D4 EZ M2 THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, APRIL 1 , 2022
ASSOCIATED PRESSRussell Knox had four straight
birdies on the back nine and fired
a 7-under-par 65 on Thursday for a
one-shot lead after the opening
round of the Texas Open.
Knox closed out his round with
a seven-foot putt to save par at the
par-5 18th at TPC San Antonio,
leaving him one shot ahead of
Rasmus Hojgaard.
Hojgaard fired a 66 despite a
double bogey on his final hole.
Matt Kuchar is another stroke
back after an opening 5-under 67
and is among a group that in-
cludes Denny McCarthy, Aaron
Rei and J.J. Spaun.
Defending champ Jordan Spi-
eth and Rory McIlroy finished at
even-par 72. They were outside the
top 60 after one round and could
flirt with the cut line Friday.
Bryson DeChambeau posted a
1 -over 73. After holing a bunker
shot for an eagle on his 11th hole
and following with a birdie on the
next, he made a bogey on four of
his last six holes.
Knox, a 32-year-old Scotsman
with two career PGA Tour wins,
started his birdie streak at No. 12.
All of his birdie putts were inside
10 feet. At the 15th, he was about
20 feet away from a back pin posi-
tion following his approach and
chipped in from the fringe. It was
his second chip-in of the round.
“That was one of those kind of
bonus birdies that you need when
you’re going to have a good day,”
Knox said. “Obviously thrilled
with the round. It’s been more of
the way I want to play.”
Hojgaard, a 21-year-old from
Denmark and two-time winner on
the European Tour, had his sights
on the first-round lead heading to
his closing hole. But his drive
sailed well left of the fairway. It
took him four shots to reach the
green on the par-4 ninth.
“I had to chip sideways back
into the fairway,” he said. “Just was
a little too aggressive after that.
Yeah, short-sided myself, and I
didn’t get up and down, and sud-
denly you walk away with double
bogey. Yeah, that was a bit annoy-
ing, but it happens.”
Kuchar was 5 under after
11 holes. Thirty feet away from the
pin on the next hole, he failed to
get up and down and missed a
seven-foot putt for par. He got a
shot back with a birdie on his 14th
hole and parred out, falling short
in a bid to match his season-best
round of 64 at the Sony Open, in
which he finished in the top 10.
Kuchar has won nine times on
the PGA Tour. McCarthy, Rai and
Spaun are looking for their first.
l LPGA: Jennifer Kupcho
shared the lead in the Chevron
Championship in her second —
and last — start at Mission Hills,
the tree-lined layout she has
quickly fallen in love with.
Kupcho shot a 6-under 66 in
sunny and calm morning condi-
tions to join fellow early starter
Minjee Lee atop the leader board
after the first round of the final
edition of the major champion-
ship in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
“I really like the layout of this
golf course, the beautiful shape
that it’s in every year,” Kupcho
said. “It always is so fun to be here.”
Unable to find a sponsor willing
to remain at Mission Hills, the
tournament that started in 1972 as
the Colgate-Dinah Shore Winner’s
Circle and became a major in 1983
is shifting to Houston next year
under a deal with Chevron.
Defending champion Patty Tav-
atanakit was a stroke back, finish-
ing late in the afternoon in gusting
wind.
Third-ranked Lydia Ko, the
2015 champion, was at 68 with
Carolina Masson, Anna Nord -
qvist, Georgia Hall, Gabriela Ruff -
els and Pajaree Anannarukarn.
Lexi Thompson, the 2014 winner,
was another stroke back with Sar-
ah Schmelzel, Annie Park, Lauren
Stephenson, Pauline Roussin-
Bouchard and Hinako Shibuno.
Top-ranked Jin Young Ko, the
2019 winner, shot a 74 to end her
under-par streak at 34 rounds.
Her run of at least one birdie end-
ed at 53 rounds.
English will sit out Masters
H arris English decided not to
play in the Masters next week as he
recovers from surgery to repair a
torn labrum.
