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The Washington Wizards host the Toronto Raptors tonight. Let’s get to it.

Game info

When: 7 p.m. ET on Saturday, Feb. 28

Where: Capital One Arena, Washington

How to watch: Monumental Sports Network

Injuries

Wizards: Trae Young, Anthony Davis, Cam Whitmore and Alex Sarr all remain OUT. Tristan Vukcevic and Kyshawn George are both listed as DAY-TO-DAY. D’Angelo Russell remains OUT and will not report to the team.

Raptors: Chucky Hepburn is OUT. Collin Murray-Boyles is DOUBTFUL.

Game notes and more

The Wizards come back to DC after two whoopings by the Atlanta Hawks. The two losses also drop them to a 16-42 record, guaranteeing them yet another sub. 500 season. The Raptors have also lost three of their last five games, with their most recent loss coming last Wednesday to the San Antonio Spurs. Toronto is 34-25 and comfortably in a guaranteed Top 6 playoff spot. On paper, it’s safe to say that the Wizards will have a difficult time winning this one, but we shall see!

Warriors sign young forward Gui Santos to multi-year contract extension originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

With several Warriors stars sidelined due to injury, Gui Santos has stepped up in a consistent and dependable way in recent weeks.

And on Saturday, the versatile forward was rewarded.

Golden State signed Santos to a multi-year contract extension, the team announced in a statement.

ESPN’s Shams Charania reported, citing sources, that the deal is a three-year, $15 million contract extension with the franchise, which includes a player option in 2028-29.

Santos had 11 DNP-CDs (Did Not Play, Coach’s Decision) this season before the season-ending injury to Warriors star forward Jimmy Butler in late January. Santos has played heavy minutes every game since then, averaging 13 points on 57.6-percent shooting from the field and 41.7 percent from 3-point range, with 5.1 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.4 steals in 26.6 minutes.

The injury bug since has carried over to other Warriors players, such as Steph Curry, who has missed the last nine games with a knee issue.

Down two key starters, Santos has had to take on a different role to try and keep the Warriors afloat in the Western Conference. With Curry out, Santos has taken on more ball-handling duties and served more as a point-forward — a role he said he’s really enjoyed.

In the nine games without Curry — all games Santos has started — the 23-year-old has averaged 15.2 points on 57.87 percent shooting and 43.6 percent from distance, with 5.9 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 1.7 steals in 30.3 minutes played.

The timing is quite fitting, too, as Santos was just speaking to reporters after practice Friday about his NBA journey.

“I think the keyword for that is patience,” Santos said. “Because when I got here, I was a point guard. Playing back in Brazil was like playing as a point guard, you know, having the ball in my hands. I spent the whole year in the G League (2022-23) just learning how to fit the system.”

It appears the patience has paid off.

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SOLDEU, Andorra (AP) — Emma Aicher dominated the first women’s super-G since the Olympics to earn her fifth career World Cup win Saturday as the fight for the season discipline title got fresh impetus.

The German allrounder posted the fastest split times in the first two sections of the Aliga course and became the first skier with multiple super-G wins this season.

“Feels pretty good, to be honest. I had really fun skiing today,” said Aicher, who won silver medals in the downhill and the team combined but didn’t finish the super-G at the Milan Cortina Games this month.

Aicher finished 0.88 seconds ahead of Alice Robinson of New Zealand. Robinson closed the gap to World Cup super-G leader Sofia Goggia to 20 points with three events left, including one on Sunday on the same hill.

The Italian came 1.32 seconds behind Aicher in sixth.

Robinson, who won the season-opening super-G in Switzerland last December, said she felt “really proud of myself for getting the most out of the sections I knew I could ski fast. It's really nice to be back on the podium."

Corinne Suter, who won Friday’s downhill, trailed by 0.98 in third and was the last skier to finish within a second of Aicher’s winning time.

Racing in perfect sunny conditions, Aicher had a near-flawless run on the challenging course, where only 37 of the 55 starters managed to complete their run.

Aicher celebrated by pumping her fist after crossing the finish line with a commanding lead, and said she was surprised by her huge advantage of nearly nine-tenths of a second.

“It felt good at the top, the flat part. The steep part, the super-G part where the turns were, I mean, it was OK but not ideal,” said the German, whose win saw her overtake Lindsey Vonn into third place in the super-G standings, 96 points behind Goggia.

Vonn is out since badly injuring her left leg in a frightening crash in the Olympic downhill.

Two-time Olympic champion Federica Brignone was more than two seconds off the lead.

