Quetta Gladiators captain Sarfaraz Ahmed won the toss and as expected chose to field first in a match reduced to 15 overs after a 90-minute delayed start due to a wet outfield. The big news before the start of play was that Daren Sammy officially stepped down as Peshawar Zalmi captain to take on a role as player-coach. Sammy was left out of the XI for the second match in a row, with Wahab Riaz formally taking over as captain following his stand-in role in Zalmi's loss to Karachi Kings when it was communicated that Sammy was being rested.

Zalmi made two changes to their lineup. Imam-ul-Haq comes in at the top of the order in place of Tom Banton while Liam Dawson replaces Carlos Brathwaite for an extra spin option. Gladiators have also made multiple changes. Ahmed Shehzad enters the lineup at No. 3 in place of Ahsan Ali while a bowling reshuffle sees Anwar Ali and Fawad Ahmed left out in favor of Sohail Khan and Tymal Mills.

Peshawar Zalmi: Kamran Akmal (wk), Imam-ul-Haq, Haider Ali, Liam Livingstone, Shoaib Malik, Lewis Gregory, Liam Dawson, Wahab Riaz (capt.), Hasan Ali, Yasir Shah, Rahat Ali.

Quetta Gladiators: Jason Roy, Shane Watson, Ahmed Shehzad, Sarfaraz Ahmed (capt./wk), Azam Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Ben Cutting, Sohail Khan, Tymal Mills, Naseem Shah, Mohammad Hasnain.

Among the many factors that influenced India's two-nil defeat to New Zealand in the Test series, former India batsman VVS laxman observed a worrying trend that afflicted some of the batsmen, including captain Virat Kohli, who tallied just 38 runs in four innings and averaged his second-worst 9.50.

"Virat was trapped leg before to the ball coming in twice in the second Test, Mayank Agarwal fell in similar fashion in both innings in Christchurch to Trent Boult's inswingers, Prithvi Shaw was cramped up and dismissed fending by balls following him in the second innings of both Tests," Laxman wrote in his column for Times of India.

India's batting struggled collectively managing just four individual fifties and a highest total of 242, besides being skittled for under 200 on the other three occasions. Laxman felt that though the conditions were tough - India were sent in on green tops in both Tests - New Zealand's plans were straightforward and that the batsmen should have applied themselves better.

"I am sure the batting group would be hurting, especially, since they take a lot of pride in preparation but were caught napping by New Zealand's game plans for two Test matches in a row. I agree the conditions were tricky and challenging, but that's no reason why there shouldn't have been a greater application from the batsmen.

New Zealand's plans were straightforward enough - to get swing with the new ball and make use of the lateral movement and, should that fail to produce wickets, to resort to the liberal use of the short ball."

After the first Test, where particularly in the second innings staring at a large deficit India allowed New Zealand to bombard them with short-pitch stuff, they decided to take it on in Christchurch. While the plan fetched India useful runs, it also led to untimely dismissals of half-centurions Hanuma Vihari and Cheteshwar Pujara in the first innings, and Ajinkya Rahane, who was consistently troubled by that length, in the second.

"Ajinkya Rahane's a tortured stint in the second innings in Christchurch best illustrated India's confusion," Laxman wrote. "For an experienced and accomplished batsman who has scored runs all around the world, Rahane seemed all at sea against Neil Wagner and Kyle Jamieson's short-ball barrage, and tried to hit his way out of trouble. On that surface, it was a method never designed to succeed."

Rahane had a forgettable second Test where he made a total of 16 runs, but more than the lack of runs, the lack of control with which he batted in the second innings stood out. He made 9 from 42 in a bizarre innings where he fended at rising deliveries, took a blow to the side of the helmet in attempt to pull before eventually, he was bowled trying to get inside the line of a Wagner short-one that came on slower than he expected. While one former India batsman and chief selector questioned Rahane's shot selection, the other attributed his struggles to a technical glitch that he felt had crept into Rahane's game.

"He's making an extra movement with his hands while batting. He's moving his bat too much in his backlift. He's a fraction of a second late on to the ball. It explains why his head isn't still when the ball is delivered," Dilip Vengsarkar told Times of India.

Sandeep Patil was more critical: "You need to leave the short balls alone. They were bowling short-pitched stuff on a green top. Your shot selection becomes very important in such a case. You've to show a lot of patience and guts."

Wasim Jaffer, the former India opener and a senior team-mate of Rahane's in Mumbai when he started out, however, differed on the subject, and felt Rahane needed to trust his natural game, which was to attack.

