Philadelphia 76ers guard Tyrese Maxey will miss at least two more games due to his sprained finger, coach Nick Nurse said Friday.

Maxey will not play in home games Saturday against the Miami Heat and Sunday against the Toronto Raptors, extending his absence to 15 contests.

He has also been dealing with a back issue and has not played since a March 3 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers.

Maxey's next chance to play will come Tuesday at the New York Knicks.

The 76ers (23-50) have lost six straight games and nine of their past 10. With nine games left, they entered Friday on the brink of elimination from the play-in tournament.

Maxey, 24, has averaged a career-high 26.3 points to go with 6.1 assists and 3.3 rebounds in 52 games this season. He made his first All-Star team and was the NBA's Most Improved Player in 2023-24.

The Memphis Grizzlies fired Taylor Jenkins, their winningest coach, on Friday with the team struggling down the stretch and at risk of losing home-court advantage in the postseason.

Sources told ESPN's Shams Charania that Jenkins was called into the Grizzlies' office Friday morning and told he was being fired. The team believed that Jenkins had lost the locker room over the course of the season and that making a change now might mitigate how the Grizzlies finish the season.

"I'm genuinely appreciative of Taylor's contributions to this team and this city over the past six seasons," Grizzlies general manager Zach Kleiman said in a statement. "This was a difficult decision, given the consistent and tangible development of our players and overall success under Taylor's leadership. I wish Taylor the very best going forward."

Lead assistant Tuomas Iisalo will serve as the interim head coach, sources told Charania. Iisalo is a former Finnish professional player and coach who was the head coach of Paris Basketball in 2023-24, winning the EuroCup and being named coach of the year.

The Grizzlies almost completely overhauled their coaching staff last offseason, leaving just Jenkins, Patrick St. Andrews and Anthony Carter from 2023-24. In bringing in six new assistants, the Grizzlies changed their style of play under Iisalo and Noah LaRoche to emphasize fast pace and spacing principles derived from other sports such as soccer and hockey. Memphis' new motion offense virtually eliminated traditional NBA mainstays such as pick-and-rolls and dribble handoffs.

Sources told Charania that St. Andrews and LaRoche were also fired Friday.

Jenkins, 40, had served as Grizzlies coach since 2019-20 -- the same season Ja Morant was named Rookie of the Year. The Grizzlies made three postseason appearances with Jenkins, with one playoff series win.

Memphis has lost four of its past five games, with Morant sidelined due to a strained hamstring, and has gone 8-11 since the All-Star break, the 21st-best record in the NBA in that span.

The Grizzlies host the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday, with the teams entering with matching 44-29 records. That starts a stretch in which eight of Memphis' final nine opponents are either playoff teams or contending for a play-in spot. It's still possible, at least mathematically, that Memphis could get back to No. 2 in the West, and it's highly unlikely that the Grizzlies will fall into the play-in tournament range.

Earlier this season, Jenkins passed Lionel Hollins to become the winningest coach in Grizzlies history. He leaves with a 250-214 record (.539), having also coached the most games in franchise history.

Memphis had turned things around this season after a 27-55 campaign in 2023-24 that was marred by the absence of Morant for 73 games due to injury and suspension.

The new system showed promising signs earlier in the season and has constantly evolved as the Grizzlies worked to fully carve out an offensive identity ahead of the playoffs. Defensively, however, Memphis has struggled since the All-Star break, ranking 20th in defensive efficiency after holding the No. 7 spot over the first half of the season, according to ESPN Research.

Also, most of the success this season had been against teams with losing records. Against the 13 other teams that currently are over .500, the Grizzlies are 11-20 and getting outscored by 77 points. Against the 16 clubs at .500 or worse, the Grizzlies are 33-9, outscoring those opponents by 462 points.

Jenkins signed a multiyear contract extension with the Grizzlies in June 2022. He previously worked as an assistant coach with the Atlanta Hawks (2013-18) and Milwaukee Bucks (2018-19). He had been the fifth-longest-tenured coach with his current club in the league, behind only San Antonio's Gregg Popovich, Miami's Erik Spoelstra, Golden State's Steve Kerr and Denver's Michael Malone -- all of them having won NBA titles.