The Italian, who returned from a broken left leg just before the Milan Cortina Games and then won gold in super-G and giant slalom, skipped Friday’s downhill and seemed to struggle with landing the many jumps in the course.

Saturday's race was interrupted following a nasty crash from Ricarda Haaser, who was transported off the hill on a rescue sled. The Austrian ski federation said Haaser fractured the tibial plateau in her left knee and was set to travel back to Austria on Saturday for treatment.

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AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing

Tonight the Golden State Warriors host the Los Angeles Lakers at Chase Center without Steph Curry or Jimmy Butler, and with Kristaps Porzingis listed as questionable after missing three straight games with an illness. Golden State’s starting lineup reads like a beautiful fever dream of hustlers, grinders, and some guys your casual fan couldn’t pick out of a police lineup two months ago. And yet here we are, asking whether this team can steal a game that any rational observer would hand to LA on a silver platter.

The Lakers roll in at 34-24, losers of three straight, having dropped games to a Celtics team missing Jayson Tatum, a Magic squad without Franz Wagner and Jalen Suggs, and a Suns team operating without Devin Booker and Dillon Brooks. That last one genuinely defies physics. Los Angeles has the firepower to cover for dysfunction, Luka Doncic is averaging 32.7 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 8.6 assists per game and the ageless wonder LeBron James remains a very dangerous LeBron James. But a team built to contend shouldn’t be slumping like that against shorthanded opponents.

Golden State Warriors vs. Los Angeles Lakers

When: February 28, 2026 | 5:30 PM PT

Where: Chase Center

TV: ABC

Radio: 95.7 The Game

Meanwhile, the Warriors just went into Memphis two nights ago and posted 133 points on 37 assists. 8 of 9 players scored in double figures led by a career-high 21 points from rookie Will Richard. This team has spent February being elite in assist percentage and assisted basket rate, building something cohesive and joyful in the wreckage of a catastrophic injury report. The key question for tonight is whether Porzingis suits up.

Steve Kerr confirmed the POTS reports were misinformation and expressed genuine optimism that KP could return. If he plays, suddenly the Warriors have a legitimate interior presence who changes the calculus on both ends. If he doesn’t, the Warriors’ only path is chaos with bodies flying at Luka and LeBron crowding the paint and erasing runways.

What this Golden State group has proven is that they refuse to audition for the tank. That matters tonight. The Warriors are at 31-28 and fighting for playoff positioning while the Lakers sit three games ahead in the West. A win here tightens the race and sends a message that the next month is going to be a lot more interesting than anyone expected.

If Golden State steals this one, the Western Conference math tightens and the league has to take this group seriously. Not as a feel-good story but as a problem.That’s why we watch the games folks!

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander marked his return from injury with 36 points as the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Denver Nuggets 127-121 in overtime.

The NBA's reigning Most Valuable Player had been out of action since sustaining an abdominal strain on 3 February and missed nine games.

He played 34 minutes on his return, but remained on the bench in overtime as Alex Caruso guided the Thunder to their sixth win from their past eight games.

"Felt good," said Gilgeous-Alexander. "I'm just thankful to be back."

The 27-year-old was in the action from the start, opening his account with a layup before being called for an early technical foul for throwing the ball at Denver's Nikola Jokic who made contact with him after play had stopped.

Thunder forward Luguentz Dort was later ejected for a flagrant foul after he tripped Jokic, sparking a shoving match that saw Jokic and Oklahoma City's Jaylin Williams receive technical fouls.

Caruso drove to the basket in the final seconds of regulation, but his shot bounced off the rim at the buzzer to send the game to extra time.

However, the Thunder scored the first five points in overtime and hung on for the win to maintain their two-game lead over the San Antonio Spurs at the top of the Western Conference.

Yours truly built a bracket around the most important question of the Two-Timelines era. It’s not about who was the best, but who did you believe in the most? Eight ex-Warriors drafted after Kevin Durant left. Three rounds. One crown. I seeded it by emotional gravity: draft expectations, peak belief, and how long you kept the faith. And now the voting starts.

First matchup: the #1 seed Jordan Poole against the #8 seed Alen Smailagic.

I was in Las Vegas for Summer League 2019 when Jordan Poole first put on a Warriors uniform. KD had just left. Kawhi and PG had just linked up in LA. The dynasty felt like it was genuinely over. And in the middle of all that noise, this 19-year-old kid from Michigan with a quick trigger and absolutely zero fear was out there getting buckets like the scoreboard owed him money.

