The NBA is a “young man’s league” is one of the most inarguable truisms in team sports, and 79 years of his history tells us it’s particularly accurate when the youth is long, athletic, frisky – and, of course, talented.

That combination is high on the list of issues the Warriors, who have the league’s oldest core trio, must overcome during a grueling, two-month postseason to realize their dream.

They encountered that dynamic Sunday at Chase Center and now have a very real idea of what they’re up against.

The Warriors’ 106-96 loss to the Houston Rockets can be traced to two directly connected failures. The first was the inability to take care of the ball, committing 20 turnovers, and the second being the launchpad those giveaways provided for the Rockets.

“If we keep them in their half-court sets and make them run their s—t, we’re fine,” Gary Payton II said. “But when they leak out and get athletic and get easy buckets, that’s when they’re a problem.

“If we take care of the ball, we win that game.”

Failure to take care of the ball allowed the Rockets to do what they do best, use their young legs to turn the game into a transition war the Warriors can’t win. Golden State in too many instances was a step slow and unable to keep up with an opponent built to sprint.

“They have great size and athleticism at pretty much every position,” coach Steve Kerr said of the Rockets. “[Coach Ime Udoka] has done a great job. They really established an identity, and they kind of know who they are. They have a great defensive team, and they played a really good defensive game.”

Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Brandin Podziemski each committed four turnovers. Jonathan Kuminga committed three in 19 minutes off the bench. And many those turnovers were not a product of Houston’s defense. They simply were unforced.

It was enough to put the Rockets in their comfort zone. They scored 18 points off turnovers and posted a 26-12 advantage in fast-break points. Their length/athleticism blend allowed them to dominate inside, with a 56-40 win in paint points and a 17-15 edge in second-chance points.

Curry, battling through hyperactively physical defenders, never found rhythm and finished with three points on 1-of-10 shooting, including 1 of 8 from deep. If not for Buddy Hield’s team-high 20 points, the Warriors might have been blown off their own floor.

And they would have greatly aided in their demise.

“Just got to take better care of the ball,” Green said. “They struggle to score in the half court a bit, so when you give them run-out layups, that makes anybody tough to guard. Just take better care of the ball, get to our spots, so you can see the pressure. They pressure a lot, you get bunched up, it works to their advantage.”

Houston’s nine-man rotation features a core – Jalen Green, Alperen Sengün and Amen Thompson – that averages 22.7 years of age. But it is surrounded by the likes of Fred VanVleet, a 31-year-old NBA champion; Dillon Brooks, 29, with three trips to the NBA playoffs; and 31-year-old Steven Adams, who has 66 playoff games on his resumé.

The Warriors failed to match the Rockets’ energy and ended up straying from their game plan.

“We talked about not committing turnovers and did the exact opposite,” Jimmy Butler said.

There are ways to deal with the Rockets, whose youth can sometimes be problematic. They can get reckless, commit turnovers. Their aggression leaves them prone to fouling.

But their activity and size were a problem on this night and could be in the playoffs. Houston has five players with wingspans of 7 feet or more, from Sengun and Thompson, at 7-foot each, to Adams at 7-foot-5. The Rockets blocked seven shots and bagged seven steals. They soar in for offensive rebounds, turn passing lanes into road closures and hang “Keep Out” signs in the paint.

Yet there is an undercurrent of confidence within Warriors that suggests they have ways to handle Houston’s length, athleticism and youthful exuberance.

“Anything we did tonight wasn’t really reflective of their lineups,” Curry said. “It more self-inflicted. We turned the ball over, gave up offensive rebounds, didn’t execute on the offensive end. Everything was bad.

“They have different looks. They play zone. They have two bigs. We can adjust to all of that. We just didn’t do it tonight.”

Curry, Green and Butler – the oldest core in the league, average age 35.7 years – know the way to the top. They practically own the map.

The question they’ll try to answer when the postseason begins next week is whether that knowledge is enough for them to hold off the young lions in the West.

 Only one night after Baylor swatted aside previously undefeated Gonzaga to capture its first national title four years ago, freshman LJ Cryer was right back in the gym getting up shots and working on his game.

He couldn’t bear another season as a fringe rotation player who logged a few scant minutes one night and didn’t leave the bench the next.

Cryer arrived at Baylor at a time when the Bears were teeming with top-tier backcourt talent. Jared Butler, Davion Mitchell, MaCio Teague and Adam Flagler were the four leading scorers on a team that lost only two games all season and never allowed a single NCAA tournament opponent to finish within nine points.