ESPN's Michael C. Wright, The Associated Press and Field Level Media contributed to this report.

NEW YORK -- Cuba had a record 26 players on Major League Baseball's Opening Day rosters, and Japan had 12 for its most since 2012.

The percentage born outside the 50 states remained at 27.8%, matching its lowest level since 2016.

There were 265 players from 18 nations and territories outside of the 50 states among 954 players on Opening Day active rosters and injured, restricted and inactive lists, the commissioner's office said Friday.

Cuba's total topped its previous high of 23 in 2016, 2017 and 2022. Japan's total was its most since 13 in 2012.

The overall percentage matched last year and was down 28.5% in 2023, which was the lowest since 27.5% in 2016. It has remained in the 26-29.8% range since 2002, peaking in 2017.

The total international players was the fourth highest behind 291 in 2020 (when there were expanded 30-man active rosters), 275 in 2022 (when there were expanded 28-man active rosters) and 270 in 2023.

The Dominican Republic led countries outside the U.S. with 100, down from 108 last year and 110 in 2020. Canada's 13 matched last year for its most since 17 in 2013.

Venezuela was second at 63, followed by Cuba (26), Puerto Rico (16), Canada (13), Japan (12), Mexico (11), Curacao and Panama (four), South Korea (three), Aruba, Australia and Colombia (two) and Bahamas, Brazil, Germany, Honduras, Nicaragua and South Africa (one apiece).

Atlanta catcher Chadwick Tromp joined San Diego infielder Xander Bogaerts to give Aruba two players for the first time.

San Francisco's Jung Hoo Lee and Philadelphia's Jesús Luzardo were listed as "miscellaneous," Lee as born in Japan of South Korean descent and Luzardo as born in Peru of Venezuelan descent.

Houston and San Diego topped teams with 16 international players each, with the Astros having a share of the lead for the fifth straight season. They were followed by Atlanta (14), the New York Mets (13) and Baltimore and Miami (12 each).

The 18 nations and territories outside the U.S. matched last year and were three shy of the high, set in 2018 and matched in 2022.

TAMPA, Fla. -- The most unique transformation of a ballpark in Major League Baseball history launched in earnest Sunday at 5 p.m.

That was when the Tampa Bay Rays, after playing a Grapefruit League game against the New York Yankees as the visiting team, were handed the keys to George M. Steinbrenner Field, which will be the Rays' residence for the 2025 season. It began an unprecedented four-day mission to make their rival team's stadium look and feel like their own before Friday's sold-out season opener against the Colorado Rockies.

The Rays will play their entire 81-game home schedule at Steinbrenner Field this season because in October, Hurricane Milton tore through Tropicana Field, their home across the bay in St. Petersburg since their inaugural season in 1998. Winds that reached 120 mph shredded chunks of the building's fiberglass roof. The damage was deemed too extensive to repair in time to play baseball in 2025.

Converting Steinbrenner Field -- the home of the Yankees every spring, and of their Single-A affiliate Tampa Tarpons, since 1996 -- was a massive undertaking. MLB pushed back the Rays' home opener from Thursday to Friday, giving the organization an extra day to prepare. Still, more than 80 Rays staff members and more than 50 contractors from five companies contributed around the clock. The plan included rebranding the property with more than 3,000 signs, big and small, enough to stretch a mile if laid out end to end.

The Rays were free to repaint, but, in a rare break for the franchise during the upheaval, much painting wasn't necessary because the Yankees' navy blue pantone (PMS 289 C) is not far from the Rays' navy blue (PMS 648 C). There was one thing explicitly off limits during the ballpark makeover: the 600-pound bronze statue of George Steinbrenner, the late Yankees owner, standing on a marble pedestal by the main entrance.

The work covered every nook and cranny, obvious and obscure, from the home clubhouse, which was open to the Rays starting Monday at 4:30 p.m., to the two team stores on the property to the massive "Y-A-N-K-E-E-S" lettering above the right- and left-field stands. There were cranes and scissor lifts and cameras to record a time-lapse video of something that has never been done: a major league team moving out of a stadium after spring training and another one moving into it for the summer.