I wrote about him that summer. I stayed high on him even when most people weren’t sure. Then the G League bubble happened in 2021 and everything changed. Pre-bubble, he was averaging 5.5 points on 42.6% shooting in under 10 minutes a game. Post-bubble, he was up to 14.7 points on 43.3% in 23.5 minutes. Same player, more runway, and that’s all he needed.

Dr. Tom and I wrote a whole season review for the legendary Warriors publication Dub Nation HQ about how Jordan Poole had arrived. By the end of the 2020-21 season, he was drawing shooting fouls at a slightly higher rate than Steph Curry. Steve Kerr said he gets places most players can’t get to. We compared him to Leandro Barbosa as a compliment. We meant it.

And then 2022 happened and it wasn’t the Barbosa ceiling anymore.

Four 20-point games off the bench in the playoffs at age 22 proved he was the sparkplug the Warriors needed to keep their offense rolling. He started showing out on the biggest stages, with no hesitation, serving up Poole Parties to defenders when the franchise needed him most. Dub Nation didn’t just believe Jordan Poole was good, we believed Jordan Poole was going to be the one who kept all of this going after Steph. The dream was that he’d evolve into some kind of Steph clone. And can you blame us? The slippery handles, the outrageous shotmaking, the dead-eye free throws in addition to watching the student take buzzer beaters from the master IN THE ACTUAL NBA FINALS. The next chapter wrote itself in our heads.

Then October 5, 2022 happened in practice.

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the punch at the time, and honestly I’m still not. What I do know is that the season that followed was the most complicated thing I’ve ever had to cover as a Warriors writer. Poole played all 82 games. He averaged 20.4 points, 4.5 assists, 87% from the free throw line. Without Curry in the lineup, he averaged 26.1 points and 5 assists per game.

But then he’d have games where the turnovers were genuinely indefensible. Games where his shot chart looked like it was affiliated with the Bloods; his playoff shot chart had so much red on it that it was genuinely alarming. In the 2023 playoffs against the Lakers, he shot 34% from the field and 25% from three.

Steph got ejected throwing his mouthguard in pure frustration after a Poole decision in a must-win game. Klay could only watch in horror; he finally ran into someone with less of a conscience than the Splash Bros.

That summer, young Poole was traded to Washington for Chris Paul.

I wrote a season review about that too at DNHQ titled “How Jordan Poole’s Warriors Tenure Ended.” I tried to be fair. I noted that he was only 23. I noted that the turnovers made more sense when you realized he was a young guard on a defending-champion team where everyone had him circled. I noted that the same things that made him infuriating (the shot selection, the individual creation, the relentless ball-in-hands approach) were the exact same things that made him great without Steph.

The community poll at the end of that piece asked readers to grade his final season. Fifteen percent of respondents chose “F – I see why Draymond punched him.”

That’s the Poole story. That’s the whole thing. Not that he failed. It’s that we watched him arrive, we watched him ascend, we watched him win a championship, we watched the whole thing catch fire from the inside, and then we watched him leave at 23 years old with the best basketball of his life theoretically still ahead of him.

That’s why he’s the 1 seed. The peak belief was enormous. The confusing grief was real. And the fall hurt in a way that Dub Nation hasn’t fully processed even now.

Alen Smailagic was 18 years old when he played in the G League for Santa Cruz in 2018, the youngest player in the history of the league. He came over from Belgrade having played above the Serbian semi-professional third division and not much else. They called him Smiley.

The Warriors traded up to get him 39th overall in 2019 and gave him a four-year, $6.13 million contract. And for a moment a real, genuine, Warriors-fan-Twitter moment it looked like the investment might pay off. Draymond adopted him as a pet project, gushing about how quickly Smiley learned and how inquisitive he was.

The front office floated the vision of him as a pick-and-pop forward in the Davis Bertans mold, a 6’10” shooter who could put the ball on the floor and make plays from the arc.

The flashes were real. His shooting motion was fluid. His 84% free throw percentage as a rookie was a legitimately good sign for long-term development. He could put the ball on the floor in almost guard-like fashion for a center. There were moments in Santa Cruz where you could start to see the shape of what the Warriors were building toward.

But there were also the turnovers. The happy feet on defense. The 223 total minutes in a Warriors uniform across two full seasons. The G League bubble in 2021 where his Santa Cruz coach Kris Weems had to pull him aside and tell him flat out: “You can’t try to score every time you touch the ball.” The late-March start against Memphis where he played eight minutes, shot 1-for-5, and committed five fouls. The $1.78 million salary about to become guaranteed. The quiet August waiver wire move that most Warriors fans barely registered.

Connor Letourneau wrote the obituary in the Chronicle before it was officially over: “Even projects must show progress.”

