ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Brooks Koepka wasn't wearing his LIV Golf League team's logo while winning his fifth major title at the 105th PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club on Sunday.

But the three-time PGA Championship winner might as well have been carrying the LIV Golf League on his shoulders. Koepka's 2-shot victory over Viktor Hovland and Scottie Scheffler was the first major championship win by an LIV Golf League player. Other members of the Saudi Arabian-financed circuit said it proved they belong in the major championships.

"It validates everything we've said from the beginning: That we're competing at the highest level and we have the ability to win major championships," Bryson DeChambeau said. "I really hope people can see the light now that we're trying to provide the game of golf with something new and fresh. I think at the end of the day, both sides are going to have to come together at some point. It's for the good of the game."

Koepka -- who picked up his second LIV Golf League victory in Orlando, Florida, in April then tied for second at the Masters the following week -- didn't seem too interested in talking about what his victory might do for his new league.

"Yeah, I definitely think it helps LIV, but I'm more interested in my own self right now, to be honest with you," Koepka said. "Yeah, it's a huge thing for LIV, but at the same time, I'm out here competing as an individual at the PGA Championship. I'm just happy to take this home for the third time."

Koepka was asked if he had heard from LIV Golf CEO and commissioner Greg Norman after winning another Wanamaker Trophy. Koepka said he had only talked to his wife, Jena, who is pregnant with their first child, a boy.

Norman congratulated Koepka on Twitter, writing in part, "Congrats @BKoepka your comeback has been impressive. I am so proud of you. As for the @livgolf_league players they belong and the Majors and golf knows."

LIV Golf had four other players finish in the top 20: DeChambeau tied for fourth at 3 under, Cameron Smith tied for ninth at 1 under and Patrick Reed and Mito Pereira tied for 18th at 2 over.

"We're still out there," said Smith, the reigning Open Championship winner. "We haven't [forgotten] how to play golf. We're all great golfers out there, and we know what we can do, and I think that's what we're trying to do."

If nothing else, DeChambeau said, the performance by LIV Golf League players should put an end to the narrative that it's a league of aging and injured golfers who aren't able to compete at a high level anymore.

"Clearly, it's untrue," DeChambeau said. "I've always said the truth will come out eventually. Truth always plays its way out, and it is. We've got a lot of great players out there, and I think people need to start looking at the brighter side of things that we're trying to do something good for the game."

SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- On the doorstep of reaching their first ever NBA Finals, the Denver Nuggets say they must do something Monday that has never been done before.

No team has been able to sweep LeBron James in a playoff series before the NBA Finals and the Nuggets themselves have never completed a sweep in franchise history.

James has been swept only twice before, with both times coming in the NBA Finals with the Cleveland Cavaliers: to the San Antonio Spurs in 2007 and to the Golden State Warriors in 2018.

"I mean, s--- that's LeBron man," Nuggets veteran forward Jeff Green said Sunday after the Nuggets met and watched film at their team hotel. "He's done some amazing things throughout these last 20 years. For me, we have to end it.

"It's like you can't continue to give him life. The more life you give him, the more confidence he gains and the more confidence he instills in his teammates. So for me, it has to end [Monday]."

Guard Bruce Brown echoed the same sentiment, saying the Nuggets must be focused on slamming the door shut on the Lakers.

"We want to give them no hope," Brown said. "No confidence."

The Lakers went through practice Sunday hoping it is not the final time they practice as a team this season. They're motivated to avoid being swept.

"It's a very real thing," Lakers coach Darvin Ham said of the Lakers being fueled to avoid a 4-0 finish to their season. "It's a very real thing. It's a prideful group, again, highly competitive that cares and that wants to go and put on a good show for our fans as well.

"Our fans, Lakers Nation, they support the hell out of us and we got to do our part. We got to go out there and show up and show out."

Teams that have fallen behind 0-3 in a series are 0-149 all-time. The Nuggets, though, know this will be the hardest closeout game the franchise has ever played in its history because of what is at stake.

Not long after the Nuggets took a commanding 3-0 lead with their 119-108 win in Game 3 on Saturday, Nikola Jokic talked about the apprehension he was feeling knowing that Denver is going for the knockout punch with an all-time great fighting to keep his team's season alive.

"I'm not going to say that I'm scared," Jokic said. "But I'm worried because they have LeBron on the other side and he is capable of doing everything."

Ham says the Lakers can only focus on staying alive Monday night.