"Sometimes, I feel that he gets too defensive," Jaffer observed. "The Ajinkya I know plays the best when he's positive and looking to score runs and attack. At times, he's defending balls which he can score off. He's giving the bowlers too much respect. He's hit 100s in IPL, so he can do it."

Jaffer also felt that the "fear of failure" had crept into Rahane's game.

"I heard about this (batting slowly) when he was playing for Mumbai this season. This happens due to fear of failure. He has led India, he's got a tremendous overseas record, but all that's history. Now that he's been labelled only as a Test player, been out of the India's limited overs team, human nature is such that one wants to establish himself as a Test specialist. He's trying to prove a point.

"By doing that, you try to show that 'I'll be technically correct. I'll try to occupy the crease. If you want to just 'occupy,' you can call a security guard! Who'll score the runs? I'm not saying throw your bat around. However, when you've so many hundreds behind you, this approach is not acceptable. An ordinary player like me survived on foreign soil, these players are champions."

The miserable circumstances of England's elimination from the Women's T20 World Cup - knocked out of their semi-final at Sydney without a ball being bowled, on the same day that Australia scraped through in a later match at the same venue - bring to mind other high-profile occasions when cricket's attempts to fight back against its oldest foe have come a spectacular cropper:

England v South Africa, World Cup semi-final, 1992

Richie Benaud is rightly praised for many things in his illustrious career. He was a formidable legspinning allrounder in a 63-Test career, and an innovative, attack-minded Ashes-winning captain. He was the voice of cricket for three decades, and its moral arbiter too. But if there was one blot on his copybook, it was his endorsement of the 1992 World Cup rain rules. They were an utter turkey.

Their logic was sound in principle. Rightly recognising, as the Duckworth-Lewis method later would, that it's easier to pace your innings when you have a target in your sights than when you are batting blind, Benaud backed the notion of discounting the least-productive overs of the side batting first when setting a rain-adjusted target.

This ploy, however, didn't work so well when the chase was all but over, and on the biggest stage yet, at Sydney … in March … in a World Cup semi-final … (sound familiar yet?), the system malfunctioned grotesquely thanks principally to a 12-minute shower, but also to Meyrick Pringle's supremely economical and self-immolating spell of 9-2-36-2.

When South Africa left the field, they needed a tantalising 22 from 13 balls, with Dave Richardson and Brian McMillan poised for glory. When they returned, they needed 21 from 1 (initially misreported as 22 from 1 on the big screen). McMillan duly patted a lobdown from Chris Lewis for a single and stalked off with a face like thunder, while England sheepishly counted their blessings.

In some respects, South Africa had only themselves to blame, given that their fielding stint had over-run so terribly (with rain always in the air) that England's own innings had been truncated at the 45-over mark. But there was schadenfreude to be had in the final at the MCG three days later, when England were outgunned by the champions Pakistan - who owed their qualification to the washout point they had scrounged after being bowled out for 74 in their group-stage encounter.

What's often forgotten in that farrago was that England, 24 for 1 after eight overs when the rain came, had not even been guaranteed winners that day … their adjusted target had been an awkward 64 from 16 overs, after the combined analyses of Derek Pringle (8.2-5-8-3), Ian Botham (10-4-12-2) and Dermot Reeve (5-3-2-1) had all but bowled Pakistan back into contention. Marvellous.

Sri Lanka v India, Champions Trophy final, 2002

First, the good news. For the 2002 Champions Trophy - the second iteration of their newly minted fundraising knock-out competition - the ICC had all their contingencies in place. They'd arranged a reserve day for the final, and they had a widely respected (if utterly baffling) new rain rule in operation, with the Duckworth-Lewis method having been unveiled in 1997 and officially adopted by the board two years later. They even had a dream final in prospect - the hosts, Sri Lanka, against the regional giants, India - Murali v Tendulkar, Jayasuriya v Kumble. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, two fatal flaws intervened to derail the narrative. Firstly, the organisers in their eternal wisdom, decided to schedule their global jamboree in late September, slap-bang in the middle of the Sri Lankan monsoon. Secondly, they decided to make their final a day-night affair, thereby guaranteeing that the evening rain (by which you can set your watch, as England know all too well from their last visit in October 2018) was sure to start gathering towards the end of the mid-innings break.

And then, to cap it all off, the ICC decided that, no, they wouldn't attempt either a shortened game, or a day game, or a single game spread over two consecutive afternoons. Nope, the solution they settled on was for two entirely different matches, with two nigh-on-identical upshots.

Sri Lanka won the first toss, and posted a respectable 244 for 5 before India reached 14 for 0 after two overs when the rains arrived. Twenty-four hours later, Sri Lanka won the second toss too, reached 222 for 7; India responded with 38 for 1 in eight. The Champions Trophy duly finished with no outright champion, but with one side having batted for 100 overs, and the other for 10. You couldn't make it up.