English was a two-time winner
on the PGA Tour last year and
finished third in the U.S. Open at
Torrey Pines. He has not played
since the Sony Open in Honolulu
the second week of the year.
There are no alternates at the
Masters. English’s absence puts
the field at 90 players, with one
spot available if the Texas Open
winner this week is ineligible.
GOLF ROUNDUP
Late run
of birdies
puts Knox
in the lead
ASSOCIATED PRESSGiannis Antetokounmpo sur-
passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to
become Milwaukee’s career scor-
ing leader on a three-pointer that
forced overtime and then made
two free throws in the final sec-
onds to give the Bucks a 120-119
victory over the Brooklyn Nets on
Thursday night in New York.
The defending NBA champions
clinched a return to the postsea-
son with the win, in which Ante-
tokounmpo had 44 points, 14 re-
bounds and six assists. Jrue Holi-
day added 19 points and Khris
Middleton had 16 before being
ejected for a flagrant foul midway
through the third quarter.
Kevin Durant had 26 points,
11 assists and seven rebounds for
the Nets but missed a three-point-
er that would have won it. Kyrie
Irving scored 25 points, and Bruce
Brown had 23.
Antetokounmpo came into the
game 39 points behind Abdul-Jab-
bar, the NBA’s career scoring lead-
er who had 14,211 points after be-
ginning his career in Milwaukee.
Antetokounmpo passed him with
a three-pointer with 18 seconds
left that knotted it at 110.
The Bucks and Nets could be
headed for a first-round matchup
this year. The Bucks are a half-
game behind Miami for the top
spot in the Eastern Conference,
while the Nets are tied for eighth
and probably can hope for nothing
better than the No. 7 or 8 seed by
coming out of the play-in tourna-
ment.
The Bucks led by four in over-
time, but the Nets rallied to take a
119-118 lead when Durant was
fouled on a three-point attemptand made all three shots with
8.7 seconds left. Antetokounmpo
quickly rushed into the lane and
was fouled by Nic Claxton. He
made both free throws and fin-
ished 15 for 19 from the line.
l BULLS 135, CLIPPERS 130
(OT): DeMar DeRozan scored a
season-high 50 points, and host
Chicago rallied to beat Los Ange-
les in overtime.
DeRozan finished two points
shy of his career high. The five-
time all-star scored 17 in the fourth
quarter, though he missed the go-
ahead free throw in the closing
seconds of regulation after mak-
ing the first two attempts to tie it.
He then scored 10 in overtime,
helping the Bulls come away with
a win they sorely needed after theyfell behind by 16 in the third peri-
od.
Chicago, which led the Eastern
Conference for a large portion of
the season, moved a half-game
ahead of sixth-place Toronto with
five remaining. The Bulls are try-
ing to stay in the top six to avoid
the play-in round in the postsea-
son.
Nikola Vucevic added 22 points
and 14 rebounds. Zach LaVine
scored 21 as the Bulls won for the
third time in four games.
Reggie Jackson led Los Angeles
with 34 points.
Paul George scored 22 in his
second game back after he missed
three months because of a torn
ulnar collateral ligament in his
right elbow.Marcus Morris Sr. added
20 points, and Nicolas Batum
scored 17. But the Clippers —
eighth in the West — lost for the
sixth time in seven games.
l PISTONS 102, 76ERS 94:
Saddiq Bey scored 10 of his
20 points in the final 4:23 as De-
troit pulled away down the stretch
and beat visiting Philadelphia.
“It is huge for us to see that we
can play at this level and play well
enough to beat a team like Philly,”
Bey said. “Early in the season, we
were still learning how to do this,
but now we know what we need to
do on both ends of the floor to win
games like this.”
Cade Cunningham scored
27 points for Detroit, which
snapped a three-game losingstreak and had a 39 -8 edge in
scoring off the bench.
“This is one of those nights
where everyone steps up and does
their job,” Cunningham said.
