The Toronto Raptors fired head coach Nick Nurse on Friday, a person with direct knowledge of the decision told USA TODAY Sports.

The person requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly until the team made an official announcement.

The Raptors were a disappointing 41-41. They made the play-in game tournament but lost to Chicago, missing the postseason with a roster fearing Pascal Siakam, O.G. Anunoby, Fred Van Vleet and Scottie Barnes.

Late in the season, Nurse, who coached the Raptors to the NBA championship in 2018-19, said he would take time in the offseason to re-evaluate whether he wanted to return.

STAY UP-TO-DATE: Subscribe to our Sports newsletter now!

Follow every game: Latest NBA Scores and Schedules

“I think I’m concentrated on this job, for sure, and this game,” Nurse told reporters in late March. “But I think that 10 years is a good time to sit back and reflect a little bit, right? I think we’re going to do that all when the season ends.”

He added: “I’m going to take a few weeks to see where I’m at, where’s my head at, just see how the relationship with the organization is.”

The Raptors front office, led by president Masai Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster, made the decision for him.

Toronto has financial decisions to make in the offseason with players up for free agency or contract extensions.

Nurse will be a candidate for other top coaching jobs if he wants to coach next season.

Nurse spent five years as an assistant for the Raptors before taking over for Dwane Casey in 2018. Nurse had an overall record of 227-163 in five seasons, making the playoffs three times.

He was named NBA Coach of the Year in 2019-20 when the Raptors finished 53-19.

When it comes to NFL draft night party food, Hendon Hooker might already be at the top.  

Hooker and his family are planning a draft party back home in North Carolina. Soul food is on the menu.

“The food is going to be spectacular because I picked the menu,” Hooker said to USA TODAY Sports in an interview through Six Star Pro Nutrition. “It’s gonna be some real down south cooking. We’re gonna have chicken, yams, greens, mac and cheese, cornbread, steaks and some regular cookout food there as well.”

Hooker began playing football at the age of four. Next week, he’ll reach a milestone in the sport when he’s selected by a team in the 2023 NFL draft.

NFL Draft Hub: Latest NFL Draft mock drafts, news, live picks, grades and analysis

Top QB draft prospect despite knee injury

The Tennessee quarterback is coming off a serious knee injury suffered in a game versus South Carolina on Nov. 19. Despite being injured during his final college season, Hooker was named SEC offensive player of the year.

Hooker revealed to USA TODAY Sports that his knee is about 75% and that he is expected to be fully cleared on Sept. 1. He’s traveled to and met with 11 teams through the draft process.

“I’ve met with all of them exclusively a lot through this process. Every team wants to continue to build a relationship with me. As I do as well,” Hooker said. “Don’t know where I’m gonna end up, but it’s cool through the process. I’ve seen every team that I went to go visit at least four times each.”

Hooker is projected as a possible first-round pick. He’s a consensus top five quarterback prospect along with Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson and Will Levis.

“We all play completely different from another,” Hooker said of the top five quarterbacks in the 2023 draft class. “Bryce is on the move and can make a lot of exciting plays with his arm and legs. He’s very cool to watch. C.J. has a very smooth throwing motion and can deliver the ball wherever he wants to. Will has a rocket of an arm and A.R. (Anthony Richard) is a freak athletie. We all bring different traits to the table and we all want to compete at a high level.”

Age ain’t nothing but a number

Hooker, 25, is the oldest among the five quarterbacks. He believes his age should be viewed as an asset.

“It’s a long-term position. Tom Brady just finished at 45. The age limit on quarterbacks, there is none. Especially when you can do all the things that quarterbacks are doing. I think my attributes are seeing a lot of different football situations,” Hooker said. “That gives me that edge and my maturity trying to lead men gives me an advantage as well.”

When asked where he ranks himself amongst the top quarterback prospects this year, he puts himself at No. 1.

“Of course, I would have myself at No. 1. I won’t give you a ranking, but I will say I give myself No. 1,” Hooker said. “My football IQ. How I’m able to process things at a high speed. My competitive nature and how accurate I am with the ball. I can make every level throw and also deadly in the run game as well.”

All five of the top quarterback draft prospects are expected to be off the board by the end of the second round. The top quarterback from this year’s class will eventually get settled on the gridiron. What’s already determined, though, is who is bound to have the best draft food. That answer is Hooker.

Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Tyler Dragon on Twitter @TheTylerDragon.

Giannis Antetokounmpo did some individual work on the court at the Sports Science Center on Friday afternoon before the Milwaukee Bucks departed for Miami, but the Most Valuable Player finalist did not practice in the team setting.

‘We’re just going to monitor him the rest of today, we’ll monitor him tomorrow and see where he is and together with him make decisions,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said.