"We're not going to get every single pinstripe gone in the next four days and that's not really the goal," Rays chief business officer Bill Walsh said Sunday, shortly after the Rays were given the green light to take over the ballpark. "The goal is to have this place feel -- when you're walking around, when you're sitting in the seating bowl -- to feel like this is the home of the Rays."

Above all, Walsh noted, is making the stadium feel like home for the players.

On Sunday, they played as the road team against the Yankees. On Wednesday, less than 72 hours later, players walked into the home clubhouse for the first time ahead of a team workout. That gave them 48 hours to become acclimated to their new surroundings after calling Port Charlotte, 90 minutes south, home for the previous six weeks. Rays manager Kevin Cash didn't expect a difficult transition for a team looking forward to the end of the spring training grind and playing games that count.

"I mean, getting out of Port Charlotte," Cash joked, "they'll take f---ing anything."

PLAYING A FULL season in the spring home of a division rival qualifies as less than ideal. Multiple options in the area were considered. Steinbrenner Field was deemed the most major-league-ready choice. A one-year deal between the Rays and Yankees was struck in November giving the Rays full-time use of the stadium and New York more than $15 million in return.

Steinbrenner Field was already undergoing the final phase of a substantial renovation to player and staff facilities with health and wellness upgrades that include a two-story weight room, a kitchen with a dedicated staff and a players' lounge with an arcade.

The project -- which began last offseason with the renovation of the home clubhouse -- made the stadium more of a fit for the Rays, beyond its convenient location. More work was required to bring the building up to MLB regular-season standards, including remodeling the visiting clubhouse and improvements to cabling and broadcast infrastructure.

The Tarpons will play their home games at a field next to the stadium that was upgraded with lights and seating for 1,000 people. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred estimated the entire operation would cost $50 million.

"A gentleman from the Yankees said this in one of our first meetings: 'We may not root for you on the field, but we can root for you to have a field,'" Walsh recalled. "We just appreciate the collaborative spirit that they really put forth here."

Still, Steinbrenner Field seats just 11,026. The Rays ranked 28th in attendance across the majors last season, but their 16,515 average was still significantly higher than their new home's capacity. Further complicating the situation, the organization had already renewed their season-ticket base for Tropicana Field in 2025 by September.

Playing in an open-air stadium during a Florida summer will be an issue, too, between the unforgiving heat and constant rain. MLB moved first-pitch times starting in June back from 7:05 p.m. to 7:35 p.m. and gave the Rays more home games before June. Tampa Bay will play 19 of its first 22 games at home and 37 of its first 54 games there.

To prepare for the inevitable elements, director of special projects and field operations Dan Moeller had six of the Rays' eight full-time groundskeepers work Yankees Grapefruit League home games alongside the Yankees' crew, while two stayed behind to maintain the team's 85 acres around Tropicana Field.

Moeller said his crew helped pull out the tarp twice this spring, good practice for when the games matter. Tropicana Field, unsurprisingly, has never housed a tarp. The first one in franchise history will have a Budweiser logo on what is prime advertising real estate.

The work won't be entirely foreign to Moeller and his grounds crew. They maintain the team's six natural fields in Port Charlotte. Moeller, who was hired by the franchise in 1997, also previously worked on the team's five outdoor fields, including Al Lang Stadium, at their former spring training complex in St. Petersburg through 2008.

"I'm not quite sure what to expect," Moeller said. "But we got the best grounds crew in the major leagues and we'll deal with whatever's thrown at us. My guys are up for the task, and they're excited about it."

VETERAN SECOND BASEMAN Brandon Lowe considered Sunday's game against the Yankees at Steinbrenner Field more important than a typical exhibition. For him, it was an opportunity to become more familiar with the ballpark. With ground balls on the playing surface. With the background from the batter's box.

"I feel like baseball players are very resilient and very good at adapting to changes," said Lowe, who lives in Tampa and will have his commute to work cut significantly. (His manager isn't so lucky -- Cash, who lives in St. Petersburg, said his will increase from just eight minutes to 25.)

