Section: Sports

There were plenty of goals scored in the NHL on Wednesday night and four players accounted for a bulk of them.

Luka Doncic always knew it was going to be an emotional return to Dallas when wearing his No. 77 Los Angeles Lakers jersey in the place he called home the first 5 1/2 seasons of his NBA career.

The Masters begins Thursday at Augusta National, where defending champion Scottie Scheffler will try to win his third green jacket, Rory McIlroy will try again to win his first and the biggest names in golf will come together amid the Georgia pines for the year’s first major championship.

Mattel Inc. unveiled the LeBron Ken doll on Wednesday to kick off the toy manufacturer’s “Kenbassador” series. Last year, nine female athlete Barbies, including tennis star Venus Williams, were introduced.

Here’s just some of what happened on Tuesday in the NBA: Michael Malone got fired by Denver, the Los Angeles Lakers’ Luka Doncic got ejected, Cleveland clinched the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, the Los Angeles Clippers rose to fourth in the Western Conference and Phoenix got put on the brink of elimination.

Michael Malone coached the Denver Nuggets to the NBA title in 2023. He has them set to make the postseason for a seventh consecutive year. Even amid a four-game slide, they’re still in position to have home-court advantage in Round 1. And he’s gone with three games left — an unprecedented move for a club bound for the postseason.

Offense is down again at the start of the big league season, with hits even harder to come by. The big league batting average was .239 through the first full week of play, down from .240 through the first full week of 2024.

Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. came up with the perfect going-away present for that spirit-crushing Houston defense that bullied, battered and bedeviled him all night.

Practice at the Masters was suspended late Monday morning and spectators were pulled off the golf course because of worsening rain and the threat of thunderstorms.

President Donald Trump welcomed Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and the reigning champion Los Angeles Dodgers to the White House on Monday to congratulate them for winning the World Series last season.