Antetokounmpo suffered a lower back contusion following a fall in the Bucks’ Game 1 loss on April 16, and Budenholzer said Antetokounmpo is doing what he can to be available to play.

But, just because the Bucks rallied with an impressive victory without him in Game 2 doesn’t necessarily dictate how they’ll handle the superstar going forward in the series.

“I mean, I think the reality of it is when he’s ready, or anybody’s ready, that’s when they’re going to play,” Budenholzer said. “You can’t deny the playoffs and reality and human nature and things like that, but I don’t think your back or your body knows whether it’s December or the playoffs. You’re ready when you’re ready. We’re always going to protect him and think about his health, his future, his career. So, I think it’s part of this time of year.”

Follow every game: Latest NBA Scores and Schedules

Antetokounmpo was upgraded to questionable to play in Game 2, but Budenholzer allowed that was a function of giving the team the option of playing him. Had Antetokounmpo remained doubtful, Budenholzer suggested that option would have been tabled.

Wesley Matthews ruled out for Game 3 vs. Heat

The veteran wing strained his right calf in Game 1 and missed Game 2. Budenholzer ruled him out for Saturday’s third game but not for the rest of the series. A person with knowledge of the situation told the Journal Sentinel that there is hope the injury is not as severe as the strain that sidelined him for nine games from the end of February and into March.

SUNRISE, Fla. – Boston Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron did not accompany the team on their trip to Florida for Games 3 and 4 of an Eastern Conference first-round series with the Panthers.

He missed Game 1 due to illness and Game 2 to an unspecified upper-body injury. Game 3 is Friday evening.

“We believe Game 5 is likely,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said.

Bergeron was the Bruins’ third-leading scorer in the regular season with 27 goals and 31 assists for 58 points.

The 37-year-old forward got hurt in the first period of the regular-season finale in Montreal, and also missed four of eight games late in the season, with the Bruins having nothing left to play for. Bergeron returned for Boston’s last two games.

Follow every game: Latest NHL Scores and Schedules

“We wanted, I wanted and Bergy wanted the last two games to ramp up, to get into a rhythm for the playoffs,” Montgomery said. “Life happens. Unfortunately, tweaked something in that last game. Even with the hindsight, we would still do it exactly the same way. That’s how it’s easy to move forward when you have no regret with what you did, because it was a well-thought-out plan.”

The Bruins also said goaltender Linus Ullmark will be a game-time decision for Game 3 against the Panthers on Friday night. Ullmark led the NHL in wins (40), goals-against average (1.89) and save percentage (.938) during the regular season.

INDIANAPOLIS – The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel has approved rules changes that are expected to reduce the number of plays in football games, notably one that will keep the clock running when a team makes a first down except in the last two minutes of a half.

The panel on Thursday approved recommendations forwarded last month by the Football Rules Committee. Since 1968, the clock had stopped on a first down until the referee gave the ready-for-play signal.

The new clock rule affects only Divisions I and II. The Division III Management Council requested the proposal be referred back to the Football Rules Committee due to opposition within its division.

Two other changes were approved. Penalties accepted at the end of the first and third quarters will now be enforced at the start of the following quarter rather than having an untimed down. Also, back-to-back timeouts during the same dead-ball period are no longer allowed.

Steve Shaw, NCAA secretary-rules editor and national coordinator of officials, said the rules committee took a conservative approach to begin the process of shortening games.

With the College Football Playoff expanding from four to 12 teams in 2024-25, and possibly more in the future, conference commissioners had asked the committee to look for ways to cut down on the number of plays in games in an attempt to mitigate potential injury exposures.

Shaw said the new clock rule on first downs would take about eight plays out of the game, which would be about 96 fewer exposures over a regular season and more for teams that play in bowls and the playoff.

PHOENIX — The music blared in the visiting clubhouse Thursday evening and vibrancy filled the air as the San Diego Padres laughed, joked  and teased one another.

For the first time in 564 days, El Niño was back, and, man, can he light up a clubhouse.

It was hardly a spectacular debut, with Fernando Tatis Jr. going 0-for-5, striking out twice, missing a cutoff man and taking one wrong route, but he did make a fabulous running catch.

Still, it was hardly a coincidence the Padres’ offense finally woke up in their 7-5 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on the night of Tatis’ return.

The Padres fed off his energy – scoring more than twice as many runs in the first four innings (five) than their combined total in their previous four games – and finally looked like the lethal offense everyone envisioned.

Follow every game: Latest MLB Scores and Schedules

‘Today felt like opening day for all of us,’ said veteran Matt Carpenter, who homered in the fourth inning. ‘It’s just his name. His presence. He’s just such a big personality, and obviously a generational talent. You see how the crowd reacted, he just brings a whole other level of excitement.

‘It will be fun to watch going forward.’

STAY UP-TO-DATE: Subscribe to our Sports newsletter now!

