Rain or Shine Elasto Painters’ Yeng Guiao during a game vs Barangay Ginebra Gin Kings in the 2026 PBA Commissioner’s Cup semifinals. –MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net

ANTIPOLO—Coach Yeng Guiao praised Rain or Shine’s steady resolve in taking Game 1 of the PBA Commissioner’s Cup semifinals against crowd favorite Barangay Ginebra.

The Elasto Painters overcame a double-digit deficit to come away with a 115-111 win before 10,412 fans at Ynares Center here on Wednesday despite Guiao’s belief in their underdog status in the best-of-seven affair.

“I’m really proud of the guys because what we do is show up and compete. Show up and compete,” he said during the postgame press conference.

Rain or Shine came into the semis having after showing San Miguel Beer the door in the quarterfinals, but was beaten by Ginebra handily during the eliminations.

Ginebra led by 10 in the fourth quarter, but Rain or Shine withstood some big shots from RJ Abarrientos and Justin Brownlee while getting massive contributions from import Jaylen Johnson and Jhonard Clarito, to name a few.

“To play a team like Ginebra, [with a] GOAT import, GOAT coach, half of the Gilas team, the probable Best Player of the Conference in their team,” Guiao said, referring to Brownlee, coach Tim Cone and RJ Abarrientos.

“And who are we? We just told the team to just put up a fight and see how far we can go. At least, we were able to get Game 1. We got lucky once, let’s see how many times we can get lucky. Let’s see.”

Game 2 is set Friday at Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City, with Rain or Shine expecting a much harder battle in its bid to go 2-0 in the series.

Mumbai Indians Squad: Rohit Sharma, Ryan Rickelton(w), Naman Dhir, Tilak Varma, Sherfane Rutherford, Will Jacks, Corbin Bosch, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah(c), Raghu Sharma, Trent Boult, Mayank Rawat, Robin Minz, Krish Bhagat, Suryakumar Yadav, AM Ghazanfar, Hardik Pandya, Keshav Maharaj, Ashwani Kumar, Mayank Markande, Danish Malewar, Mohammed Salahuddin Izhar.

Kolkata Knight Riders Squad: Ajinkya Rahane(c), Finn Allen, Angkrish Raghuvanshi(w), Cameron Green, Manish Pandey, Sunil Narine, Anukul Roy, Varun Chakaravarthy, Saurabh Dubey, Kartik Tyagi, Matheesha Pathirana, Vaibhav Arora, Ramandeep Singh, Tejasvi Dahiya, Rovman Powell, Navdeep Saini, Tim Seifert, Umran Malik, Rahul Tripathi, Sarthak Ranjan, Prashant Solanki, Daksh Kamra, Blessing Muzarabani.

NFL apologises after sending wrong trophy to Jaxon Smith-Njigba.© X/ @CollegeFBPortal

Insider Doesn’t See This AFC Team Competing With Patriots For A.J. Brown Trade originally appeared on NESN. Add NESN as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Recent news may not create another suitor in the A.J. Brown sweepstakes.

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Rashee Rice will serve a 30-day jail sentence for violating his probation stemming from a 2024 car crash. He also had cleanup surgery on his knee that is expected to sideline him for two months, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Those developments could put the Kansas City Chiefs on the market for another receiver before the 2026 season. However, Albert Breer doesn’t anticipate them pursuing Brown.

The Sports Illustrated insider downplayed the possibility of Kansas City calling the Philadelphia Eagles about the three-time Pro Bowler during Wednesday’s “The Breer Report.”

“Do they circle back and maybe look at the idea of trading for A.J. Brown? I don’t think that happens,” Breer said. “They had that opportunity. They were on A.J. Brown’s list, and they said no to the Eagles in the first place.”

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The New England Patriots have remained heavily linked to Brown all offseason. NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo said on Tuesday that the AFC champions remain “likely” to acquire Brown, but there’s no done deal in place to finalize after June 1.

Even if Kansas City isn’t more motivated to land Brown, the Patriots can’t assume there’s no competition for his services. Garafolo added that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the Los Angeles Rams re-upped conversations with the Eagles about Brown.

Meanwhile, Kansas City could potentially pivot to a former New England wide receiver. James Palmer called Stefon Diggs a strong fit for the Chiefs, who are looking to erase the stench of a disappointing six-win season.