Arriving as a highly touted recruit and scarcely playing “really messes with your mental [health],” Cryer admitted Sunday. He recalled times when he cried in Baylor coach Scott Drew’s office, workouts where it was hard to motivate himself to keep giving his all. To this day, he wishes he’d been given the option to redshirt so that he’d have known ahead of time the DNPs were coming.

“It definitely fueled me,” Cryer said. “That whole summer, I was working out two or three times a day, taking a lot of extra shots. I was happy we won the national championship, but I wanted to contribute to my own national championship in a way.”

Four years after that humbling experience, Cryer is back in the national title game with a chance to make history. The Houston guard would become the first men’s or women’s Division I college basketball player ever to win championships with two different programs if the Cougars can beat fellow No. 1 seed Florida on Monday night in San Antonio

Whereas Cryer didn’t check into the 2021 title game until the outcome had long been decided, he’ll play an entirely different role Monday night against Florida. Cryer is Houston’s leading scorer and most feared perimeter shooter, the guy who opposing coaches game plan to keep from beating them.

Cryer is averaging 15.6 points per game. His elite 42.7% shooting from behind the arc is slightly higher than he shoots from inside it. The fifth-year senior piled up 26 points against long, athletic Duke on Saturday night, keeping Houston within striking distance until its top-ranked defense at last imposed its will and fueled a stunning comeback from a 14-point deficit.

“Our best player, the guy that kept us in the game, was L.J.,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “He kept us in touch with them. So when the time came, we had an opportunity to get the lead down where we could put some game pressure on them.”

How did Cryer go from a healthy scratch in 10 games as a Baylor freshman to knocking down six 3s against Duke in the national semifinals? The work ethic instilled in him since boyhood is a big part of it.

When Cryer was growing up in Katy, Texas, he remembers his cousin Sam Carter staying with his family. Carter, who went on to play safety at TCU, would leave the house at 5 a.m. most mornings to go do strength and conditioning work. Sometimes, he would take Cryer with him.

“When he went off to college, I started doing it on my own with my dad,” Cryer said. “When I got to high school, I used to shoot at 6 a.m. before school was open.”

Cryer was, as Sampson puts it, “a bucket getter in high school.” The 6-foot-1 guard was known as a three-level scorer and finished his high school career with 3,488 points, the most of any Houston-area public school player.

It took longer than Cryer wanted, but he eventually showcased his scoring prowess in a Baylor jersey. He averaged 13.5 points per game during an injury-plagued sophomore season. He upped that to 15 per game during a breakout junior campaign.

When Cryer entered the transfer portal in 2023, he explained to 247Sports that he was “looking for a fresh start.” He added that his time at Baylor featured “a lot of ups and downs” and that he was looking for a program that wanted him to play “both guard positions” instead of primarily as a scoring guard.

Sampson made Cryer no such promises when recruiting him two years ago. Like Drew, Sampson envisioned Cryer as more of a scorer than a playmaker.

“He told me he was going to hold me accountable every single day, especially my defense,” Cryer said Sunday. “He said I was a terrible defender, but he was going to change that. He said, ‘We’re going to get you in good shape and you’re going to be a helluva player if you play for me.’ I trusted him.”

The addition of Cryer injected needed offensive punch into a Houston program known for its relentless defense and rebounding. He might have helped the Cougars reach last year’s Final Four were it not for ill-timed injuries to forward JoJo Tugler and point guard Jamal Shead.

This year, he has led Houston to within a single victory of Sampson’s first national championship despite an obstacle-laden path. The Cougars had to overcome a second-round matchup against a Gonzaga team ranked in the top 10 in most predictive metrics. Then came virtual road games against Purdue and Tennessee in Indianapolis. Now Houston will have to topple two fellow No. 1 seeds here in San Antonio.

Florida head coach Todd Golden is very aware of the challenge that Cryer and fellow Houston guards Milos Uzan and Emanuel Sharp represent. Golden spoke repeatedly on Sunday about the importance of limiting their open 3-point attempts.

“Big-picture goal is going to be to make them take tough twos and then to fight like hell to get the rebound,” Golden said. “Every rebound we get is going to feel like we won the game, I feel like.”

What would it mean to Cryer to win a second national championship on Monday night? He admits the second one would be even more meaningful than the first. The first time, Cryer was the fifth guard on a team that often only played four. This time, it will be hard for Houston to take him off the court.

