fewer opportunities to begin with. The role Walsh filled earlier in the season hasn’t disappeared, but it has shrunk, and it now requires a sharper version of the same impact to justify staying on the floor.

That’s the bar Walsh is trying to clear now. Not whether he can contribute, because he already has, but whether he can do it in a way that keeps him in the flow of what Boston is doing on both ends, game after game after game. The minutes earlier in the season proved he belongs in that mix. The last few weeks have shown how narrow that window can get.

Walsh said it himself. The other team has to feel him. Otherwise, we might not see him.

Half of the first round of the men's NCAA basketball tournament is complete. But we’re far from done, March Madness fans.

The action Friday continues with another full slate of 16 contests. Once again, this will be your guide for the day with all the matchups, channels and tip times. Stick with us all day as teams advance and brackets are busted.

Once again, the times listed can vary slightly if preceding contests run long, but there should always be something happening throughout the afternoon and evening hours. Here’s the ranking of all the games and everything you need to know about how to watch Friday’s contests.

1. No. 8 Villanova vs. No. 9 Utah State

Time/TV: 4:10 p.m. ET, TNT

The Aggies have appeared in every NCAA Tournament but one since 2019 but own just one victory in that stretch, something this veteran lineup with leaders MJ Collins Jr. and Mason Falslev hopes to change. They should match up well with the Wildcats, though Duke Brennan could give Villanova the edge in the paint.

2. No. 6 Tennessee vs. No. 11 Miami (Ohio)

Time/TV: 4:25 p.m. ET, TBS

You’d be hard-pressed to find a first-round contest featuring more contrasting styles. The free-wheeling RedHawks won over plenty of skeptics in Wednesday night’s First Four victory against SMU, but the Volunteers will do their best to make this affair a grind with a premium on controlling the boards.

3. No. 8 Clemson vs. No. 9 Iowa

Time/TV: 6:50 p.m. ET, TNT

The final 8-9 matchup tips off the evening session, though it, too, provides something of a contrast. The Hawkeyes have a true floor general in Bennett Stirtz, who rarely leaves the floor. But the Tigers’ ability to spread the offensive load could serve them well given their recent injury woes. This looks to be tight throughout.

4. No. 7 Kentucky vs. No. 10 Santa Clara

Time/TV: 12:15 p.m. ET, CBS

One of the sport’s name-brand programs appears in the leadoff spot, though this year’s Wildcats can hardly be considered Final Four contenders. They figure to get a formidable first-round challenge from the Broncos, a well-rounded squad led by veteran coach Herb Sendek that shares the ball and holds its own on the glass.

Well, that didn't stink.

How about March Madness? Does it ever disappoint?

Nope.

Thursday's first round had the upsets we love, the close calls that nearly wreck brackets nationwide and memorable moments, like Nebraska's NCAA Tournament long-awaited breakthrough.

Armour: One day in and March Madness already it's usual marvelous self

Can Friday top it?