“We’ve grown to the point where,
when we all get rolling, we’re prob-
ably going to win the game.”
Joel Embiid had 37 points and
15 rebounds and James Harden
finished with 18 points, nine re-
bounds and seven assists for the
76ers.
“I thought we played with very
little life tonight,” 76ers Coach Doc
Rivers said. “I thought we were
pretty good for about the first
eight minutes of the first quarter
and after that we just stood
around. That’s something we’ve
been doing too often lately.”
Detroit didn’t lead until the
fourth quarter, and Isaiah Livers’s
three-pointer with 5:05 left gave
the Pistons a 90-87 advantage.
l HAWKS 131, CAVALIERS
107: Trae Young scored 30 points,
and surging Atlanta never trailed
while beating shorthanded Cleve-
land at home to clinch a spot in the
Eastern Conference play-in tour-
nament.
Cedi Osman led Cleveland with
21 points. Darius Garland had
18 points and eight assists while
sitting out the final quarter.
Cavaliers standout rookie Evan
Mobley missed his second consec-
utive game with a sprained ankle.
Cleveland has lost two straight
and five of six as it attempts to
maintain the seventh seed in the
East.
Young had nine assists as the
Hawks’ fourth consecutive win
clinched no worse than the
10th seed.
Kevin Huerter continued his
strong finish to the regular season
with 23 points, his fourth consecu-
tive game with at least 20. Clint
Capela added 12 points with 14 re-
bounds.NBA ROUNDUPAntetokounmpo passes a franchise icon, then clinches OT winBUCKS 120,
NETS 119 (OT)AL BELLO/GETTY IMAGES
Giannis Antetokounmpo passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become Milwaukee’s career scoring leader.Now on his third team in seven
years in the NBA, he finally knows
what he wants in an organization.
Porzingis has been stuck in the
same cycle for the past few sea-
sons, one in which indomitable
hype — first because of the tanta-
lizing combination of his 7-foot-3
stature and his offensive acumen,
then because of his pairing with
Luka Doncic in Dallas — gives
way to injuries, disgruntlement
and, in Porzingis’s words, unmet
potential.
In Washington, he has found a
team with similar issues, and over
Porzingis’s first 13 games, a prom-
ising partnership has suggested
they might be able to deliver mu-
tual renewal. In an interview this
week, Porzingis called Washing-
ton the “perfect place” to help him
reach his career goal because of
the Wizards’ mix of young and
veteran players, Kyle Kuzma’s
and Bradley Beal’s talent, and the
organizational embrace he has
felt from the start.
“Here’s where I can go to play to
my full potential,” Porzingis said,
laying out his ambition.
So far — cautiously — so good.
Since the 26-year-old returned
from a bone bruise in his right
knee, he is averaging 21.8 points
on 47.2 percent shooting from the
field and 30.5 percent from three-
point range while adding 8.3 re-
bounds.
With his first game against the
Mavericks looming Friday, he
scored a season-high 35 points in
a win over Orlando on Wednes-
day. In the corner of the stands at
Capital One Arena, one fan bur-
nished a homemade sign that
read in blue and red letters, in
Latvian and English: “Sveiks
P orzingi! Welcome to DC.”
If there is one thing Porzingis
absorbed from slogging through
ACL rehab and meniscus tear
recovery earlier in his career, it’s
how to chip big goals into tiny,
digestible actions. He was at a
sandwich shop when news of the
trade came in — “I think some guy
took a picture of me staring,” he
said — and then came a text from
Bertans.
“He didn’t know at first, and he
was like: ‘Ohhh! Let’s gooo!!!
Ohhh... oh. Never mind,’ ” Por-
zingis said, reenacting his friend’s
realization. “ ‘You want me to
show you my house?’ ”
Porzingis declined, opting for
an apartment for now, and set his
mind on accomplishing his first
mini-goal. The No. 1 thing the
center wants to focus on in Wash-
ington is consistency, which
means staying healthy, eating
right, resting often, tending to his
body and doing all the other little
measures that add up to a long
career.