“It definitely would be cool to make history at two different schools,” Cryer said. “If I could have done it at one school, I’d have preferably done it that way but my journey is my journey.”

Now a fifth-year senior, Cryer sees a lot of himself in some of Houston’s fringe rotation players, the young guys who might not play Monday night just like Cryer himself didn’t four years ago. Cryer has a message for them that he shares often.

“Be patient,” he says. “It’s all going to work out.”

Inside the searing silence of the Duke locker room, the echo of a door slamming shut intermittently rippled through. Every time a player or staff member ducked into the adjacent coaches locker room, the bang of the door reverberated like a siren in a still night.

There’s nothing to prepare a team for the emotional spiral that comes with squandering a six-point lead in the final 35 seconds. After Houston scored the game’s final nine points in 33 seconds to stun Duke 70-67 on Saturday night in the Final Four, a hush accompanied the Blue Devils’ attempts to process it.

Players wandered quietly to grab slices of pizza from the 10 boxes stacked high on a Powerade cooler. They stared down at their phones to avoid eye contact with the lingering media. One walk-on returned from the shower with tears in his eyes. Another wrote in a journal with a pencil.

They replayed how somehow a six-point lead could disappear in less than 20 seconds. But even after a spree of inbounds failures, misses and mental gaffes, two key moments in the final 20 seconds from star freshman Cooper Flagg — a foul and a miss — capped the stunning meltdown.

Flagg’s missed 12-foot jumper, with Duke trailing by one point, will be the play that will live forever in replays. Duke had a chance to take control of the game and stop the hemorrhaging; a timeout was called with 17 seconds left. The Blue Devils cleared out for Flagg, who got an isolation matchup with Houston sixth-year senior J’Wan Roberts. Flagg pulled up from inside the lane and faded away from the outstretched arms of the 6-foot-8 Roberts. The shot caromed off the front rim.

“It’s the play Coach drew up,” Flagg said. “Took it into the paint. Thought I got my feet set, rose up. Left it short, obviously. A shot I’m willing to live with in the scenario.”

There was no second-guessing the play or the look. It simply didn’t go in.

“Cooper is the best player in the country, and when you get the best player in the country in the spot he likes, it’s really as simple as that. We got exactly what we wanted,” Duke senior Sion James said. “Sometimes shots go down; sometimes they don’t. That one didn’t.”

Tougher to explain was Flagg’s over-the-back foul on Roberts when Duke’s Tyrese Proctor missed the front end of a one-and-one with 20 seconds remaining. Duke led 67-66 at the time, and Flagg got whistled for a foul on Roberts, who clearly had Flagg boxed out.

For Alex Ovechkin, the goal in Sunday’s game came just like so many before it did — on the power play, from the top of the left faceoff circle, a powerful shot right to the goal.

But this one was history. For the Washington Capitals star, this 895th goal of his regular season career makes him the NHL’s new all-time scoring leader after Wayne Gretzky, the “Great One,” held the record for more than 30 years.

After he scored, Ovechkin slid to the ice belly-first and shouted with delight as his teammates raced onto the ice in a joyous mob. And the crowd — even at an away game against the New York Islanders — roared and chanted his name. 

The game paused for more than ten minutes for an official celebration as soon as Ovechkin scored. Both benches emptied as the teams, Capitals and Islanders alike, lined up to shake Ovechkin’s hand. And Gretzky joined Ovechkin on the ice, along with Ovechkin’s family and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, for a mid-game ceremony.

Washington’s game against the New York Islanders paused for a celebration as soon as Ovechkin scored. Both benches emptied as the teams, Capitals and Islanders alike, lined up to shake Ovechkin’s hand. And Gretzky joined Ovechkin on the ice, along with Ovechkin’s family and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, for a mid-game ceremony.

“I could tell you firsthand I know how hard it is to get to 894,” Gretzky said. “895 is pretty special.”

“They say records are made to be broken, but I’m not sure who’s going to get more goals than that,” Gretzky joked.

Ovechkin’s chase for Gretzky’s record had come to be the headliner story of the entire NHL season. Last Friday, he scored two goals to tie the record at home in Washington. Afterward, prices for tickets to Sunday’s game in New York had soared to $1,000 or more, as fans raced for the opportunity to see history.