"We're facing a hell of a ballclub, one talented bunch that's very well coached," Ham said. "But we have things that we can do as well. The only thing we have to do is just focus on one game. We don't have to be overwhelmed about the outside noise or the overall series. We just have to worry about one game, what's exactly in front of us."

ESPN's Dave McMenamin contributed to this story.

MIAMI -- Sunday morning, before the Celtics put their season on the line in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals, Jayson Tatum was asked why Boston has been so good away from home over the past two postseasons.

"We've had no other choice," Tatum said. "It was either win, or the season was over with."

Well, the Celtics didn't win Game 3. And, as a result, they find themselves staring down an 0-3 series deficit -- something 149 teams before them have failed to overcome.

After the Miami Heat obliterated the Celtics on Sunday night, leading by as many as 22 points in the first half and 33 in the game en route to a 128-102 victory, Tatum and the Celtics will have to summon something truly magical to turn this series around and prevent the eighth-seeded Heat from advancing.

"I don't even know where to start," Jaylen Brown said. "We can point fingers. But, in reality, it's just embarrassing."

Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla pointed fingers at one person: himself. In virtually every answer he gave, Mazzulla said some variation of the same thing: the loss was on him for his failure to have Boston ready for the biggest game of its season.

"I just didn't have them ready to play," Mazzulla said. "I have to get them in a better place to be ready to play, and that's on me."

Later, Mazzulla was asked whether Boston's defensive identity has been lost during these playoffs, as the Celtics went from being second in the league in defensive rating during the regular season to 10th in the playoffs, allowing 3 more points per 100 possessions in the postseason.

"Yeah, I think some of that defensive identity has been lost," Mazzulla said, "and we have to get that back."

Mazzulla's players defended him, with Brown saying it was a "collective effort," and Al Horford adding, "That falls on each player. We know what we have to do. We knew the magnitude of this game."

However the blame is assigned, what was impossible to argue was Boston laid an egg. The Celtics entered Sunday night 12-6 away from TD Garden over the past two postseasons -- far better than the 10-11 mark they've posted at home over the same span.

"I don't even know where to start. We can point fingers. But, in reality, it's just embarrassing."

Jaylen Brown

But like in Game 2, when Boston snapped what had been a streak of 16 consecutive wins for the home team after losing Game 1 of a series, the Celtics' history of road success didn't follow them south, either.

Unlike Game 2, which Boston controlled for large stretches, it was Miami that dominated the run of play in Game 3. The Heat, sensing an opportunity to press their advantage, closed the first quarter with a 16-6 run and never looked back, storming out to a lead of as many as 22 points in the second quarter.

Then, after Boston showed some life to get the deficit down to 15 at halftime and got an and-1 bucket from Marcus Smart to open the second half and make it a 12-point game, Miami immediately responded with a 22-7 run to stretch the lead back to 27 points midway through the third and push the Celtics to the brink of elimination.

"Tonight was tough," Tatum said. "From the beginning of the game, we were turning the ball over. We didn't shoot the ball well, they shot extremely well.

"It felt like we never recovered."

The Celtics entered this series as clear betting favorites to win an 18th championship after surviving a seven-game slugfest with their forever rivals, the Philadelphia 76ers, in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Now, just a week after Tatum scored 51 points and the Celtics hammered the 76ers at home to close out that series, Boston's season is all but over after a systematic annihilation at the hands of the Heat, who advanced out of the play-in tournament.

"As tough as tonight was, we just got to try to move on," Tatum said. "Prepare, get ready, practice, film and stuff for tomorrow. Obviously we're in a tough position. But we've got to have some pride, bounce back and just be better come Tuesday."

Virtually nothing went right. Boston has lived by the 3-point shot all season but hasn't made many in this series. After going 11-for-42 from deep in Game 3, the Celtics are now 31-for-106 (29.2%) from 3 in the series. Miami, on the other hand, shot 57% overall, 54% from 3 and is now shooting 44-for-92 (47.8%) for the series.

Mazzulla ditched Boston's two-big starting lineup of Horford and Robert Williams in the second half of Game 2, going back to the small grouping featuring Derrick White that he preferred much of the season. Mazzulla stuck with it to start Game 3. It didn't work, either.

A rough series continued for Brown, as he shot 6-for-17, had 12 points and was a game-worst minus-25. Brown is now 2-for-20 from 3-point range in the series. Tatum was hardly any better, going for 14 points on 6-for-18 shooting and was minus-23.