South Africa v Sri Lanka, World Cup group stage, 2003

So, those aforementioned Duckworth-Lewis tables, eh? A bit confusing, but somehow, like a stern "because I said so!" from a mildly irate parent, the presumed logic of D/L's inner workings seemed to brook any real argument. And surely, for South Africa, proud hosts of the World Cup for the first time, and still not entirely over the misery of 1992 (let alone 1999...) it had to be an improvement on the rank injustice of the system that preceded it?

Wrong! Because as any number-cruncher will tell you, there's no solving stupid. User error is the bane of statisticians worldwide, and with South Africa's campaign on the line, a crumpled "D/L par sheet" (eh? Whazzat?), uneasily interpreted by the coach Eric Simons and relayed to the crease by the 12th man, Nicky Boje, wasn't quite the clarity that their embattled batsmen needed.

Tension was rife under brooding skies in Durban. South Africa's initial target of 268 was daunting enough in such conditions, but at 149 for 5 in the 30th over, the pressure was becoming intolerable. Mark Boucher and the captain, Shaun Pollock, dug in for a 63-run stand that spanned 80 deliveries - with Pollock's 25 from 37 played out to a chorus of "hopes of the nation" chirps from Kumar Sangakkara behind the stumps. But when he was run out with 57 still needed from 45, the permutations began to engulf the hosts.

Not only did Pollock's departure cause the D/L par score to leap - one fewer wicket in hand meant an extra handful of runs required to get on top of the rate - it also required a near ball-by-ball update of the requirement as Boucher battled to keep South Africa on course. Boje was eventually entrusted with the precious sheet itself, and was ready to deliver to the middle at the end of the 45th over, but it was too late to correct a fatal misinterpretation of the target.

With 46 runs needed from 32 balls, and rain so imminent he could smell it, Boucher crashed Muttiah Muralitharan for a six over long on to drag South Africa to what he believed was a winning total of 229. Kingsmead was ecstatic as he pumped his fists and doggedly blotted out the final ball of the over, preserving his wicket first and foremost before sprinting for the pavilion as the covers were hustled on …

"Boucher was given the message of 229," said Pollock afterwards, as the significance of the 'par' in 'par score of 229' slowly dawned on him. "So he was pretty happy when he got that. You can look at all the ifs and buts but in the end it doesn't help much."

And so the manner in which the dream died proved to be iconically galling - an amalgam of South Africa's worst World Cup nightmares: Elimination via rain-affected tie, as if their ghosts of their two semi-final exits had fallen in love and bred a vengeful, homewrecking poltergeist.

Australia v Sri Lanka, World Cup final, 2007

User error, mark two. For all that it's fun to point and laugh at players who make a meal of the rain rules, it's really not their primary job. For the umpires to cause such a cock-up, however, and on the biggest stage of all, is another thing entirely.

The shemozzle that shamed the 2007 World Cup final was a fitting epitaph for a tournament that over-reached itself through sheer greed. The bloated corporatisation of what ought to have been a joyous carnival of cricket created instead an embittered local cricket scene, priced out of their own tournament, and turfed out of their favoured old haunts, such as the Antigua Recreation Ground and Bourda in Guyana, in favour of soul-less out-of-town carbuncles that to this day have never come close to replicating the homespun vibe of Chicky's Disco and the Mound.

And so, when the weather gods decided to teach the organisers a lesson by raining for four hours on their final parade, the ICC's reaction was to over-reach itself for the benefit of the global TV audience.

At least, with a reserve day in place, they learnt some lessons from 2002 by beginning the match with a reduction in overs. Unfortunately, they over-estimated the teams' abilities to cram a 38-overs-a-side match into Barbados's six remaining hours of daylight.

At least in attempting to do so, there was time for one undeniable treat - a stunning 149 from 104 balls from Adam Gilchrist, an innings of exemplary poise and power that rightly dominates the highlights to this day and will forever distract from the nonsense that followed it. On his watch, the game was up, notwithstanding a gutsy pair of fifties from Jayasuriya and Sangakkara, and Sri Lanka were ready and waiting to shake hands when daylight duly ran out with five overs of the game left unbowled.

The umpires, however, weren't so easily swayed. Rudi Koertzen, who wasn't even the standing umpire, began loudly insisting that the show had to go out, despite Ricky Ponting's protestations that they'd bowled 20 overs to constitute a match and "Look mate, we've finished the game."