At 39 years old, Ovechkin is the second-oldest forward in the NHL this season, his 20th. And he has scored goals this season at the same clip as he did when he was a 20-year-old rookie — almost two goals every three games. 

His combination of durability and production allowed him to continue scoring goals at a rate far higher than almost any other player in their 30s — and higher than most players in the league at all. 

With Sunday’s goal, Ovechkin has scored 42 goals this season, third-most league-wide — despite having broken his leg in a game in November, an injury that forced him to miss 16 games, the longest injury pause of his career. (The other five top-scoring players this season are all in their 20s.

There is no such thing as too much depth.

In baseball, that is usually said related to pitching, but unfortunately for the Atlanta Braves, that will also come into play for the team’s outfield through at least mid-season.

With the stunning suspension of prized free agent addition Jurickson Profar for 80 games after testing positive for a banned substance, the Braves’ addition of Stuart Fairchild yesterday and the recent signing of free agent Alex Verdugo makes a lot more sense.

The best news of all is that 2023 National League Most Valuable Player Ronald Acuña, Jr., should also be returning to the team after last season’s knee injury in the next 45 days.

Until then, how will the Braves cover the loss of Profar – especially until Acuña, Jr. returns?

First, in the near-term, Jarred Kelenic becomes even more important as he is likely to slide back to left field where he started for much of last season. Kelenic’s prospect pedigree is well behind him, but he now goes from being the presumed fourth outfielder when Acuña, Jr. returns to an option to stay in the starting lineup if he can find consistency at the plate. That’s a big ask, but this might be his last, best chance to stick as a full-time outfielder.

Likewise, free agent addition Bryan De La Cruz, who was the right-handed compliment to the left-handed Kelenic has a chance to stay on the MLB roster a little longer. Similar to Kelenic, De La Cruz hasn’t produced much as a big leaguer in recent seasons, but both do have options left, giving the Braves more leeway this season.

Eli White, who made the team as a versatile utility option after returning to the infield during Spring Training, could also see some time in the outfield. He doesn’t have the same track-record of production as Kelenic or De La Cruz, but he does offer better speed and defense than De La Cruz as a right-handed outfield option.

The addition of Fairchild provides the team more depth with another prototypical fourth or fifth outfielder who can play all the positions effectively but is a below average offensive player in parts of four big league seasons. He might get a shot to play regularly in the next few weeks to see if the power and speed he’s shown can help the Braves more than his propensity to strikeout hurts them; just like Kelenic.

Verdugo has been an average-or-better offensive outfielder for most of his big league career; but dip in production last season saw him linger on the market until the Braves swooped in and signed him in the late stages of Spring Training.

A capable outfielder, the left-handed hitter was also once a top prospect, and is looking to get into playing shape after accepting an assignment to Triple-A given his lack ramp-up time in camp. While he hasn’t had the level of career success many thought, he has been a solid regular on playoff-caliber clubs. His ability to replicate even his 2023 production could now be a boon for the organization.

Deeper down the depth chart, the Braves have Conner Capel as another left-handed option at Triple-A. He had a decent-enough spring and has major league experience, which helps if other outfield issues arise for the Braves.

The wild card here – and this is a purely speculative option – is Drake Baldwin. With Sean Murphy slated to start his rehabilitation at Triple-A this week, might the Braves try to give Baldwin a crash-course in left field at Triple-A?

This wouldn’t be unheard up. Austin Riley saw significant time in left during his rookie year. Going back a little further, the team used catcher Evan Gattis in left field to keep his back in the line-up. Another notable prospect to shift to left field was Ryan Klesko, who moved from first base. That’s to say nothing of Chipper Jones sliding to left field for several seasons in the midst of his Hall of Fame career.

None of those last four were effective outfielders, but Profar is not known for his defense prowess nor was Eddie Rosario, who logged plenty of innings with the Braves in recent seasons. Baldwin’s youth and athleticism plays in his favor, but whether or not Atlanta dares to risk making a move with Baldwin is unknown.

With Michael Harris II in center field, Atlanta does have options in-house, but a lot rides on how quickly Verdugo is ready and how soon Acuña, Jr.’s rehab allow him to return at full-strength.

Lastly, it should be noted that Marcell Ozuna could, at least in theory, take the field in left field, but of all the options listed above, his return to the outfield seems the least likely outside of extreme emergency duty.

Barcelona have the lead against Catalan rivals Girona after a strange sequence of events. Lamine Yamal’s free-kick ended up in the back of the net by way of an enormous deflection.