That was it. He went back to Europe, building a career entirely on his own terms. Just a kid who came to the Bay at 18, learned English, learned the freeway, and went home when the NBA dream ran out of runway.

“I really would like to stay in the NBA and not just be on the bench,” Smailagić said one day after he was drafted. “I really want to play.” And Smiley played a little bit in his time with the Dubs. We just watched and hoped, and for a little while that was enough.

SINGAPORE (AP) — Australians Hannah Green and Minjee Lee moved to the top of the leaderboard Saturday to lead by one stroke after three rounds of the HSBC Women’s World Championship.

Green, the 2019 Women’s PGA Championship winner and who won the Singapore tournament in 2024, shot a 4-under 68 and three-time major winner Lee 69 to post three-round totals of 11-under 205 at the Sentosa Golf Club.

American Angel Yin (68) and Haeran Ryu (70) of South Korea were tied for third in the LPGA tournament.

With the final group on the eighth hole, six players were tied for the lead at 9-under. Yin took the lead for first time with a birdie from off the green on the 10th, displacing her fellow American Auston Kim, who had led after the first two rounds.

Kim had back-to-back bogeys on the seventh and eighth to fall out of the lead, but it could have been worse. After seeing her ball plugged in hazard off the green on the eighth hole and having to return to the fairway to hit her fifth shot, she sank a 20-foot putt for bogey to minimize the damage.

Kim finished with a 73 and was tied for sixth at 8-under, three behind Green and Lee.

“Definitely, there are a lot of birdies to be made but it’s very easy to make bogey," Green said. “So I think just limiting as many of those as possible.

“I’ve been hitting the ball into the greens, so if I can continue to do that, and even though I’m playing with Minjee, we are good friends, I don’t want to get too caught up in what her scores are.”

Yin said the margins were close in the third round.

“Good golf and good luck. Honestly there’s nothing much you can do to it," Yin said. "There’s a lot of instances today where it was like one hole, I made this unbelievable up-and-down. That’s skill and luck to me. So get lucky and get good.”

Lee won her first major in 2021 at the Evian Championship, her second at the U.S. Women’s Open in 2022 and her third at last year’s Women’s PGA Championship.

Top-ranked Jeeno Thitikul, who won last week’s tournament in her native Thailand, shot 70 Saturday that left her at 3-under. She was tied with defending champion Lydia Ko and Brooke Henderson, who each shot 71, all eight strokes behind the leading Australians.

The 72-player, no-cut tournament is the second of three stops on the LPGA’s early year Asian swing, with the final one next week at Hainan Island, China.

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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

MILWAUKEE — Mohamed Diawara got the call Friday and took advantage.

The rookie, who has been alternating rotation spots with newcomer Jeremy Sochan, returned to his pre-All-Star break form with 10 points, hitting 2 of 3 treys in the Knicks’ 127-98 win over the Bucks.

Diawara was a game-best plus-25 in just 22 minutes, and the strong performance arrived after three straight games of sparse playing time.

In those games, Sochan had risen above Diawara to ninth in the rotation. It’s an important position because coach Mike Brown typically plays nine guys.

On Friday, Diawara was ninth.

“Everybody [has been telling me to stay ready],” Diawara said. “Everybody, for real: the players, the staff. … First year, I’m a rookie, so everything is not going to be great. So I just have to stay ready and wait until my name gets called.”

Sochan, who has struggled in his limited opportunities since signing as a free agent, had two points and two rebounds in five garbage-time minutes Friday.

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“Those guys are like 10th and ninth guy, however you want to call it,” Brown said. “I’ll make the call as we go along, but everybody has to make sure they keep themselves ready.”

Karl-Anthony Towns has been rumored in trades to Milwaukee since the summer.

It’s a product of, among other things, his salary matching perfectly with that of Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Depending on how this season shakes out and whether Antetokounmpo hits the trade market, Towns’ name could resurface.

He claimed he paid no attention — and won’t in the future — even after being shocked by being dealt to New York by Minnesota in 2024.

“I’m not going to have to change how I live and how I approach work, how I approach life because of one instance,” Towns said. “That’s just a bump in the road. I continue to be myself regardless of what people say, what the noise is. I’m going to work on my game. I’m going to continue to be who I am as a person.

“I’m going to approach life the way I approach it. It’s gotten me this far. It’s gotten me a beautiful fiancée, a great family that’s all healthy and happy. I mean, it’s done well. It doesn’t always need to just be about basketball. It’s gotten me well in life. It’s kept me centered. It’s kept me focused. It’s kept me engaged and motivated to continue to attack every day with the same competition and competitive spirit.”