But no. "When light is used in the calculations of a day's play, it doesn't necessarily mean it is the end of a day's play," explained Jeff Crowe, the match referee, who must wonder what the sun gets up to all night, the lazy glowing orb. Instead, the players went through the motions for 18 more deliveries before finally the plug was pulled in light so bad that no-one in the stadium could see the final ball, let alone a glitzy and utterly futile closing ceremony.

Even as COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) continues to cripple all walks of life across the world, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly has said the IPL is "on" and that the board is taking all necessary precautions for the smooth conduct of cricket's most lucrative tournament, which begins on March 29. Some of those precautionary measures are likely to involve asking players to avoid physical contact as far as possible including shaking hands with fans, considering the coronavirus is highly contagious.

"It's on…and BCCI will take all protection (against coronavirus)," Ganguly told ESPNcricinfo when asked how the board was dealing with the outbreak that is threatening to bring daily life to a standstill. Spectator sport is seen as particularly vulnerable, given it brings a large crowd together in a confined space. The IPL has an added complication: its global profile, with players, support staff and vast administrative and broadcast services being drawn from across the world.

The novel coronavirus is a respiratory illness, which originated in China, and, has no cure yet, forcing the shutting down of towns, cities, schools across the world. Global medical experts have been anxious about how India, the world's second-most populous nation, would respond to the outbreak. The official figures released by the Indian Ministry of Health so far has put the count of those infected closer to 30.

The outbreak has already begun affecting sporting events. In Italy, one of the worst affected countries, the government ordered all Serie A matches to be played behind closed doors with no fans allowed at any football ground until April 3. The March 14 Six Nations rugby game between Italy and England, scheduled in Rome, has been postponed. It was the second game involving Italy to be postponed after the contest against Ireland in Dublin scheduled for Saturday. The Premier League in England is also talking to the clubs to have matches played behind closed doors as the UK government's chief medical officer today said the country was moving from containment to delaying the spread of the coronavirus, which claimed its first victim on Thursday.

ALSO READ: Coronavirus impact on Indian sports

Although there has been no official update put out by the BCCI or the IPL on the respective websites (a norm followed by global sporting organisations), ESPNcricinfo understands that the top officials have been internally discussing the outbreak and its potential impact on the T20 tournament. It is believed that the BCCI has been following the guidelines and updates put out by the Health Ministry on coronavirus.

A senior BCCI official confirmed that the board would replicate the precautionary guidelines recommended by the Healthy Ministry and send them to all the stakeholders: players, franchises, airlines, team hotels, broadcast crews and everyone else involved in the running of the tournament.

As far as the players go, the BCCI would ask them to be proactive and report to the concerned medical authority in case they detect any of the symptoms associated with the coronavirus, which include cough, fever or difficulty in breathing. Also if the person has travelled in or via high-risk areas across the world, he/she would need to report that.

It is understood that the BCCI would also advise the players not to shake hands with fans or even possibly take pictures with devices that are not their own. All these measures are already being followed globally by athletes. Recently England captain Joe Root said that England players would not be shaking hands with one another on their tour of Sri Lanka to ensure germs and bacteria are not spread. The England players would instead resort to fist bumps, something even the National Basketball League (NBA) in the USA advised its players to use instead of the high-fives. The NBA also asked the players not to use the pens/markers fans provide them to sign autographs.

The BCCI has not yet discussed whether it would recommend fist bumps over handshakes, but the official said that as things evolve, the board would be open to take all measures that would keep everyone safe.

Many top sporting events including the Tokyo Olympics have come under threat with countries warning against mass congregations in light of how contagious the virus is.

Cricket, too, has been affected with a women's quadrangular in Thailand being the first tournament to be postponed last week. On Thursday, the Everest Premier League, a domestic T20 tournament scheduled to start from March 14 in Nepal, was postponed indefinitely even though the country has reported just one case of the outbreak yet. The ICC World Cup Challenge League due to be hosted by Malaysia on March 16 has also been postponed

If Baltimore Ravens fans living in Miami want to see a live telecast of their team's game on any given Sunday, the only option is to buy an entire season of DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket for $293. The same is true for Eagles fans in Los Angeles, Patriots fans in Chicago, or any NFL fan rooting for a faraway team.

In a world of regional sports networks, satellite television providers and a multitude of streaming platforms, should that be legal? Or would fans be better served if each team, rather than the NFL, decided how to make live telecasts of its games available to the public?

These are among the questions arising from a long-running class-action case that lawyers for the NFL and DirecTV have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review. A decision on whether the high court will take up the case is expected as early as this week.

The litigation could eventually change how out-of-market telecasts are made available to NFL fans, although any final ruling forcing the league's hand is likely years away.