More Football: NFL Insider Reveals There Is No Deal In Place For A.J. Brown To Join Patriots Yet

The Dallas Mavericks organization has been busy since their season ended in April. They finally filled their front office vacancies, adding Masai Ujiri as president and Mike Schmitz as general manager. On Tuesday, Ujiri announced that head coach Jason Kidd and the Mavericks “mutually agreed” to part ways. Now, Dallas is in the hunt for a head coach to lead this team into a new era with Rookie of the Year Cooper Flagg as the guiding light.

But what exactly are the Mavericks looking for with their next coaching hire? Ujiri didn’t give a ton of concrete details on what tangible assets their next coach should have when he addressed the media on Wednesday. The former Raptors executive said all the boilerplate stuff of wanting to hire a “winning” coach, someone to lead the team as they build around Flagg for the future.

He was also careful not to disparage Kidd on his way out the door, as he praised him on multiple occasions and made it clear that anything he says about what they want in the next coach isn’t a reflection on Kidd’s coaching chops.

Will they hire a first-time head coach? Or maybe someone with some championship experience? Ujiri said anything is on the table.

“It’s an open search… I think our minds are very open,” Ujiri said. “We’re going to look everywhere, no stone unturned, and we will really look at what’s best for this organization. Be it first time, be it experience, be it college, be it European, you know, everywhere. Whatever is best for this organization going forward is what we are going to look at, and it’s going to be very comprehensive.”

Ujiri confirmed that he didn’t speak to any candidates prior to Kidd’s departure, as that would be “disrespectful.” He also doesn’t have a list of candidates, or at least not one he’s willing to publicly share. But it’s obvious that this search will be extensive.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some possible candidates that the Mavericks could look at as they start their coaching search.

Sean Sweeney, San Antonio Spurs

Sweeney and the Mavericks have some history. He served as an assistant under Kidd from 2021 to 2025, departing after the season in which the Mavericks made the catastrophically dumb decision to trade Luka Doncic. Sweeney left for a promotion with the San Antonio Spurs, where he’s now the associate head coach under Mitch Johnson, and is now three wins away from reaching the NBA Finals. With Kidd gone, the Mavericks are interested in bringing Sweeney back to fill their head coach vacancy, per Marc Stein.

Sweeney is well-regarded around the league, and after San Antonio’s Game 1 win against the Thunder, Victor Wembanyama even praised him for putting together the team’s defensive game plan against OKC. When asked how much credit he gives Sweeney for the Spurs defense, which forced 14 turnovers and contributed to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander having an uncharacteristic poor shooting night, Wembanyama said, “All of it.”

Sweeney has had success coaching against the Thunder: he was on the Mavericks staff that beat this OKC team in the 2024 playoffs en route to an NBA Finals appearance, as well as the year Dallas went to the Western Conference Finals in 2022. He’s a defensive-minded coach who would do wonders with someone like Flagg, who already showed he has All-Defensive tendencies in his rookie year.

But the Mavericks aren’t the only team with a coaching vacancy. The Bulls are reportedly interested in Sweeney, and as the only team with two lottery picks in next month’s draft, Chicago is an enticing position. However, the Mavericks have one thing the Bulls don’t: Cooper Flagg. This all hinges on Sweeney’s interest in being a head coach right now. He’s got a pretty great situation going on in San Antonio at the moment, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he wanted to stay with the Spurs and Wembanyama and see just how great this team can become.

Micah Nori, Minnesota Timberwolves

Nori has been a head coach in waiting for some years now. Regarded as one of the top assistant coaches in the league, he’s spent the last five seasons under Chris Finch in Minnesota. Despite Nori and Ujiri both spending time with the Raptors and Nuggets, though, the two never crossed paths at the same time. Maybe that changes in Dallas.

Nori brings almost two decades of assistant coaching experience and filled in as head coach when Finch was sidelined during the 2024 playoffs after surgery to repair a ruptured right patellar tendon. He’s been called a “genius” by Wolves star Anthony Edwards, and Nikola Jokic said he’s “prepared for anything.” He was a candidate in previous coaching cycles for the Lakers and Knicks, and is considered a hot commodity once again with several openings across the league in addition to Dallas.

Nori is essentially the defensive coordinator on Finch’s staff, and with him on the bench, the Timberwolves have ranked in the top 10 defensively in each of the last four seasons. Like Sweeney, he’s also a potential candidate in the early going of Dallas’ search, per Marc Stein.