Oklahoma City Thunder (46-15, first in the Western Conference) vs. Dallas Mavericks (21-38, 12th in the Western Conference)

Dallas; Sunday, 8 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: Oklahoma City visits the Dallas Mavericks after the Thunder took down the Denver Nuggets 127-121 in overtime.

The Mavericks are 11-28 in conference matchups. Dallas gives up 118.0 points and has been outscored by 3.6 points per game.

The Thunder have gone 33-9 against Western Conference opponents. Oklahoma City is second in the Western Conference scoring 119.5 points per game and is shooting 48.4%.

The Mavericks make 47.3% of their shots from the field this season, which is 3.6 percentage points higher than the Thunder have allowed to their opponents (43.7%). The Thunder average 119.5 points per game, 1.5 more than the 118.0 the Mavericks give up.

The two teams square off for the third time this season. The Thunder defeated the Mavericks 132-111 in their last meeting on Dec. 6. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the Thunder with 33 points, and Naji Marshall led the Mavericks with 18 points.

TOP PERFORMERS: Marshall is shooting 53.1% and averaging 15.4 points for the Mavericks. Max Christie is averaging 12.1 points over the last 10 games.

Gilgeous-Alexander is scoring 31.9 points per game with 4.4 rebounds and 6.5 assists for the Thunder. Isaiah Joe is averaging 14.7 points and 3.3 rebounds while shooting 44.8% over the last 10 games.

LAST 10 GAMES: Mavericks: 2-8, averaging 115.7 points, 42.3 rebounds, 24.2 assists, 7.1 steals and 3.8 blocks per game while shooting 48.1% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 124.7 points per game.

Thunder: 6-4, averaging 114.5 points, 45.0 rebounds, 26.1 assists, 9.5 steals and 5.0 blocks per game while shooting 45.5% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 110.8 points.

INJURIES: Mavericks: Caleb Martin: day to day (back), Dereck Lively II: out for season (foot), Kyrie Irving: out for season (knee), Cooper Flagg: day to day (foot), P.J. Washington: day to day (ankle), Marvin Bagley III: day to day (neck), Klay Thompson: day to day (rest).

Thunder: Ajay Mitchell: out (abdomen), Branden Carlson: out (back), Jalen Williams: out (hamstring), Thomas Sorber: out for season (knee).

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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.

Memphis Grizzlies (22-36, 11th in the Western Conference) vs. Indiana Pacers (15-45, 15th in the Eastern Conference)

Indianapolis; Sunday, 5 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: Indiana enters the matchup against Memphis as losers of five games in a row.

The Pacers have gone 10-21 in home games. Indiana has a 4-26 record in games decided by at least 10 points.

The Grizzlies are 10-19 on the road. Memphis is 11-16 when it has fewer turnovers than its opponents and averages 14.7 turnovers per game.

The Pacers are shooting 45.0% from the field this season, 2.1 percentage points lower than the 47.1% the Grizzlies allow to opponents. The Grizzlies' 46.1% shooting percentage from the field this season is 2.7 percentage points lower than the Pacers have given up to their opponents (48.8%).

The teams meet for the second time this season. The Grizzlies won 128-103 in the last matchup on Oct. 26.

TOP PERFORMERS: Pascal Siakam is averaging 23.9 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.9 assists for the Pacers. Jarace Walker is averaging 14.8 points, 7.7 rebounds and 3.6 assists over the past 10 games.

Cedric Coward is averaging 13.3 points and 6.2 rebounds for the Grizzlies. GG Jackson is averaging 16.9 points over the last 10 games.

LAST 10 GAMES: Pacers: 2-8, averaging 115.3 points, 40.7 rebounds, 29.0 assists, 8.0 steals and 3.2 blocks per game while shooting 47.3% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 124.7 points per game.

Grizzlies: 3-7, averaging 118.1 points, 37.7 rebounds, 28.3 assists, 12.5 steals and 4.8 blocks per game while shooting 48.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 122.9 points.

INJURIES: Pacers: Pascal Siakam: day to day (wrist), Aaron Nesmith: out (ankle), Johnny Furphy: out for season (knee), Ivica Zubac: out (ankle), Tyrese Haliburton: out for season (achilles).

Grizzlies: Taj Gibson: day to day (coach decision), Kentavious Caldwell-Pope: out for season (finger), Ja Morant: out (elbow), Zach Edey: out (ankle), Ty Jerome: day to day (thigh), Cedric Coward: day to day (knee), Santi Aldama: day to day (knee), Brandon Clarke: out (calf).

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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.