Neither was anyone else -- which is why Mazzulla had four of his five starters on the bench for the entire fourth quarter, instead having them watch the ongoing celebration carried out by the white-clad crowd at Miami's Kaseya Center.

"We're not out yet," Horford said. "It is 3-0. I know what it looks like.

"[But] we're not out yet. We're still kicking. One of four teams that are still kicking."

MIAMI -- Jimmy Butler isn't the only member of the Miami Heat who has the ability to dominate the Boston Celtics.

As the No. 8-seeded Heat continue their improbable run through the Eastern Conference playoffs -- a stretch that is now just one game away from an NBA Finals appearance after Erik Spoelstra's team embarrassed the No. 1 seed Celtics 128-102 in Game 3 on Sunday night -- they did so by relying on a host of younger players who are embracing the moment.

Heat guard Gabe Vincent scored a game-high 29 points, going 11-for-14 from the field, in a measured performance that his teammates and coaches have come to expect from the 26-year-old guard.

"It's his assertiveness and aggressiveness," Spoelstra said of Vincent. "And reading the game. I thought he had as much of an impact and put his fingerprints on the win in Game 2 as he did tonight. One of the games he had four points; another game he had 29. And he has that emotional stability to -- you know, he sees guys like Jimmy and Bam [Adebayo], who are the perfect role models. Coming in as a young player, it's about impacting winning, and sometimes it's about making the right play and doing it on both ends of the court. That's tough to do as a young player because so much is celebrated on just that last number on the box score."

Sunday's box score gave the Heat plenty to celebrate. In a postseason span that has been defined by Butler's brilliance and Adebayo's steadiness, it was Vincent, Duncan Robinson (22 points off the bench) and Caleb Martin (18 points) who set the tone for the group. Game 3 offered another reminder of just how solid the Heat have become over the past month as they gain even more confidence.

"To their credit, they're playing well above their means," Celtics guard Jaylen Brown said. "They're ballin' right now, and I've got to give them respect. Gabe Vincent, Martin, [Max] Strus, Duncan Robinson, guys that we should be able to keep under control are playing their ass off."

As the Heat continue to stun the basketball world by dominating a Celtics team that many expected to win the East, the fact that they've been able to rely on lesser-known names throughout this series only cements the strong culture that the organization is so proud of, especially as it pertains to being able to develop players over time and trust them to shine in the right moments.

While Butler is the one who receives the majority of the spotlight within the group, he has repeatedly stated that he believes in the players around him. It underscores why the Heat feel so confident about the roster.

"Believing in one another," Adebayo explained. "Believing that we can get a win. Believing that we can beat the No. 1 team in the league. You know, belief is real, and we've got a will to win."

Martin spoke for many within the locker room while describing what it has been like to embrace the challenge of beating the Celtics after they knocked Miami out of the conference finals last season.

"I just think that we got the matchup we wanted," Martin said. "We got to see the team who took us out last year, and there's nothing like a second crack at it. So I think that we are just trying to take advantage of that, and you know, we are playing like we have something to prove. We're just a bunch of guys with a chip on our shoulder, so we just want to continue to prove that."

Vincent said the key for him is to "be as present as possible" and doing anything he can to help the group. It's a team that appears more unified, and as Spoelstra spoke pridefully about what the younger players provide, he did so while praising his two veteran leaders.

"Jimmy and Bam are both fueling that," Spoelstra said. "They are just infusing those guys with confidence. ... But then they also know that they have to impact everybody else on the roster, and you know, we talk about it all the time. You want to breathe life into other guys and ultimately enjoy someone else's success, but that takes great emotional stability. You know, there's a lot of pressure and voices and noise coming at you from a lot of different ways.

"But those guys, those guys get it. And you're seeing some of the role players really grow and be able to expand their games. That only happens if your star players really want that."

MIAMI -- Demons were born Sunday night, those thoughts that stick in the head and on detractors' lips.

The Boston Celtics have played hundreds of memorable playoff games in their storied history, but for the foreseeable future, just saying "Game 3" is going to sting without any needed context.

Frankly, the Miami Heat have a pretty good catalog of playoff moments and yet their 128-102 victory to take a 3-0 Eastern Conference finals lead might get its own special heading, too. Unexpected success is often the sweetest and the Heat and their fans were floating on that emotion.

