CHICAGO -- In the wake of another blowout loss that dropped them to 2-9, New York Knicks players are continuing to back coach David Fizdale amid his uncertain job status.

With team president Steve Mills and general manager Scott Perry looking on Tuesday at the United Center, New York fell to Chicago 120-102 on a night that saw Bulls rookie Coby White sink seven 3s in the fourth quarter and finish with a game-high 27 points.

With the defeat, the Knicks tied a franchise record for most losses through 11 games.

Even before a startling news conference in the wake of a blowout loss to Cleveland on Sunday, Mills had started to lay the internal groundwork for the eventual dismissal of Fizdale, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski and Malika Andrews reported Monday.

Fizdale didn't seem fazed by the speculation during Tuesday's shootaround, telling reporters, "It's always a media firestorm in New York, so for everybody else this is a big deal, but for us, it's a normal environment. So, our guys are focused, they're connected."

Despite their frustrations following the loss at Chicago -- one in which they turned the ball over 18 times and were outscored 52-46 in the paint -- Knicks players were still adamant in their support of the second-year coach.

"We've got 9-10 new guys? We've got 10 guys that have not played together at all and me who hasn't even been in the league yet," said rookie R.J. Barrett. "You're gonna have some challenges but you've got to keep pushing, keep pushing through everything. That's all I can really say. You've just got to stay together.

"He's up to the challenge. We believe in him," he continued. "We're staying together and like we said, we're all in with him and are just gonna keep fighting together."

New York players are fully aware that everything doesn't fall on just Fizdale, either.

"Just play hard for him, go out there and give it our all," said Knicks forward/center Bobby Portis. "We can't control the wins and the losses but we can control our effort level and just going out there and playing with the swag and intensity. So, even though shots weren't falling tonight for us and Coby White went crazy in the fourth quarter, I think that we played hard for Coach and that's all we ask for."

The Knicks have started a season 2-9 on seven occasions, with four of those instances coming in the past 20 seasons, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.

Players aren't willing to give up just yet -- on their coach or the team -- until something becomes official. The Knicks are set to host the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday.

"Go out there and play hard for him. Go out there and try to pull out wins," said Taj Gibson, who finished with 17 points and five boards on Tuesday. "You get wins, the noise stops, and that's the main focus right now is to try and get wins.

"He's trying to pull us toward a victory in different ways and at the same time we've been coming up short," he added. "We've just got to do a lot better and it's not just on him, it's on us, too. He's been trying to will us to wins and it's been going the opposite way as of late."

Andy Murray says the combination of a newborn baby, injury and lots of cake left him at his heaviest weight ever.

The former world number one, who last month won his first title since career-saving hip surgery, celebrated the birth of his third child just days after that victory in Antwerp.

"My wife would sleep upstairs and get a period of good sleep in before the baby would wake up," the 32-year-old said.

"I'd be on my own downstairs with chocolate biscuits and stuff."

The Briton, who is back in shape and gearing up to play for Great Britain at next week's Davis Cup finals, said he "didn't do anything for 12 days" after the European Open victory in Belgium.

"I got up to my heaviest weight in my career probably. My elbow was pretty sore afterwards so I needed to take a break because of that," said Murray, who was speaking at the launch of his new clothing range with sportswear brand Castore.

"There was Halloween and second daughter's birthday party, then also my sister-in-law had a birthday so there was lots of cake and junk and no training is not a good combination,"

"I was 88.5kg and I'm usually 84."

Three-time Grand Slam champion Murray told BBC Sport earlier on Tuesday he is feeling "excited" about the future.

He said the Antwerp victory had given him the belief that he could beat leading players like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic - something he could not have imagined a couple of months ago.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Five crew chiefs have been penalized for missing or unsecured lug nuts following events at ISM Raceway last weekend.

In the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, crew chiefs Paul Wolfe and Mike Hillman Sr. were each fined $10,000 for one unsecured lug nut. Wolfe is crew chief of the No. 2 driven by Brad Keselowski and Hillman is crew chief of the No. 53 driven by J.J. Yeley.

In the Xfinity Series, JR Motorsports crew chief Taylor Moyer was fined $5,000. Moyer was working with Zane Smith in the No. 8 Chevrolet, who finished fifth in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race.

NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series crew chiefs Trip Bruce and Joe Shear Jr. were each fined $2,500.

Bruce led Stewart Friesen to victory in Friday’s Lucas Oil 150, which earned Friesen a place in place in the championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Shear’s driver, Johnny Sauter, finished eighth at ISM Raceway.

GLENDORA, Calif. – NHRA announced Tuesday that the Bahrain Int’l Circuit, which currently boasts a vibrant drag racing community and numerous events, has extended its NHRA Worldwide Network agreement.

NHRA Worldwide Network is designed to enable drag racing facilities around the world to conduct events under the NHRA banner. As part of the NHRA Worldwide Network, Bahrain Int’l Circuit will be able to use the specially-designed “Worldwide Drag Racing” NHRA oval for broad promotional purposes and will be able to draw on NHRA’s decades of experience and history.

“We are excited to announce Bahrain Int’l Circuit has extended their agreement with the NHRA,” said Josh Peterson, NHRA vice president racing administration. “Drag Racing is extremely popular in Bahrain and we are excited to continue working with the track to help grow their programs.”

The track will have access to various departments within NHRA and may also request training at the track site. The track can also participate in any of NHRA’s Division Tech Seminars, SFI certification and training seminars, and emergency response training seminars.

“We are delighted to continue our partnership with NHRA. We have been part of the International Network since 2011 and during that time it has been an instrumental support in the growth of the sport in Bahrain, whilst helping us to professionalize further our operations. As a circuit, we are able to attract world class teams which are competitive at the highest level, globally. With the imminent start of the 15th season of our local BDRC season, we are looking to continue the growth of Drag Racing in the region,” said Sheikh Salman bin Isa Al Khalifa, Chief Executive of the Bahrain Int’l Circuit.

Jason Bonham, rock and roll drummer for Sammy Hagar & The Circle as well as Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening, stopped by The Ralph Sheheen Show Presented by Lucas Oil. Bonham developed an interest in motocross as a youngster and has become a huge fan of Supercross. He chats with Ralph about that passion, talks about his interest in racing cars, and of course, he shares his love for being a musician.

Catch this week’s full episode on SPEEDSPORT.com or download the podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, Stitcher, iHeart Radio or Spotify.

LOS ANGELES -- Left winger Ilya Kovalchuk was a healthy scratch for the Los Angeles Kings against the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night, and general manager Rob Blake refused to say how long the veteran will be out of the lineup.

Sportsnet Canada reported the team has informed Kovalchuk that he is being benched for an extended period. The 36-year-old Russian had two goals and four assists in Los Angeles' first four games, but he has only one goal and two assists in the past 13.

The Kings entered Tuesday's game with a league-low 11 points and have only three points in their past eight games (1-6-1). Blake said he met with Kovalchuk before the game but that the decision to bench him was made by coach Todd McLellan.

"We're in last place, right? We changed a lot of lineups," Blake said. "We're trying to find combinations that work, try to score some goals."

Kovalchuk is in his second season with the Kings after leaving the New Jersey Devils, and the NHL overall, in 2013 to play in the KHL. He had 16 goals in 64 games with Los Angeles last season in his NHL return.

A three-time All-Star, Kovalchuk scored 37 goals in 2012, helping the Devils to the Stanley Cup Final.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Her voice matters.

Meghan MacLaren isn’t a major championship winner, hasn’t won an LPGA event and isn’t among the top 250 female players in the world, but if you love the game, you really ought to get to know her work, if you haven’t already.

The 25-year-old Englishwoman won her second Ladies European Tour title this year, but she’s making a mark beyond her run at the tour’s Order of Merit title. She has carved out a special place in the game beyond her own golf. She’s a gifted young writer.

Her blog at megmaclaren.com is like that wardrobe in C.S. Lewis’ book within the “Chronicles of Narnia” series. It’s a gateway that leads to another world behind the one we see. MacLaren is like having Susan Pevensie in the “Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” as our guide, taking us on an adventure through golf’s hills and valleys, through the challenges young players face.

MacLaren’s gift is in how delightfully she frames the joy and angst of the beautiful, maddening sport she loves. She writes in a way that makes you feel as if she’s sharing her thoughts with you alone.