Jared Dudley, Denver Nuggets

Dudley was an assistant under Kidd for four years before joining the Nuggets staff this season. After putting together a 14-year NBA career that featured a championship in 2020 with the Lakers, he’s become a rising assistant coach in the league. It’s not surprising, as Dudley was always one of the best quotes during his playing career thanks to his deep knowledge of the game, and that’s quickly translated to the coaching side of things.

Dudley’s experience lies on the player development side, which should be an area of importance for a Mavericks roster that may look entirely different when next season starts. If Dallas enters somewhat of a rebuild to try and regain some of the draft assets Nico Harrison shipped off, that could mean veteran players like Klay Thompson, PJ Washington, Daniel Gafford, Naji Marshall and maybe even Kyrie Irving are on the move. Ujiri did mention that there’s a “huge curiosity” to see Irving and Flagg play together, so maybe take him off the list, but if the rest of those players are gone, that means Dallas will be relying heavily on younger players. 

That’s where Dudley can come in and grow with the players without heightened expectations to win with this roster right now. He already has familiarity with some of the players on the roster, and Ujiri said some assistants who worked under Kidd will remain for next season, so Dudley could walk into a situation with some familiar faces.

Victor Wembanyama willed the San Antonio Spurs to an epic, double-overtime win over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 1 of the 2026 NBA Western Conference finals. NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the top-seeded Thunder must regroup to avoid a massive 2-0 hole before heading to Texas. OKC was mostly untested through their first two playoff series, sweeping both the Suns and the Lakers. De’Aaron Fox (ankle) missed Game 1 and remains questionable for San Antonio.

Tipoff from Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, Okla., is set for 8:30 p.m. ET. The Thunder are 7.5-point favorites in the latest Spurs vs. Thunder odds from FanDuel Sportsbook, while the over/under for total points scored is 217.5. Before making any Thunder vs. Spurs picks, check out the Spurs vs. Thunder predictions from the SportsLine Projection Model.

The SportsLine Projection Model simulates every NBA game 10,000 times and has returned well over $10,000 in betting profit for $100 players on its top-rated NBA picks over the past eight-plus seasons. The model entered the conference finals of the 2026 NBA playoffs on a sizzling 26-10 roll (72%) on top-rated NBA spread picks this season. Anyone following its NBA betting advice at sportsbooks and on betting apps could have seen huge returns.

Now, the model has simulated Spurs vs. Thunder 10,000 times and just revealed its coveted NBA picks and betting predictions. You can head to SportsLine now to see the model’s picks. Here are several NBA odds and NBA betting lines for Thunder vs. Spurs:

Top Spurs vs. Thunder predictions

After 10,000 simulations of Spurs vs. Thunder, SportsLine’s model is going Under on the total (217.5). The Under hit three of five regular-season meetings and would have hit in Game 1 had it ended in regulation. The Over has now hit in six straight Spurs games, snapping a 5-1 runs on Unders. The Over has hit in seven of eight OKC games as well. But defense ruled in Game 1, as the Spurs and Thunder shot 42.7% and 40.6%, respectively. 

The SportsLine model is projecting four Spurs players to score 13 points or more, led by Wembanyama’s 25.5 points. Gilgeous-Alexander is projected to lead the Thunder with 29.2 points scored, but just three Oklahoma City players are forecast to score 13 points or more. The teams are projected to combine for 210 total points as the Under hits in 61% of simulations, making it a great selection for anybody targeting NBA parlay betting. See the Spurs vs. Thunder spread pick at SportsLine, and you can bet the Under in Thunder vs. Spurs at FanDuel here:

How to make Spurs vs. Thunder picks

After simulating each possession of Spurs vs. Thunder 10,000 times, the model also says one side of the spread hits more than 50% of the time. You can head to SportsLine to see the model’s NBA picks. 

So who wins Spurs vs. Thunder, and which side of the spread hits more than 50% of the time? Visit SportsLine now to see which side of the Spurs vs. Thunder spread to back, all from the model that has returned well over $10,000 on top-rated NBA picks, and find out.

The 2025 season was a difficult one for the Kansas City Chiefs, as the team finished with a 6–11 record and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2014.

Compounding the problem was the late-season injury to Patrick Mahomes, whose torn ACL creates uncertainty around the opening stages of the upcoming season. Kansas City’s acquisition of Justin Fields appears to provide a contingency plan should Mahomes need additional recovery time.