That energy rubbed off on everyone, with the clubhouse buzzing about 42-year-old Nelson Cruz scoring from first base on Trent Grisham’s double in the sixth inning.

‘What did people think, that I was 80 years old? Come on,’ Cruz said.

Tatis’ return creates a Mount Rushmore top-of-the-batting order with Tatis, Juan Soto, Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts.

Padres manager Bob Melvin was so excited about writing Tatis’ name atop the lineup card that he immediately sent a text to Tatis: ‘You’ve got the green light. You’re leading off.’

‘I’ve been waiting for Fernando to get in the lineup since I’ve gotten here,’ said Melvin, who arrived in 2021. ‘It’s exciting for me, too.’

‘Great to be back’

Tatis, wearing Padres-colored brown-and-gold pants leaving the clubhouse, couldn’t hide his joy and enthusiasm before the game, during the game, and even afterward.

It was the happiest he’s ever been taking an 0-for-5 at the plate.

‘It was great being back out there with the boys, in the jungle,’ Tatis said. ‘The jungle is real. Just happy to get that ‘W’ and be back out there. I embraced the moment. I embraced the fans. I embraced everything. Just happy. …

‘Just getting back on the field I feel like that was just the full highlight of the day for me. Remembering everything I went through, every single process, every single surgery, every moment at night, when I wake up just thinking where I was going to be next in my life.

‘It was just a moment to embrace.’

Tatis’ presence, playing a major-league game for the first time since Oct. 3, 2021, was electric, and polarizing, too.

He was cheered when he walked to the plate for the first time.

He also was booed, with some fans chanting ‘cheater,’ causing one altercation in the stands with D-backs fans and a Padres fan wearing a Tatis jersey.

There will be plenty of days like this throughout the season on the road, and certainly, there will be much more hostile environments than Phoenix where there were just as many Padres fans as D-backs fans at Chase Field.

‘That’s going to come,’ Tatis said. ‘Everybody has freedom of expression in this country. Nothing I can do about it. I’m just going to keep playing this game and enjoy every part of it.’

Tatis heard some, well, interesting comments from the stands in right field, too, reminding him of his transgressions. But he heard praise, too.

‘A lot of good stuff, a lot of old stuff,’ Tatis said. ‘But it’s all part of it. I’ll keep rolling.’

A new beginning

Perhaps nothing Tatis can do will alter people’s image of him as a young star who used performance-enhancing drugs while trying to come back from a broken wrist, but he vows never to take the game for granted.

‘The feeling that I’m playing baseball again, it’s just at the top of the world. … It’s kind of like my debut in the big leagues,’ Tatis said. ‘It’s kind of those nerves again. I’m just happy to be here. Grateful for the chance.’

Certainly, the Padres could use him. There’s no way a team with this kind of talent (11 All-Stars), this kind of payroll ($249 million, third-largest in baseball), and this kind of commitment from ownership should be off to a 10-11 start.

The Padres don’t want any extra burden placed on Tatis’ shoulders. No one is saying they’ll go only as far as Tatis will take them. This is a team, after all, that advanced to the NLCS last year without Tatis taking a single at-bat.

Yet, having their $340 million man back, and feeling as healthy as he has since 2020, the Padres sure believe this is a World Series or bust team.

Maybe this is why owner Peter Seidler, president Erik Greupner, GM A.J. Preller and assistant GM Josh Stein, along with several of their scouts, were on hand.

Basketball Hall of Famer Ralph Sampson, wearing a Padres’ warmup jacket, was on hand too, and soaking in the clubhouse jubilation.

‘There were more Padres fans here than Arizona fans,’ Tatis said, laughing. ‘It was nice how they showed up. They were loud. It felt like we were at home.’

The Padres fans, with several thousand of the 16,734 on hand making the five-hour drive from San Diego, were raucous before the game started. Tatis was serenaded to a standing ovation taking batting practice. He then signed autographs and posed for pictures for several minutes, and then spent time reflecting on the past 18 months.

‘Just taking time to realize and just know how really blessed I am to play, to be able to play this game at the level I’ve been playing,’ Tatis said. ‘All the kids are watching. And the vibe they give me, that love they give me genuinely back, I feel like it feeds me every single time. I feel like I just want to keep doing it and see that generation of boys playing that way.’

A more mature Fernando Tatis Jr.

Tatis, 24, became one of the faces of baseball his first three years, but everything changed when he got into a motorcycle accident in December 2021. He underwent wrist surgery that sidelined him for the first four months of the 2022 season, and then missed the rest when he was suspended Aug. 12 for testing positive for Clostebol, a synthetic anabolic steroid. He underwent a second surgery on his left wrist, and also consented to have surgery to repair the torn labrum in his left shoulder.

‘Every situation you learn,’ Tatis said. ‘You see what you can take the best out of in it. I’m just more mature. Learned different stuff. Came from a really bad situation. I feel like I’ve overcome it with the right stuff.’

