The San Antonio Spurs already have their next head coach.

Mitch Johnson, who served as San Antonio’s interim head coach for the majority of this season while Gregg Popovich recovered from a stroke sustained in November, was promoted to the full-time role, the Spurs announced Friday afternoon.

USA TODAY Sports reported the news earlier.

Terms of Johnson’s deal were not disclosed.

“I am truly grateful and honored to receive this incredible opportunity,” Johnson said Friday in a news release before thanking Popovich, Spurs chief executive officer R.C. Buford and team ownership. “I promise to give this responsibility everything I have to make Spurs fans proud.”

Johnson, 38, has served under Popovich since 2019, when he joined the Spurs staff as an assistant. Johnson had been considered one of the NBA’s top young assistant coaches before taking over the Spurs on an interim basis this season. The Spurs started the season with promise, but injuries to star phenom Victor Wembanyama and newly-acquired point guard De’Aaron Fox derailed San Antonio’s campaign.

In 77 games as the Spurs interim, Johnson was 32-45.

Johnson’s expeditious promotion also signals a desire to maintain relative continuity within the franchise during this transition, as Popovich and Buford have invested in Johnson’s continued development within the organization.

“We are thrilled for Mitch Johnson to be our next head coach,” Spurs managing partner Peter J. Holt said in a statement. “Throughout his decade in the organization we have seen that Mitch has the right values, poise and potential to lead us into the future.”

Johnson takes over a team that has a solid blend of youth and athleticism with some veteran presence. Wembanyama and Fox are the centerpieces of the team, though guard Stephon Castle, the No. 4 overall selection in the 2024 NBA draft, recently won the NBA Rookie of the Year award. That gave the Spurs consecutive winners of the award (Wembanyama won last year), marking only the second time it has happened over the past 50 years.

The move to promote Johnson comes after the Spurs announced that Popovich was stepping down as head coach and transitioning into the role of president of basketball operations. Popovich had spent most of the 2024-25 regular season away from the team, though he did address the team Feb. 27, informing players that he would not be returning to the sidelines for the remainder of the season.

On April 15, Popovich reportedly suffered a medical incident at a restaurant and was taken to a hospital. He was later discharged and returned home.

The 2024-25 regular season marked the third time Johnson stepped in as San Antonio’s interim coach. The first came in May 2021, when Popovich attended the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame induction of former Spurs great Tim Duncan; Johnson and San Antonio lost that game, 140-103 to the Suns.

The second time was in March 2023 when Popovich missed one game with a non-COVID-19 illness; Johnson earned his first career coaching victory then, 110-99, over the Pacers. Popovich returned the following game.

Previously, Johnson had coached with the organization’s G League affiliate, the Austin Spurs; from 2016 through 2019, he was an assistant under coaches Ken McDonald and Blake Ahearn.

Johnson played four seasons of Division I basketball at Stanford from 2005 through 2009, averaging 5.3 points, 4.1 assists and 3.0 rebounds per game. Johnson helped lead the Cardinal to a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances, including a run to the Sweet 16 in 2008. After his college playing career, Johnson had a brief stint in the G League with the Tulsa 66ers.

He is the son of NBA veteran John Johnson and he and wife Jessica have four children – Tasia, Tatum, Johnnie and Jameson. 

(This story will be updated.)

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Kimi Antonelli, the 18-year-old rookie driver for Mercedes, has made Formula One history at the 2025 Miami Grand Prix.

Antonelli, whose birthday is Aug. 25, 2006, won pole position for the Miami Grand Prix Sprint race, becoming the youngest pole sitter in any race format in Formula One history. 

Antonelli finished with a lap time of 1:26.482 during sprint qualifying, marking the fastest lap ever in four years of the Miami Grand Prix race. 

“It was a very tense qualifying. I felt really good since this morning and I felt confident going into qualifying. That was the mindset. I put basically everything together. … I’m really happy to get the first pole,” Antonelli said in a post-qualifying interview.

“Tomorrow’s gonna be nice to start (in) the front row. It’s gonna be a piece of a different ceiling. But I really gonna wait for tomorrow and to see how we can do in the Sprint and then in the qualifying, as well.”

Antonelli and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, the current points leader in the F1 Drivers’ standings with 99 points, will start on the front row. 