The Chiefs also made aggressive defensive additions, including trading into the top 10 to draft cornerback Mansoor Delane, while also selecting Peter Woods to strengthen the front line.

As Kansas City looks to rebound in 2026, it will be interesting to see if the roster changes will be enough to return the franchise to contention. Here is a breakdown of the team’s schedule and projections generated by the Sportskeeda Playoff Predictor.

Kansas City Chiefs’ 2026 Schedule

Week 1 (Sept. 14): at Denver Broncos, 8:15 p.m. ET | ESPN (MNF)

Week 2 (Sept. 20): vs. Indianapolis Colts, 8:15 p.m. ET | NBC (SNF)

Week 3 (Sept. 27): at Miami Dolphins, 1:00 p.m. ET | CBS

Week 4 (Oct. 4): at Las Vegas Raiders, 4:25 p.m. ET | CBS

Week 5: BYE

Week 6 (Oct. 18): vs. Los Angeles Chargers, 4:25 p.m. ET | CBS

Week 7 (Oct. 25): at Seattle Seahawks, 8:15 p.m. ET | NBC (SNF)

Week 8 (Nov. 1): at Denver Broncos, 4:25 p.m. ET | CBS

Week 9 (Nov. 8): vs. New York Jets, 1:00 p.m. ET | CBS

Week 10 (Nov. 15): at Atlanta Falcons, 1:00 p.m. ET | CBS

Week 11 (Nov. 22): vs. Arizona Cardinals, 1:00 p.m. ET | CBS

Week 12 (Nov. 26): at Buffalo Bills, 8:20 p.m. ET | NBC (Thanksgiving Day)

Week 13 (Dec. 3): at Los Angeles Rams, 8:15 p.m. ET | Prime Video (TNF)

Week 14 (Dec. 13): at Cincinnati Bengals, 4:25 p.m. ET | FOX

Week 15 (Dec. 21): vs. New England Patriots, 8:15 p.m. ET | ESPN (MNF)

Week 16 (Dec. 27): vs. San Francisco 49ers, 4:25 p.m. ET | CBS

Week 17 (TBD): at Los Angeles Chargers, TBD

Week 18 (TBD): vs. Las Vegas Raiders, TBD

Kansas City Chiefs: Game-by-game prediction

Week 1: Chiefs at Broncos

Prediction: 25-17 (Broncos W)

Week 2: Chiefs vs. Colts

Prediction: 39-20 (Colts W)

Week 3: Chiefs at Dolphins

Prediction: 26-22 (Dolphins W)

Week 4: Chiefs at Raiders

Prediction: 33-26 (Raiders W)

Week 5: BYE

Week 6: Chiefs vs. Chargers

Prediction: 32-27 (Chargers W)

Week 7: Chiefs at Seahawks

Prediction: 25-16 (Seahawks W)

Week 8: Chiefs at Broncos

Prediction: 29-16 (Broncos W)

Week 9: Chiefs vs. Jets

Prediction: 26-24 (Chiefs W)

Week 10: Chiefs at Falcons

Prediction: 28-22 (Chiefs W)

Week 11: Chiefs vs. Cardinals

Prediction: 21-16 (Chiefs W)

Week 12: Chiefs at Bills

Prediction: 31-17 (Chiefs W)

Week 13: Chiefs at Rams

Prediction: 39-25 (Rams W)

Week 14: Chiefs at Bengals

Prediction: 26-15 (Chiefs W)

Week 15: Chiefs vs. Patriots

Prediction: 22-15 (Patriots W)

Week 16: Chiefs vs. 49ers

Prediction: 17-16 (Chiefs W)

Week 17: Chiefs at Chargers

Prediction: 22-18 (Chargers W)

Week 18: Chiefs vs. Raiders

Prediction: 33-20 (Chiefs W)

Kansas City Chiefs’ projected 2026 regular-season record

Sportskeeda’s Playoff Predictor projects a challenging picture for the Kansas City Chiefs heading into the 2026 season. The model predicts a 7–10 finish, suggesting that the organization’s rebuilding effort may take longer than expected.

Among the more surprising projections is Kansas City waiting until Week 9 for its first win, which is predicted to come against the New York Jets. The model also forecasts a poor run within the division for Andy Reid’s team, with only one AFC West win and a last-place finish.

Under that scenario, the Chiefs would fail to reach the postseason for a second consecutive year.