The Blaugrana had applied pressure throughout the first half, but without success, with Robert Lewandowski, Lamine Yamal and Fermin Lopez all trying their luck. Ronald Araujo’s header was also miraculously kept out by Paulo Gazzaniga.

As the Barcelona attack hit a lull just before the half though, a free-kick on the right side saw Lamine Yamal whip a cross in. It would deflect off Girona’s Ladislav Krejci’s stomach and into the net, in painfully slow fashion for Girona, who were defending well at the time.

Alysa Liu skated around the ice in disbelief, her golden dress shimmering in the lights of TD Garden, and the appreciative roar from a sellout crowd reminded her why she had returned to the sport following a nearly two-year retirement.

When her score was finally read, the 19-year-old from Clovis, California, had made history.

Liu became the first American women’s figure skating world champion in nearly two decades, dethroning three-time defending champ Kaori Sakamoto with a brilliant free skate Friday night. Her program to a rendition of “MacArthur Park” by Boston native Donna Summer earned her a standing ovation, and allowed Liu to finish with 222.97 points.

“I mean, it means so much to me and everything I’ve been through,” Liu said. “My last skating experience, my time away and this time around — I’m so happy, I guess. I’m mostly glad I could put out two of my best performances.”

Liu’s coaches, Phillip DiGuglielmo and Massimo Scali, pulled her into a hug in the kiss-and-cry area of the arena. Moments later, Sakamoto came over from where she had watched in the leader’s chair and squeezed her tightly, as if Japan’s hero was passing Liu the torch as the first world champion from the U.S. since Kimmie Meissner stood atop the podium in 2006.

“What the hell?” Liu asked in disbelief. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to process this.”

Sakamoto finished with 217.98 points to add a silver medal to her three previous golds. Her Japanese teammate, Mone Chiba, was third with 215.24 points while Isabeau Levito and Amber Glenn gave the Americans three of the top five.

“We are all so strong,” Levito said, “and we are all such fighters, and we all have our strengths, and are so different but we’re all so sweet with each other. I’m just so glad these are my fellow Team USA skaters.”

Liu was once considered the sport’s rising star, the youngest-ever U.S. champ when she triumphed at the age of 13 in 2019, and then defended her title the following year. She fulfilled a childhood ambition by qualifying for the Olympics, finishing sixth at the 2022 Beijing Games, and earned a bronze medal at the world championships that year.

Then she stepped away. Liu decided that skating had become less of joy and more of a job, and she wanted to focus on being a normal college student. It wasn’t until she went on a ski trip and felt the rush of competition — albeit in a much different way, and with far lower stakes — that she began to think about a comeback.

Early last year, she made it official with a cryptic posting on social media. And while the path back in a notoriously fickle sport was bumpy, to be sure, Liu took a big step forward with her second-place finish to Glenn at the U.S. championships.

She took the last step up on the podium Friday night.

“Not every yesterday, I didn’t expect this. I didn’t have expectations coming in,” Liu said. “I never have expectations coming into competitions anymore. It’s moreso, ‘What can I put out performance-wise?’ I really met my expectations on my part.”

She left Sakamoto, the erstwhile champion, with feelings of awe and admiration.

“She went away and now she’s back, and the world champion,” Sakamoto said. “I wouldn’t say she’s changed. Her cheerfulness and kindness and the way she’s always happy brought her to the stop step of the podium.”

Earlier in the night, American ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates built a big cushion as they chase their third consecutive title, scoring a season-best 90.18 points for their rhythm dance to lead Canadian rivals Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier.

Gilles and Poirier scored 86.44 points to their dance, set to music from The Beach Boys. They held the lead only long enough for the U.S. duo to finish their “tour of the decades” program, which earned them a raucous ovation inside TD Garden.

The International Skating Union chose the theme this season of social dances and styles of the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. But while some skaters picked one — the Watusi, the Madison or disco — Chock and Bates threw it all into their rollicking showcase.

“It was probably the most fun I’ve had thus far on competitive ice in a performance, maybe ever,” Chock said. “It was really a joy to perform in front of a home crowd and share that excitement with Evan. It was the best.”

Now, Chock and Bates will try to finish off the first three-peat since Russia’s Oksana Grishuk and Evgeni Platov in the 1990s.

“That’s a tough amount of points to catch up on,” Poirier admitted, “but we also know that sport is really unpredictable.”