Porzingis is aware of his repu-
tation as injury-prone. He said it
doesn’t bother him because it’sWIZARDS FROM D1inaccurate.
“Of course, my body is particu-
lar, I’m 7-foot-3 — you know the
way I move,” he said. “But the
injuries that I’ve had have been
contact injuries, the two major
ones — the ACL and the meniscus.
So that’s something you can’t real-
ly avoid. It can happen, and it
happened to me. I haven’t had the
best luck in that sense.”
As he works back to full
strength, he also has had to build
chemistry with his new team-
mates and begin to learn Unseld’s
playbook. The coach said
Wednesday that Porzingis
tweaked his ankle twice in thepast four games and bounced
back without a problem.
He hasn’t thought too far
ahead about what the future
could hold in Washington. Play-
ing alongside Kuzma excites him.
His relationship with Beal is un-
der construction while the guard
is out with season-ending wrist
surgery — it’s still at the breezy,
getting-to-know-you phase in
which the pair went back and
forth Monday morning about
Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at
the Oscars.
“Brad is pretty easygoing, on
and off the court, and we’ll get
along fine no matter how people
see us coexisting. I think he’s an
excellent player, multiple-time
all-star; he’s going to keep doing
that, and I’m going to bring my
game up, I believe,” Porzingis
said, noting that Beal has not
re-signed with the Wizards but
has said he is leaning toward
doing so this offseason.
It wasn’t just the people who
convinced Porzingis to call Wash-
ington “the perfect opportunity
to me” multiple times during this
conversation.
Back with the Mavericks, oncehe felt change could be coming,
Porzingis surveyed the league and
thought about where he would
most like to live, not just play. He
prefers the Eastern Conference,
where the travel is quicker and
the time difference to Latvia isn’t
as bad, and Washington remind-
ed him of European cities.
“It was the same architect as
Paris, right, with the [traffic] cir-
cles?” he said. “... I thought, if I
did not finish the season in Dal-
las, than this was it for me. And it
worked out perfectly.”
Porzingis also likes the mixture
of ages on the Wizards’ roster.
One thing he learned from his
experience with the New York
Knicks and Mavericks is that
communication is paramount in
a healthy relationship. Another
thing is that it’s important to be
able to take your time and lay a
foundation. His previous teams
were trying to win a champion-
ship quickly. Porzingis likes that
the Wizards have three young
first-round picks as part of their
core and that their key veterans
are not yet 30.
“Anybody can have one great
season, and it’s like, ‘Oh, okay,whatever.’ But something that you
build with a foundation — ‘We’re
playing this way; we’re being con-
sistent; this is how we see every-
thing’ — keep building. And then
you make the little adjustments
by having open communication,
by letting the other guy know
what you both need — poof,” Por-
zingis said, clapping his hands.
“Little bit like a relationship.”
Porzingis is starting to build
his own foundation in Washing-
ton, beginning with his health.
He will work on one thing at a
time, as his rehab taught him:
consistent minutes, then shoring
up his shooting over the offsea-
son, then defense. He believes
that’s the only way to get results,
and he avoids listing grand goals
because of it. The only thing he
will say for sure is that, years from
now, at the end of his career, he
doesn’t want to feel he could have
done more.
“I believe my potential is — I
still have to reach it,” he said. “...
At the end, what I’m looking for is
peace in my life. I don’t want to
live in a crazy chaos life. I want
peace. I want to be at peace with
who I am.”Porzingis is eager to find peace with the WizardsJONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST
Kristaps Porzingis, center, racked up a season-high 35 points — and plenty of smiles on the bench — in Wednesday’s win over the Magic.WIZARDS’ NEXT THREEvs. Dallas MavericksToday7NBCSWat Boston CelticsSunday1NBCSWat Minnesota TimberwolvesTuesday8NBCSWRadio: WTEM (980 AM)