Said Melvin: ‘You do some soul-searching during those times, and you realize how lucky you are to be a big-league player. And when you come back from something like that, you get humbled a little bit and appreciative. He’s been nothing but easy to deal with, easy to manage in spring training, and doing anything he has to do to help his team win. I think all the guys feel that.’

This was a player who twice finished in the top four of the NL MVP voting in 2020 and 2021, won a home run title, two Silver Slugger awards and became the only player in baseball history with 80 homers and 50 stolen bases in his first 273 games. He had the third-highest OPS behind Mike Trout and Soto his first three years.

Can Tatis actually return to being that same player, if not better?

‘One hundred and ten percent,’ he said. ‘It’s just me playing baseball. It’s nothing different. It’s been the same way since Day Zero. It’s going to keep being the same way.’

If Tatis reverts to the player we last saw, who hit 42 homers, drove in 97 runs and stole 25 bases in 2021, look out because the Padres could be the badest dudes on the NL West block.

‘He’s just so good for this game,’ Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. ‘He’s a refreshing young athlete that plays with a love for the game. I’m a fan of his because of how he plays the game and has had the success he’s had.

‘You can see the impact on both sides of the field. He does some magical things.

‘I just wish he had waited three or four more days before coming back.’

Stay tuned.

The party is just getting started.

Follow Nightengale on Twitter: @Bnightengale

An incomplete list of things you apparently cannot do in America while Black:

There’s the classic one – driving. There’s ringing a doorbell while Black. Wearing a hoodie while Black. Being a kid and holding a toy gun. Trying to breathe while Black. Just being home. Just being home and a cop shoots you thinking she was instead in her apartment. Walk across your living room. Show a house as a real estate agent. Driving with a white grandma. Jogging while Black. Freaking bird watching.

Now there’s another one: celebrating while Black.

Members of two different running groups, both racially diverse, say they were singled out on Monday during the Boston Marathon. They said when other spectators (see: white people) cheered on runners by occasionally running onto the course, the action against them was minimal or non-existent.

But when members of these diverse running groups (see: including Black people), did the same, they were essentially overpoliced.

Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, the executive director for Lawyers for Civil Rights, told the Boston Globe he’d heard complaints from at least a dozen runners and spectators.

“Law enforcement may patrol any segment of the Marathon line, but a concentration in an area where Black runners and spectators have gathered peacefully strongly raises the specter of racial profiling,” he said.

He also explained one especially concerning aspect: it appeared cops at one point were physically on multiple sides of the group. (Add grouping while Black to the list.)

Aliese Lash, one of the leaders of the Pioneers Run Crew, said the reaction was different when members of her club went onto the course and cheered on runners.

“But there’s people along the entire course who do the same thing,” Lash said. “It’s so common for people to support their runners. But for some reason we do it and it’s not OK for us to do it.”

‘This year, we know that we did not deliver on our promise to make it a great day for everyone,’ Boston Athletic Association president and CEO Jack Fleming said Thursday in a statement. ‘We met with two groups last night, who the B.A.A. proudly supports in their running activities, their members and their mission — PIONEERS Run Crew and TrailblazHers Run Co. — two of Boston’s premier clubs for BIPOC runners.

‘They expressed to us their deep concerns that they were not given the chance to enjoy the day and celebrate their friends, families and all participants as they approached Heartbreak Hill — that is on us. It is our job, and we need to do better to create an environment that is welcoming and supportive of the BIPOC communities at the marathon.’

If you’re one of these people who will suddenly be a stickler for the rules and say people should follow them, well, yes, but that rule should apply to all, right?

The Boston Marathon has a history of ignoring the Black and brown community. That’s part of this troubling moment.

There’s also a larger story here. It’s the overreaction. The extreme police presence. Some of the other cases of (Insert Action Here) while being Black are more serious since Black people, like George Floyd, were killed in some of these instances, but examples like this one are still highly problematic.

That’s because they can lead to those other problematic moments. Harassing and over-policing is the gateway act to other horrors.

It gets tiring having to address these types of issues repeatedly, but we can’t ignore them. We have to stare them down. Unless staring while Black is now also against the rules.

Just recently rapper E-40 was ejected by the Sacramento Kings for what ESPN described as standing excessively. E-40 initially said, according to ESPN, there was a racial component to his ejection since a white friend he was with, also standing, wasn’t told to leave.

The two sides have since worked things out leading to a joint statement from E-40 and the Kings.

‘After a series of thoughtful and transparent conversations, both parties agree that there was a miscommunication regarding the circumstances that occurred during the Kings vs. Warriors game on Saturday night,’ the statement read in part.

So is standing while Black on the list or nah? Let’s take that one off for now as E-40 has reached a détente.

The list is long enough anyway.