Miami coach Erik Spoelstra, who is in the midst of painting his masterpiece as he is on the verge of a career-affirming improbable Finals appearance for a No. 8 seed that was three minutes from not making out of the play-in tournament, had to take measures to hold all the emotions in.

"That was a solid, mature, professional approach," Spoelstra said Sunday night, realizing his job is now shifting to managing massive success. "But we have respect, deep respect, for Boston."

It is going to be tempting for the Celtics to make "Game 3" a watershed moment. To let the overwhelming disappointment of being thoroughly dominated and humiliated cause an angry response.

This is a hugely talented, experienced and expensive team that is on its way out of the postseason with a dud. When that happens in pro sports, there is typically a blame game that demands action.

There's going to be a pull for firings, trades and makeovers in Boston. It's going to be like a dam straining against a flood. In a matter of days and three losses, this has transitioned from a team favored by the computers and the sportsbooks to win the title to a franchise in crisis.

Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck spent much of the third quarter, as his team was getting outscored 32-17, looking at his phone in his courtside seat trying to focus on anything else.

Team president Brad Stevens stood outside the Celtics' locker room after the game stunned at what he'd just seen, making sure to give credit to the Heat for their vanquishing.

Jayson Tatum, who seven days earlier had played one of the finest games in NBA history as he set a record in scoring 51 points in a Game 7 Eastern Conference semifinals victory, dragged himself to the postgame podium wearing the all-white suit he'd picked out for this game.

Miami chic, no doubt, but it came across as such the wrong tenor after what happened in front of the typical "white out" Heat playoff crowd. It could've come off as confident; Tatum has had some awesome road playoff games in his career, but this was such a flat note that it was hard not to make it a symbolic connection to the outcome.

"Obviously, we're in a tough position," Tatum said after an anemic 14 points on 6-of-18 shooting. "But we've just got to have some pride."

And then there was Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla, whose game plan to accept all the blame for the loss was as ineffective as his strategy was for the game itself.

"I just didn't have them ready to play," Mazzulla said, over and over. "I have to get them in a better place ready to play, and that's on me."

Mazzulla doth not protest too much. He was so over-the-top in trying to rip the attention toward himself and away from his team, a group that had played so lifelessly, that his tactics were transparent.

He's in the midst of learning many lessons in his first playoffs as a head coach, and this was yet another one. There's an art to being a shield -- and this wasn't it.

There is a wave of anger from New England and a rising expectation elsewhere Mazzulla will pay the price for this 0-3 hole the Celtics find themselves in. Stevens is a huge believer in Mazzulla and made the choice not only to promote him but also to make him the permanent coach midway through the season.

Stevens will tell you about his first season as an NBA coach in 2013 when he made mistake after mistake, some of them embarrassing. Like when he drew up a side out-of-bounds play for a last-second shot only to realize, to his horror, after the timeout that the ball was on the baseline and not the sideline.

Stevens knows when you have a rookie coach, rookie mistakes will be made.

Before Game 3, if you were around the Celtics, you'd know there was no chance Mazzulla would not be back next season.

After Game 3, nothing feels certain.

There is a question about whether the Celtics can give Jaylen Brown an extension worth more than $280 million this offseason. His performance has been dreadful in this series; he was 0-of-7 from 3-point range Sunday and is 2-for-20 from 3 in the three losses against Miami.

Before Game 3, it seemed like locking down Brown, 26, was automatic; getting a player at his age in his position under control for five years is good business.

After Game 3, it is human nature to wonder if the Tatum-Brown pairing is great or just very good. And considering they both might each cost more than $50 million in salary per season soon, is just very good actually good enough?

"The series isn't over yet," Brown said. "It's looking bad, but you come out, have some pride about yourself."

This soul searching could go on. It's easy to question just what happened to the Celtics' strong defense -- they are a shell of the team that made the Finals last season -- but then there's the continued lineup changes and the effort level and the inexplicable delay to double-team Heat star Jimmy Butler.

And that's the penalty for going down the way the Celtics are in this stunning collapse. It will cost more than just a chance at a title. This is the kind of loss that can rob a team of its confidence and its direction.

What has happened over the past five days for the Celtics is more than disappointing. The Heat are just crushing them. But the way it has unfolded has now become so much more than that.

And that could be what Game 3's true legacy is.

Daniil Medvedev claimed the first clay-court title of his career as he beat Holger Rune in the Italian Open final.