The case does not affect NFL games broadcast on networks that are available over the air -- including Fox, NBC and CBS -- which enjoy a federal antitrust exemption. But it threatens to upend the Sunday Ticket model, and it could also have implications for other NFL games aired exclusively on pay satellite or cable television networks such as ESPN and the NFL Network.

"If the NFL were to lose, I don't think it is necessarily so dramatic in terms of the way you will watch NFL on satellite or cable," said Stefan Szymanski, a sports economist at the University of Michigan. "But it should be good news for consumers because they should be paying less" for out-of-market games.

The legal battle is unfolding even as the Sunday Ticket package, which premiered in 1994, could be in for big changes brought about by evolving technology and consumer tastes. With many fans cutting their cable and satellite TV subscriptions in favor of streaming platforms, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has hinted at breaking up the exclusive, $1.5 billion-a-year Sunday Ticket deal with DirecTV, which expires after the 2022 regular season. "We are looking to see how we can change the delivery," Goodell told Bloomberg in an interview last year. "We want it delivered on several different platforms." An NFL spokesperson declined to comment on the case when contacted by ESPN this week.

NBC News has reported that the league has shopped the package to a variety of streaming platforms, while DirecTV, which is owned by AT&T, has been increasingly wary about the cost of deal. AT&T's chief operating officer told The Wall Street Journal in September that the value derived from the package "has peaked and that a renewal -- especially if it comes with a higher price tag -- will be hard to justify at a time when consumers are canceling pay TV connections." It is also possible for the NFL to follow the lead of other professional sports leagues, including the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball, and offer piecemeal direct-to-consumer viewing options.

In their petition for Supreme Court review, lawyers for the NFL and DirecTV argued that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals erred last August when it reopened a class-action suit alleging that the Sunday Ticket package requires consumers to "pay more for games than they want" and violates federal antitrust statutes.

The law bars competing businesses from working together in a way that limits choices and raises prices for consumers. The appeals court ruling reversed a lower court dismissal of a case brought in 2015 by a group of bars, restaurants and individual fans who bought the Sunday Ticket.

The basic Sunday Ticket package is advertised to individuals at a cost of $293 a season, though the 9th Circuit's opinion said that in 2015, restaurants and bars were charged between $2,300 and $120,000 per season, depending on their capacity. Sunday Ticket subscriptions can be purchased only as a bundle, meaning fans have to buy every game, even if they are interested in watching only one team.

The lawyers who brought the initial case alleged that Sunday Ticket violates federal antitrust provisions because it prevents NFL teams from competing against one another for television viewers of out-of-market games. Under the existing broadcast model, the NFL owns the rights to the games of its 32 teams. The league allows games to be aired in home teams' local markets, while scheduling a limited slate of "free" national broadcasts. The result is that on football Sunday afternoons, no more than three NFL games are aired on broadcast television in a particular market. If fans want to watch a live broadcast of a Sunday afternoon game not being aired locally, they have to watch it on Sunday Ticket.

As those challenging that model see it, consumers like the hypothetical Ravens fans in Miami are being deprived of the possibility that a local Miami television station, a regional sports network or lower-cost streaming platform might air Ravens games -- a prospect that would exist if NFL teams were not banned from producing and selling broadcasts of their own games.

The appeals court ruling would have sent the case back to a lower court for further proceedings. But the NFL and DirecTV are now petitioning the Supreme Court to review that decision.

In that petition, DirecTV and the league argue that NFL games are the product of a joint venture between the teams playing and the NFL itself, and that its control of the distribution of the broadcasts does not amount to an antitrust violation. If the high court chooses not to take the case -- a statistical likelihood because only about 80 of the 8,000 appeal petitions filed each year are accepted by the justices -- the case would be sent back to the federal trial court for a fuller hearing. Meanwhile, pending a final decision on the merits of the case, the NFL and DirecTV may continue to offer the Sunday Ticket package as is.

A third possibility is that the court hears the case and sides with the 9th Circuit, which would impose the 9th Circuit's limitations on permissible joint-venture activity on the rest of the country. The case could also conceivably affect the NFL's cable-only television deals, as well as joint ventures operated by businesses in other industries. Even if that happens, the case would have to return to a trial court to be hashed out.

"The process of litigating that kind of claim is time-consuming and expensive and often results in a pretrial disposition potentially through settlement," said Jodi S. Balsam, a former NFL attorney who is now a professor at Brooklyn Law School. "But we're a long way off from a court ruling that the NFL has to dismantle NFL Sunday Ticket."

