Barcelona defender Gerard Martin on “Gerard Maldini” meme… — and more

It has been a difficult week for Barcelona, but from the two defeats to Atletico Madrid and Girona, determination has risen. Hansi Flick and his players are hopeful of putting recent disappointments behind them, as they seek to get back on track in La Liga and the Copa del Rey.

Gerard Martin was involved in both of the matches in the last seven days, and as per Sport, he made it clear that Barcelona will improve over the coming weeks, starting with the clash against Levante on Sunday.

“We will recover from these two defeats. We are not calm either, we have lost two games, but the advantage is that we have another game on Sunday and we can turn it around. A little self-criticism and then we get up.”

Due to Eric Garcia’s red card at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano last Thursday, Martin has chances to start in the second leg at the Spotify Camp Nou. But whether he does or not, he believes Barcelona can count a four-goal comeback.

“We are confident of coming back, if anyone can do it it is us. We will go to come back.”

Image via Judit Cartiel/Getty Images

Martin: I was teased over Gerald Maldini meme

It has been a pleasing season for the 23-year-old, who has started regularly at left-back or centre-back in recent months. His performances have pleased supporters, who have compared him to Milan icon Paolo Maldini, which he also spoke on.

“When the meme came out on the networks, the next day they teased me in the dressing room.”

Martin reacts to reported interest from Milan

In recent days, Martin has attracted transfer interest from Milan, but as he has revealed, he has not been involved in anything linked to the speculation.

“That’s what they say over there. Nothing has reached me.”

Among a horde of tanking NBA teams, the Sacramento Kings stand along with the worst record in the NBA. It didn't get any better Thursday.

The Kings extended their losing streak to 15 games with a 131-94 defeat by the Orlando Magic, breaking the franchise record for consecutive losses. That low mark was previously held by two different streaks during the team's days of operation as the Cincinnati Royals.

Their record is now 12-45.

Sacramento hasn't won a game since Jan. 16, a 128-115 win over the similarly futile Washington Wizards. To give a sports fan some perspective on how long ago that was, the NFL divisional round started the next day.

Thursday's loss was the most lopsided of the bunch with a 37-point scoring margin. Five of the 15 were actually by fewer than five points, but the Kings couldn't get it done.

As a reminder, the Kings fired current New York Knicks head coach Mike Brown after his team suffered a... five-game losing streak.

The Kings will get their next chance to break the streak with a road game against Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday. After that, their next three opponents are the Memphis Grizzlies, Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks.

It's going to get worse before it gets better for the Kings

There is hardly reason to expect an improvement in the latter stage of the season, beyond the idea that an NBA team just can't be this bad. The Kings announced Wednesday that All-Star big man Domantas Sabonis had undergone season-ending surgery to repair the torn meniscus in his left knee. Zach LaVine, the team's leading scorer, is already out for the season following a hand surgery.

With those two out, Thursday offered a vision of how the Kings will be operating moving forward. DeMar DeRozan scored 13 points on 3-of-11 shooting. Russell Westbrook had 5 points on 2-of-8 shooting, with 1 assist and 3 turnovers. The bench scored 30 points on a combined 9-of-29 shooting with 8 assists and 9 turnovers.

A bright spot might have been rookie Maxime Reynaud, who started at center in Sabonis' place and posted 17 points on 8-of-13 shooting with 14 rebounds and 4 assists. The Kings were outscored by 14 points in his 39 minutes on the floor, which was actually tied for the team's second-best plus/minus among the 10 players who got minutes.

Lachlan Cunningham via Getty Images

It's tempting to say the Kings won't even be trying for the rest of the season, but that's not exactly how it works. Ownership and the executive suite might not mind more of the same, which would guarantee them a top-5 pick in the loaded 2026 NBA Draft, but the players still have plenty of reason to compete. This just happens to be an extremely broken roster right now.

There is now quite some distance between Sacramento and the rest of the NBA in the standings. The Wizards, Brooklyn Nets, Indiana Pacers and New Orleans Pelicans all have 15 wins as of Thursday night, with the Kings three wins clear of their closest "competition" for the lottery's top position.

For the first time in his NBA career, Chicago Bulls guard Jaden Ivey finished a game with a “DNP — coach’s decision” next to his name in the box score.

The guard did not play in Thursday’s 110-101 loss to the Toronto Raptors at the United Center despite not being listed on the injury report. Acting coach Wes Unseld Jr. said Ivey’s absence was purely a basketball decision, but the guard alluded to lingering knee soreness as a partial cause for the healthy scratch. Ivey said he is still practicing fully despite the injury and believes he is fully available to play.

“I’m sure people can call it out that I’m not the same player as I used to be,” Ivey, 24, said. “That’s why. I’m not the JI I used to be. But the old JI is dead. I’m alive in Christ. … No matter how many DNP’s I don’t get to play or no matter how many points I score, those things are a temporary thing.”

Photos: Toronto Raptors 110, Chicago Bulls 101

This could be a new status quo for the Bulls, whose roster includes six guards. Unseld spoke with the team at shootaround Thursday morning to address the reality that players might see a reduction in their minutes as the team attempts to figure out healthy rotations. The decision was made in conjunction with coach Billy Donovan, who was not with the team following the death of his father.

But Ivey said he was not informed heading into the game that he would not play at all against the Raptors.

“Obviously going into it you’ve got to look at who’s on the roster,” Ivey said. “This team has a lot of guards, so going into it I’m kind of just thrown in. I do my job to the glory of God so I’m ready for whenever my name is called. Whenever (the) coach needs me, calls my name, I’ll be out there to play. Getting traded, that’s what happens in the NBA. You get traded, the organization figures out what the team needs and they make their adjustments.”