It is Medvedev's fifth title of 2023 and victory lifts him above Novak Djokovic to second in the world rankings.

He will also be the second seed at the French Open, which starts at Roland Garros on 28 May.

"Honestly, I didn't believe I could win a Masters 1,000 on clay in my career," Medvedev, 27, said in his on-court interview.

"Usually I hated it, I hated playing on it, I didn't feel good on it. Nothing was working.

"I don't think I love it. I love hard court - my only love in tennis - but I definitely like clay courts much more now."

After the start of the final was delayed by nearly two hours, both players held serve through a tight first 11 games, but Medvedev took advantage of a poor drop shot from the Dane to claim the first set 7-5.

The 20-year-old bounced back strongly at the start of the second, breaking Medvedev's opening serve and holding to take a 2-0 lead.

Medvedev, who had not won a match in three previous appearances in Rome, levelled the scores before Rune broke again for a 4-3 advantage.

However, the world number seven broke back for a second time and held his nerve, saving a break point to hold serve before breaking Rune to wrap up the victory.

Elsewhere on Sunday, Britain's Jack Draper beat France's Alexandre Muller 6-2 6-3 in the opening round of the ATP 250's Lyon Open.

Draper will face either Oriol Roca Batalla of Spain or Serbia's Miomir Kecmanovic in the last 16.

British number one Cameron Norrie, who has received a bye in the first round, will also be in action on Tuesday when he takes on Belgium's David Goffin or Spain's Alvaro Lopez San Martin.

TAMPERE, Finland -- The United States routed France 9-0 on Sunday to keep its perfect record at the ice hockey world championship.

Cutter Gauthier led with a hat trick; Drew O'Connor got two goals; and Scott Perunovich, T.J. Tynan, Rocco Grimaldi and Conor Garland added one apiece at Nokia Arena for the Americans to dominate Group A with six wins from six games.

Goaltender Cal Petersen made 13 saves for the shutout.

Nico Sturm scored twice as Germany thrashed Hungary 7-2 to keep alive its hopes of advancing to the quarterfinals from Group A.

In the Latvian capital of Riga, Switzerland beat the Czech Republic 4-2 to lead Group B with six victories from six games.

Andres Ambuhl scored two goals and Tanner Richard and Romain Loeffel contributed one each for Switzerland, while Roman Cervenka and Dominik Kubalik scored for the Czechs.

Slovakia edged Slovenia 1-0 in Group B to stay in contention for a place in the knockout stage. Slovenia lost six straight games and will be relegated from the top division.

Brooks Koepka hadn’t even made the turn at Oak Hill and his performance at the year’s first two major championships had already taken hold of the Ryder Cup narrative.

Whatever hypotheticals about this year’s U.S. team and whether players who joined LIV Golf would be welcome back became exceedingly practical following Koepka’s performance at the Masters, where he finished second, and at the PGA Championship, where he closed with a 67 for a two-stroke victory. That reality landed on this year’s U.S. captain Zach Johnson, who was asked if he would feel “comfortable” with a LIV player on the team.

“I don't know. I can't answer that,” Johnson said. “I'll say this: The guys that are on the PGA Tour that make that team, they have direct ownership in that collectively.  For me to stand here and say that I would feel comfortable or uncomfortable with it would be, I would think, irresponsible on my behalf because it's not my team.”

In a spirited interview following his round at Oak Hill, Johnson largely deflected most questions about LIV’s potential impact on this year’s matches, but there was one telling exchange when he was asked if he planned to attend any LIV events prior to the Ryder Cup to scout potential players.

“Are you expecting me to go to LIV events and spectate?” Johnson asked. “I don't need to be present. I'm not in the U.S. Open, and given my travel schedule and what I have behind that and in front of that, there's no reason for me to go out there and spectate when I can watch on television.”

That answer, however, didn’t satisfy the reporter, who pressed, asking if Johnson was worried about the “perception” from the LIV players that he’s “too busy” to attend events on the breakaway circuit.

“Again, that’s your opinion. You’re making something up,” he said.

Koepka began the week 22^nd on the U.S. points list and is projected to move to No. 2 with his victory at the PGA. The top 6 players on the list on Aug. 20 will automatically qualify for the matches and Johnson will have six captain’s picks.

“We'd be lying to ourselves and say that they [LIV players] don't want to be on the team, right. I've heard that narrative. I mean, I get it, too. I'm an American. I want to be on my own team. That's your goal every two years,” Johnson said.