The ongoing wrangling over Sunday Ticket in many ways reprises legal battles over broadcast rights waged as the NFL began to emerge as a national sporting passion some 70 years ago. The federal government brought an antitrust complaint against the league in the 1950s in an effort to get the league to loosen its restrictions on broadcast rights.

In 1953, a federal judge concluded that teams could form their own television deals and have their games broadcast into other teams' home cities. Consequently, most NFL teams signed their own television contracts with broadcasters, while the Cleveland Browns launched their own network.

That arrangement changed after the advent of the American Football League, which in 1960 signed a national television contract for all of its games. Congress soon passed legislation that gave the NFL and other major sports leagues limited antitrust protection, which allows them to pool and sell broadcast rights for all their teams. The antitrust exemption, however, covers only games aired on broadcast television. In their petition seeking Supreme Court review, lawyers for the NFL and DirecTV say that, far from limiting fan choices, the Sunday Ticket model has led to increases in fan interest and viewership.

Moreover, their petition argues, the NFL is not just 32 teams in competition but also an "integrated joint venture" whose games and telecasts cannot be produced "without agreements and joint action with every other team."

The argument is that no one team can produce an NFL contest by itself. Instead, the contest has added value because it is part of a league that plays under a set of rules and standards. "The copyrighted telecast is by necessity a collaboration of at least three parties," Balsam said, explaining the league's argument. "The two teams playing the game, with the third party being the league itself."

Michael A. Fletcher is a senior writer for ESPN's Investigative Unit.

Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart has been fined $35,000 by the NBA for confronting and verbally abusing the referees in Tuesday's loss to the Brooklyn Nets, it was announced Thursday.

NBA executive vice president of basketball operations Kiki VanDeWeghe said the amount of the fine reflects Smart's "multiple prior violations of acceptable on-court decorum."

Smart had some words for officials after the final buzzer of Boston's 129-120 overtime loss to the Nets and had to be restrained before being led into the tunnel.

The Celtics led by three points with 0.2 seconds remaining when a foul was called on Smart, who was defending the Nets' Caris LeVert on a 3-point attempt. LeVert made all three free throws to tie the game and send it to overtime. LeVert finished with a career-high 51 points.

The Celtics blew a 21-point lead in the second half, and the Nets scored 51 points in the fourth quarter to force the overtime and eventually secure the victory. Smart fouled out in the overtime period.

Smart had been fined $15,000 for criticizing officials earlier this season and was penalized three times in 2018-19 for his actions, including a couple of altercations.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

NEW YORK -- Spike Lee isn't the only fan who has decided to be a no-show at New York Knicks games.

The Knicks drew their smallest home crowd in nearly 13½ years Wednesday night, falling more than 3,200 below capacity in a 112-104 loss to the Utah Jazz.

The announced crowd was just 16,588, with noticeable patches of empty seats throughout an arena that lists 19,812 as its capacity for NBA games.

That means the arena was filled to about 84% capacity -- leaving one in every six seats unsold.

Blame poor play, anger over Lee's altercation or coronavirus concerns, but fans hadn't stayed away from Madison Square Garden in such large numbers since Dec. 13, 2006 -- more than 500 regular-season games ago -- when the Knicks drew 15,895 for a victory over Atlanta early in Isiah Thomas' first season as coach.

What was once one of the toughest tickets in town is no longer the case as the Knicks (19-43) finish out their seventh straight year out of the playoffs. Attendance is on track to drop for the fourth straight season.

The game came just two nights after one of the Knicks' best performances of the season, when they knocked off Houston 125-123 on the day they hired longtime agent Leon Rose as their new team president. That victory quickly became overshadowed by the fallout from Lee's clash with security guards who blocked him from using the employee entrance to reach his courtside seats.

The Oscar-winning writer-director, a ticket holder for nearly three decades, told ESPN the following day that he wouldn't attend any more Knicks home games this season, accusing Madison Square Garden executive chairman James Dolan of harassing him.

That just increased anger fans already have toward the owner. Chants of "Sell the team! Sell the team!" have broken out during games at the Garden this season, including Wednesday night.

Dolan, however, said earlier this season while searching for a replacement after firing Steve Mills as president that he wasn't planning to sell.

The Knicks are expecting close to a sellout Friday night when they host Oklahoma City. That's part of a run of nine games in nine nights at Madison Square Garden -- five Knicks and four Rangers -- during a congested part of the schedule before both teams go on the road, with the arena hosting the Big East tournament next week and the NCAA's East Regional the last weekend of March.

Stephen Curry has just completed his first set of practice in almost four months and Golden State Warriors officials are breathing a collective sigh of relief. Curry, who broke his hand on Oct. 30, is speaking to reporters for the first time since November.