The afternoon served as a reminder that it wasn't home quite yet. The Rays heard a smattering of cheers, but the loudest ones were for Aaron Judge and the Yankees for a game that ended in a tie and doubled as a dress rehearsal for the organization.

Up in the 29-seat press box, the Rays' public relations team tried to figure out how it would handle large groups of media during the regular season and potentially beyond, while TV and radio broadcast teams adapted themselves to their new workplace.

One problem they encountered: Broadcasters can't see the bullpens from the booths. The Rays would have to install new camera feeds.

Ryan Bass, the team's sideline reporter for Fanduel Sports Network Sun, noted there often might not be enough room for him to sit in the camera wells next to the dugouts during games as he normally does.

"From our perspective, doing TV each and every day, we got to figure out, during the course of the season, what the best method is for making sure we bring Rays baseball to fans," Bass said before Sunday's game. "I think from what you see March 28th to what you see April 27th, will be completely different just from being really able to get a feel with so many home games to start the year."

After the game, Yankees manager Aaron Boone finished packing up his office and left it for Cash.

"I'm getting out of here today," Boone said with a smile, "so I'll leave him something."

For the Rays, the pace was frenetic. Sunday evening, when reached by phone for an interview just 90 minutes after Tampa Bay was given clearance to start the makeover, Walsh kindly asked if he could call back in five minutes.

"Sorry," he said, "I'm hanging up a sign."

Around him, the outfield walls were being power-washed for advertisement installations on Monday, sod featuring ads from Yankees sponsors was being cut out and replaced, one of the team stores was being stocked with Rays gear, and, with help from Walsh, signs were going up everywhere.

The next morning, the Yankees packed and moved out of the home clubhouse ahead of a flight to Miami, emptying the room for the next tenants.

As they did so, Yankees reliever Scott Effross asked a clubhouse attendant a question that was on everybody's minds this spring: What are the Rays going to do with the giant Yankees logo light fixture suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the room?

The answer, revealed Wednesday, was covering it with a Rays-branded box. Nearby, a nonslip, Rays-branded rug concealed tiling leading to the showers with "The Bronx" spelled out on it. Down the hall, Rays logos replaced Yankees logos on training tables and whirlpool tiles. In the press box, photos of former Rays and framed media guide covers were hung.

Outside, beyond the center-field wall, on the facade facing Dale Mabry Highway, a billboard was mounted featuring the organization's "Rays Up" tagline, to let every car speeding past the ballpark know George M. Steinbrenner Field is the home of the Rays.

At the bottom, however, is a reminder that it is only temporary:

"THANK YOU, YANKEES!"

"With Bristol we know what we're getting - it's probably a supercharged version of the way we attack," Gloucester director of rugby George Skivington told BBC Radio Gloucestershire.

"We know it's going to be fast, we know it's going to be a lot of actual minutes of running round.

"I think our attack is closer to Bristol and they do a lot of good stuff at set-pieces as well. I don't think our identity is a million miles away.

"They are very wide-to-wide and they have some great one-off moments and Pat's very sharp with the areas he targets in games."

Gloucester finished ninth last season and were the second-lowest scorers in the league, ahead of only Newcastle.

However, the signings of Wales scrum-half Tomos Williams and fly-half Gareth Anscombe last summer have helped revolutionise their backline.

When the two sides met in September's reverse fixture in round two at Ashton Gate, Gloucester edged an 85-point thriller 44-41.

Lam said they were "shocked" by the Cherry and Whites that day.

"It's fair to say they shocked us in round two - we didn't expect they'd come out playing that way, and having Tomos Williams and Gareth Anscombe and Santi Carreras they certainly played to their strengths," Lam said.

Connacht and Munster welcome back Irish internationals for the United Rugby Championship interprovincial showdown at MacHale Park on Saturday (14:30 GMT).

The hosts bring in Mack Hansen, Bundee Aki, Finlay Bealham and captain Cian Prendergast for what will be the first time a professional Connacht game is held in County Mayo, and the first time rugby is played at the Castlebar venue in its 95-year history.

The Ireland quartet are among seven Connacht changes from the 43-40 defeat by Ospreys in Wales.