Sixteen days ago, Ivey was logging 16.8 minutes per game for the best team in the East. The Bulls traded for him with the intention of investing in his future as a young playmaker. And Ivey had been decently productive in his first four games with the Bulls, averaging 11.5 points and four assists. He joked about his hefty workload after playing 33 minutes in his debut against the Raptors on Feb. 5 and averaged 28.8 minutes for the Bulls before the All-Star break.

As a restricted free agent this summer, Ivey is not guaranteed to return to Chicago for the 2026-27 season. But the Bulls have been publicly insistent that they plan to test out every player they acquired at the deadline as a potential option to be re-signed in the offseason.

Ivey shied away from expressing how Thursday’s game — or further lack of playing time — could affect his feelings toward the Bulls in free agency, repeatedly turning to his faith as a guiding post among uncertainty on the court.

“I don’t really trust the NBA setting,” Ivey said. “I trust the Lord. That’s the main thing. He places me where I need to be. … When moves are made behind the scenes of trades and stuff, I don’t trust that part. You can’t trust it, because it’s not in your hands. It’s not in my hands to make moves or trade myself or put myself in a certain position. I leave that up to the Lord.”

Who are the 7 new Chicago Bulls? Meet Jaden Ivey, Anfernee Simons and the rest of the deadline additions.

Thursday marked a season-high-tying seventh consecutive loss in their first game back from the All-Star break. Despite forcing a clutch finish with a 7-0 run in the final stretch of the fourth quarter, the Bulls couldn’t fend off a 31-point game from Brandon Ingram, who knocked down a dagger 3-pointer with 35.5 seconds remaining.

The Bulls have lost 10 of their last 11 games, a result directly tied to their decision to dump the majority of their players on expiring contracts at the trade deadline. And the schedule will only get harder this weekend when the Bulls host a home back-to-back against the Detroit Pistons and the New York Knicks.

Here are three more takeaways from the loss.

1. Unseld fills in.

Unseld helmed the Bulls for the game in the stead of coach Billy Donovan, who was away from the team to spend time with his family after the death of his father, Bill Donovan Sr.

The elder Donovan died Saturday at age 85. He was a member of the Boston College Hall of Fame after captaining the team and graduating in 1962 as the program’s third-leading scorer.

Donovan Jr. is expected to return Friday to Chicago and could resume his coaching duties for this weekend’s back-to-back.

2. Josh Giddey and Tre Jones return.

The Bulls returned to a vague semblance of their former selves with guards Giddey and Jones back on the court. The pair had been sidelined for a considerable stretch of the season (19 games for Giddey, 11 for Jones) before the All-Star break with hamstring injuries.

Jalen Smith also returned to the lineup after missing five of the last seven games before the break with a calf injury. Although his absence was less extensive, it had a bigger impact because of his status as the only remaining center on the roster from before the trade deadline.

Unseld was cagey about the playing-time restrictions for all three players, declining to share details about any of their medical limits during his pregame news conference. Giddey played 21 minutes, 25 seconds and Jones 21:51 while Smith logged 24:20.

Both guards failed to score in the first half. Jones warmed into his offense in the third quarter and finished with 12 points, but Smith and Giddey struggled to connect on their shots. Smith finished with nine points on 2-for-6 shooting while Giddey scored five points on 1-for-7 shooting. Giddey added five assists while committing four turnovers.

3. Deadline awkwardness persists.

The Bulls still aren’t playing cohesive basketball. In fact, it’s unclear whether they’ll be able to accomplish that feat — piecing together a collective identity out of a haphazard puzzle of misfit deadline acquisitions — before the regular season ends.

Against the Raptors, that translated into sloppy basketball. The first quarter took 35 minutes to be completed as both teams combined for nine fouls and 13 turnovers. Collin Sexton turned the ball over three times in that span, including an eight-second violation when he failed to advance the ball past half-court. The Bulls gave up 28 points off 20 turnovers for the game.

Matas Buzelis once again receded in a loss, scoring only four points in nearly 31:20 before getting pulled from the closing lineup. Anfernee Simons (20 points) and Isaac Okoro (16) combined for nearly one-third of the team’s scoring, but neither player looked comfortable in their respective rotations.

The No. 2 UCLA women's basketball team extended its win streak to 20 games and clinched the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten tournament Thursday night.

The Bruins beat Washington 82-67 at Pauley Pavilion. Lauren Betts scored a game-high 23 points and was one of five UCLA players to finish with double-figure scoring, while Washington freshman Brynn McGaughy recorded the second-highest point total of her college career with 19.

With the exception of Gianna Kneepkens, who was three-of-four from three-point range and scored 17 points, UCLA (26-1, 16-0 Big Ten) struggled from beyond the arc against the Huskies, shooting 26.7% — below its season’s average of 38.2%.

Washington (19-8, 9-7) had four players who scored six points during the first half, while UCLA’s Betts and Angela Dugalic led the way with 14 and eight points, respectively.

Read more:No. 2 UCLA wins its 19th straight game with thrashing of Indiana

The Bruins led the Huskies 22-12 after the first quarter and extended that lead to 42-29 by halftime, leading by as much as 19 midway through the second quarter.

The Bruins nearly doubled up the Huskies on rebounds, with 37 to their opponent’s 20.

McGaughy went on a run for the Huskies in the third quarter, scoring 10 points in a row for her team, en route to the Huskies' highest-scoring quarter of the game to that point with 19. But the Bruins still won the quarter, adding two points to their lead.

UCLA has two regular-season games remaining, playing its home finale against Wisconsin at 2:30 p.m. Sunday and against rival USC on March 1.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.