His return to the lineup tonight against the defending champion Toronto Raptors is a bright light in a forgettable season for a franchise that has gone to five straight NBA Finals. Since Curry's injury, the Warriors have managed only 13 wins. When asked to describe just how different this team is from the one he came into the season with, the two-time MVP wipes some sweat off his shirt, scrunches his eyes and pauses to find the right words. His head shakes from side to side as a smile breaks across his face.

"It's entirely different," Curry says. "You got Loon, EP, JP, DLee, Draymond ... "

He stops again as his eyes dart around a group of reporters. He's looking for a little help.

"Am I missing anybody on the opening night roster?" he asks.

When reminded that training camp invitee Marquese Chriss and former two-way standout Ky Bowman are still on the team, he quickly mentions both players' names as well.

"As I listed them out, that's a pretty substantial group of people," Curry says. "But really right now it's just about trying to build the right habits, because obviously where we are in the standings ... that's really the only thing you can hold on to right now. "

Curry's presence lifts up the spirits of the players and coaches around him. Fans who love to see him perform will fill up Chase Center again, hoping that he can provide the same magic for the organization that he has throughout his 11-year run with the team.

But as the Warriors get ready to reintegrate Curry into their day-to-day life, they do so hoping their star guard can help bring together a team that has undergone its second major makeover since July. The Warriors came into the season believing Curry's brilliance could bring the best out of talented guard D'Angelo Russell, and then decided to trade Russell before the deadline -- having made the determination that Russell was not going to fit into the organization's long-term plans.

"The team [Curry is] coming back to, half the roster has turned over already," Warriors head coach Steve Kerr recently told ESPN. "That's one of the things that makes these last 20-odd games important. We got to get a head start into next year. We've got to build some chemistry and some continuity."

Here's a look at the key questions facing the Warriors as Curry makes his return.

MORE: Biggest 2020 NBA draft moments to watch in a crucial March

What can we expect from Curry?

The Warriors still aren't sure how many minutes Curry will play each night, especially in his first week back. What they do know is Curry's presence on the floor will lift up the team.

"I think [assistant coach Bruce Fraser] said we should play 'Joy to the World' when he comes back," Kerr said. "He's the most joyful basketball player I've ever been around, and it's just infectious. Look at these four coaches right now, all four coaches right now, I just looked over, they're all smiling as they go through Steph's shooting drills with him."

Coaches and players all echo a similar sentiment: As this year comes to a close, it's not so much what Curry can do for the team on the floor, it's the fact that he's there at all that will help the group the most.

"Steph's one of the best people I've ever been around," Warriors rookie guard Jordan Poole said. "As a human, as an individual. I think [when] you have that foundation, especially as a person, basketball and everything else will take care of itself."

Poole, like many of the younger Warriors, has been picking Curry's brain on and off the floor over the past few months. He is looking forward to playing with, and learning from, the future Hall of Famer.

At a league-worst 12-48, the Warriors aren't focused on wins and losses as much as they are locked in on trying to get Curry to learn about his new teammates and those new teammates to learn from him.

"How hard he works," Warriors rookie Eric Paschall said when asked what he has learned most from Curry this season. "Just how much he cares about the team and the organization. I feel like that's one thing that carries a lot of weight, especially as a superstar. He's a regular dude. That's one thing I like about [him] the most, super regular, does what he has to do and just has fun."

How does Wiggins fit in?

After Wednesday afternoon's practice, Andrew Wiggins addressed reporters in his game jersey. He had switched into the Warriors' home whites following his workout so that he could go through an abridged version of media day, which included taping several segments for the team's in-house television arm -- a sign of how new he still is.

"I still have a lot to learn," Wiggins said. "I know some of the plays, but it's not even close to all the plays. Every day I'm learning more and getting more used to it."

While the Warriors want Curry to get used to playing with all his new teammates again, one of the biggest keys to his return for the final 22 games of the season is to see how he fits in with Wiggins. There remains a chance the Warriors could attach Wiggins' contract to some of their future first-round picks to land another impact player this summer -- but the far greater probability is that Wiggins is the Warriors' starting small forward for the foreseeable future.

The organization has held firm to the belief that the team's culture can bring the best out of Wiggins.

"I don't think we're really going to feel the full effect of Andrew's presence until we're whole," Kerr said. "We're playing lineups that we haven't played all season, and we're trying to plug him into that, which is a tough position to be in. But with that said, he handles that beautifully, he's great to coach, he's available every day, every night to play and that's a good quality to be able to count on somebody night after night to be out there."

The Warriors made the bet on Wiggins and his bloated contract, believing that he would be a better fit alongside Curry than Russell would. It's a bet that will help define the second half of Curry's career in the Bay.