Chay Mullins, Jordan Duggan and Sean Jansen also come into the starting XV.

Munster have three Irish internationals back in their side as Tadhg Beirne, Jack Crowley and Calvin Nash return.

The visitors are also boosted by the return of Oli Jager and Craig Casey from injury as they make five changes from the 28-25 defeat by Glasgow Warriors last weekend.

Munster sit sixth in the standings and three points above 12th-placed Connacht.

Connacht: Hansen; Mullins, Gavin, Aki, Treacy; Ioane, Blade; Duggan, Heffernan, Bealham; Joyce, Murray, Prendergast (capt), Hurley-Langton, Jansen.

Replacements: Tierney-Martin, Buckley, Aungier, Murphy, Boyle, Devine, Hanrahan, Cordero.

Munster: O'Connor; Nash, Farrell, Nankivell, O'Brien; Crowley, Casey; Loughman, Barron, Jager; Wycherley, Beirne (capt); Ahern, Hodnett, Coombes.

Replacements: N Scannell, Wycherley, Archer, Kleyn, Quinn, Murray, R Scannell, Kendellen.

Bath: De Glanville; Cokanasiga, Ojomoh, Redpath, Muir; Russell, Spencer; Obano, Dunn, Stuart, Molony, Ewells, Hill, Read, Barbeary

Replacements: Annett, Van Wyk, Du Toit, Pepper, Underhill, Carr-Smith, Butt, Coetzee

Harlequins: T Green; Isgro, Beard, Northmore, David; Smith, Porter; Baxter, Walker, Lamositele, Herbst, Lewies, Kenningham, Lawday, Cunningham-South

Replacements: Riley, Els, Jones, Launchbury, Hammond, Schmid, Care, Benson

Referee: Anthony Woodthorpe

Carlo Ancelotti hit out at Javier Tebas on Friday, saying the LaLiga president is "obsessed" with Real Madrid and "lacked respect" for coaches after Tebas' latest comments in the row over players' rest between games.

Ancelotti has said his team will refuse to play in future if they are given fewer than 72 hours' break, after Madrid were unhappy with LaLiga's scheduling of their 2-1 win at Villarreal on March 15.

Tebas appeared to indirectly criticise Ancelotti's management of his players when asked about the issue at a conference on Thursday, saying "since COVID, you can make five substitutions, but then you make three substitutions in the 85th minute, and you complain."

"I knew [Tebas] was obsessed with Real Madrid, but I didn't know he wanted to be a coach," Ancelotti responded, when asked about the comments in a news conference on Friday. "[Tebas] should focus more on his own things. He lacked a bit of respect, to Real Madrid and to coaches."

The scheduling row is the latest in a series of clashes between Madrid and the league on a number of issues.

Speaking ahead of Madrid's game with Leganés at the Santiago Bernabéu, Ancelotti sought to add some nuance to his threat.

"I must add something: we won't play [with under 72 hours' rest] without justification," he said. "It might be that nobody can change [the time], there might not be enough time, for many reasons.

"But for [the] Villarreal [game], it could have been changed. Villarreal and the television companies wanted to. Only LaLiga didn't. There was no justifiable reason."

Ancelotti categorically denied that the Brazil Football Confederation (CBF) had contacted him in recent days over coaching the national team, following Brazil 4-1 defeat to Argentina in World Cup qualifying.

The Italian has previously been strongly linked with the position, but has a contract at the Bernabéu until June 2026.

"My contract speaks for itself," Ancelotti said. "I don't have anything to add. I have a lot of affection for the Brazil team, its players and fans. But I have a contract at Real Madrid."

On Thursday, UEFA announced that it was investigating four Madrid players -- Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior, Antonio Rüdiger and Dani Ceballos -- over their behaviour following their penalty shootout victory over Atlético Madrid in the Champions League round of 16 on March 12.

Real play Arsenal in the quarterfinals next month.

"We trust UEFA to do what they have to," Ancelotti said. "We believe [their behaviour] was all correct. The players celebrated. We'll wait for UEFA to say something. We're confident it will all turn out OK."