“I like sharing some of what the ebb and flow of being a professional golfer looks like, because it’s undoubtedly one of the loneliest sports on the planet,” she wrote in her latest blog, posted last week. “But we’re somehow together in that loneliness, too.”

Whether she’s writing about golf or her larger life, MacLaren is seeking light.

“To try and find the words to explain this path we all stumble down with varying degrees of blindness,” she wrote.

Oh, MacLaren can turn a phrase. There’s elegance in her prose, as there was in the blog she posted after watching the Americans’ late rally against Europe in the bitter cold on Saturday of the Solheim Cup this fall.

“The Americans who were just too cold, who wanted a warm bath and hot food and no referees and to be anywhere else in the world, lit a fire in the fading light that’ll burn until tomorrow,” she wrote.

While MacLaren has some strong opinions, especially about gender pay, her appeal as a writer is often in the vulnerability she shares as she explores her world. Bottom line, she’s a young woman trying to understand how and why the world works the way it does. She says that’s really what her writing is all about. The fun is in following along as she tries to figure things out. There is grace in her point of view. She isn’t so hard-headed to think everyone has to agree with her. She’s excited by ideas, chasing them as earnestly as she chases that little white ball in her game.

There is courage in how MacLaren opens her world to us, given the stupid, cruel taunts of so many trolls in today’s social media universe. She shares her frustration with that, and with the hard lessons that come when you allow strangers into your world.

Despite inevitable clashes, she’s hopeful in the common ground golf provides a bickering Twitterverse.

“It’s the shared experience that connects us all, that makes us all care,” she wrote. “It isn’t rules justifications, it isn’t slow play, it isn’t the distance debate, it isn’t the gender pay gap.

“It’s the complexities and intricacies of each of us versus the sport. It’s why we, as a golf world, cared about Brendon Todd winning the Bermuda Championship. It’s why we cared that Haley Moore got her LPGA card. It’s why we cared when Steven Brown did more than just secure his European Tour card in Portugal. It’s why I write, and why I put it out there for people to see.

“Whatever level of golf you play or understand or coach or watch, you get it. You get how one day you can have a confidence that can make you fly, and the next day you can be in a black hole of anguish that makes you question everything.”

MacLaren was raised in a golf family in Northamptonshire, England. Her father, David, is the head of the European Tour’s senior circuit. Her mother, Mary, is also in golf, running a company that brings Americans over to play in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Meghan helped Great Britain and Ireland win the 2016 Curtis Cup and played at Florida International University in Miami. She studied English and literature and minored in political science. She began enjoying writing in school.

“It helped develop a different part of me, away from golf,” she told GolfChannel.com. “The more you write, the more you develop your own style.”

MacLaren says her writing became a way to sort her thoughts, which really became a way to sort life.

“The actual act of writing is where, I guess, I come closest to finding answers to what I’m wrestling with, or making sense of what I’ve been thinking about,” she told GolfChannel.com. “The reason I want to write, a majority of the time, is because something’s been niggling at me.”

Sometimes, what is “niggling” at her is how frustrating finding golf form can be. She wrote about “Corpus Callosum” last year.

“It’s the name given for the structure that connects the left and right sides of your brain,” she wrote. “The place where logic meets imagination, where reason meets intuition, where fact meets trust. Maybe it’s the scientific name for that place every athlete strives to get into … the place every athlete knows is where the magic happens.”

While MacLaren was pleased to get another LET victory this year, she was frustrated falling short of getting an LPGA tour card at Q-Series this fall. She was also frustrated coming up short in a bid to make the European Solheim Cup team.

“This year's been a bit of a rollercoaster,” MacLaren said. “I feel like I've been to both ends of the emotional spectrum more than ever before, but it's all led me to believe in myself more than I ever have, too . . . Right now, the best players in the world are on the LPGA, so getting there seems like my best guiding path, but there may well be different ways of doing that. I love playing on the LET and the opportunities there are getting stronger and stronger. So, I'll wait to see what my best options are when all the relevant schedules are out.”

Through the ups and downs of tour life, MacLaren has found writing medicinal.

“Write when it hurts,” she once blogged. “Then write till it doesn’t.

“I don’t know if I write because things hurt, or if I write just because it helps me make sense of things.”

MacLaren’s skills don’t just help her sort out life. They can help anyone reading her.