"He's a walking 20 points for sure," Curry said.

When asked what the biggest difference is between the Warriors' culture and the one he experienced over the years with the Timberwolves, Wiggins' answer illuminated one of the reasons why Warriors staffers are so confident about his future in the Bay.

"We're losing games here right now, but everyone's still positive," Wiggins said. "The energy's still positive, everything's still positive. It's good spirits. Losing sucks, nobody likes to lose, but everyone keeps their head up high. We did that same thing in Minnesota, too, but here it's a little different."

What other Warriors are here for the long haul?

With stalwarts Curry, Green and Klay Thompson in the fold alongside Wiggins as a new core piece, the Warriors have to decide which other players are part of their future. Paschall and Chriss (playing a combined 51.7 MPG over the past 15 games) appear to have locked in rotation spots heading into next season, with Lee also pushing for more minutes given his solid play. Poole has shown flashes of promise in recent weeks but has not provided real consistency. Same goes for Bowman, who has had a lot of great individual moments but still needs to refine his game over the summer.

One of the largest questions heading into the end of this season and beyond centers around big man Kevon Looney. After dealing with a nerve condition throughout the first few months of the season, Looney has played in short bursts to mixed reviews, ranking last out of 94 power forwards in on-court impact based on ESPN's real plus-minus at -2.96. He noted earlier this week that he is looking forward to having more rehab time this summer to get his body back on track. When asked about a hamstring injury that forced him to miss some games last month, Looney said he did not think the injury was directly related to his nerve condition, but he did offer a glimpse into how much time he has spent trying to get healthy.

"It's like a day-by-day thing," Looney said. "I'm pretty much over it, but I got to do a lot of maintenance work to keep it [in good shape]. I don't want to have any setbacks, but I'm feeling pretty comfortable with my body. Each game I feel like I get better, stronger and more confident with my body. Just learning to trust it all over again ... it made me question my movements and I had to think before I even moved. Now I'm starting to feel better. I can just go out there and play off my instincts."

What about the lottery?

ESPN's Basketball Power Index projects the Warriors to snag pick No. 3.7 on average in the lottery. Both FiveThirtyEight and BPI have Golden State finishing in last place by a pretty comfortable margin. So with the flattened lottery odds -- which give the Warriors only a 14% chance at the No. 1 pick with the worst record -- there isn't demand internally to chase losses.

"We haven't spent one second discussing that dynamic, that winning could hurt us," Kerr said in January.

"The players are going to play when they're ready to play. And we're going to try to win every game that we can. ... I don't think there's a whole lot of value in doing anything else other than that."

The good news for Kerr is that he is confident that both Curry and Thompson have gotten the mental break they needed away from the game after the intensity of the past five years. As the Warriors set out to achieve another championship run next season, Kerr is optimistic that both players are refreshed physically and mentally.

"I'm very confident that both Steph and Klay have gotten the mental break," Kerr said. "I almost look at it -- look at LeBron this year. LeBron looks like a different guy than he did a year ago. And eight straight trips to the Finals, just crazy. That's a feat that people probably don't talk about enough, to understand the emotional toll that takes.

"So for our guys, five straight trips to the Finals, just the feeling of being wiped out, Steph and Klay have both gotten to get away, not under ideal circumstances, neither one has been able really to enjoy themselves physically because of their injuries, but just to step away from the fight, I think has been important."

The Boston Red Sox signed right-hander Collin McHugh to a one-year contract on Thursday and designated right-hander Hector Velazquez for assignment.

McHugh, 32, had spent the past six seasons with the Houston Astros and was 4-5 with a 4.70 ERA in 74 2/3 innings. He made 35 appearances, including eight starts.

He was dominant in 2018, when he went 6-2 with a 1.99 ERA in 72 1/3 relief innings.

Overall, he is 58-43 with a 3.95 ERA in 210 major league appearances, including 119 starts. Besides the Astros, he has also pitched for the New York Mets and Colorado Rockies in his eight seasons.

Velazquez, 31, made 34 appearances for the Red Sox last season, including eight starts, and went 1-4 with a 5.43 ERA.

Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner told reporters on Wednesday night that X-rays were negative on his left hand, which was hit by a pitch from Johnny Cueto in spring training.

Turner remained in the game against the San Francisco Giants and hit a two-run home run in the third inning. He left the game in the fourth inning.

"I'm all right," he told reporters, according to the Los Angeles Times. "There's a little bruise, but I should be fine. I've had worse."

In 2018, Turner suffered a broken left wrist when he was hit by a pitch in a spring training game. He ended up missing the first six weeks of that season.