McLaren’s Lando Norris, the 2024 Miami GP winner, will start the Sprint race in third, ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who won the 2022 and 2023 Miami GPs. 

Mercedes’ George Russell will start fifth, while Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton will start from P6 and P7, respectively. 

Williams driver Alex Albon will start in P8, Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar is in P9, and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso rounds out the top 10. 

The Miami Grand Prix Sprint Race begins on May 3 at noon ET on ESPN, and qualifying for the Grand Prix will follow at 4 p.m. on ESPN. 

The Miami Grand Prix is at 4 p.m. ET on May 4 (ABC and ESPN). 

Popovich has spent 30-plus years with the franchise, including 28-plus consecutive seasons as head coach, and helped turn the Spurs into a model team that others tried to emulate.

Popovich has not coached a game since the Spurs beat Utah on Oct. 31. The Spurs later announced he suffered a stroke on Nov. 2, and the 76-year-old did not return to the sideline as the team finished with a 34-48 record under interim coach Mitch Johnson.

‘While my love and passion for the game remain, I’ve decided it’s time to step away as head coach,” Popovich said in a statement. “I’m forever grateful to the wonderful players, coaches, staff and fans who allowed me to serve them as the Spurs head coach and am excited for the opportunity to continue to support the organization, community and city that are so meaningful to me.”

Popovich spent 28-plus seasons with the Spurs as head coach, taking over for Bob Hill in 1996. The Spurs finished 17-47 and won the draft lottery. They selected Tim Duncan with the No. 1 overall pick, pairing him with David Robinson and setting a course for NBA titles in 1999, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2014.

The hallmark of Popovich’s championship-caliber teams included quality defense, crisp offense reliant on two of the game’s all-time great big men and supreme roster building, which included drafting Tony Parker with the No. 28 pick in the 2001 draft and Manu Ginobili with the 57th pick in the second round of the 1999 draft. Drafting Kawhi Leonard with the No. 15 pick in 2011 helped the Spurs to the title in 2014.

Popovich, who also served as the franchise’s president of basketball operations, earned NBA Coach of the Year three times (2003, 2012, 2014) and is one of five coaches to win at least five NBA championships. He was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in in 2023. His 1,422 regular season wins are the most in NBA history and he also coached the U.S. to a gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Born in East Chicago, Indiana in 1949, Popovich played basketball at Air Force and graduated with a degree in Soviet studies in 1970. In his senior season at Air Force, he averaged 14.3 points and was team captain. He served his five-year military commitment touring Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union, as a member of the U.S. Armed Forces basketball team.

Popovich returned to the Air Force in 1973, coaching Air Force Academy Prep School and then serving as an assistant coach for the Air Force. He became the head coach at Pomona-Pitzer College in 1979 and left for the NBA in 1988, joining Larry Brown’s Spurs staff as an assistant from 1988-1992 and then becoming an assistant for Don Nelson with the Golden State Warriors in 1992.

He was named the Spurs’ general manager and vice president of basketball operations in 1994.

He told reporters not to believe the chatter about possibilities he won’t be back, instead saying only he and general manager Julien BriseBois and team owners have the answer.

‘The talk should be whatever comes from Julien and I or ownership,’ Cooper, 57, said. ‘Tampa has been home for my kids, it’s all they really remember. For me it’s hard to see myself anywhere else.’

Cooper has led the Lightning since March 2013 and has a 572-306-83 (.638) record in the regular season, and the team intends for him to add to those numbers.

‘Coop will be back next year,’ BriseBois said.

His contract is believed to run through next season, with BriseBois saying he’d like Cooper to sign an extension.

Cooper is the longest-tenured coach in the NHL and won back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2020 and 2021. The Lightning have made the playoffs 11 times under Cooper, who has an 88-67 record (.568) in the postseason.

The Florida Panthers eliminated the Lightning in the first round of this season’s playoffs in five games.

Also Friday, BriseBois called it ‘unlikely’ that the Lightning will sign Isaac Howard, whom they selected No. 31 overall in 2022. He won the Hobey Baker Award as the best NCAA men’s player in Division I last month while playing forMichigan State.

Speaking last month on the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast, Howard said he didn’t see the Bolts in his future, making it sound like a foregone conclusion he’d play elsewhere.

‘I just feel like with me and Tampa, we didn’t see eye to eye the same way I thought we would,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t a situation where I was demanding to step right into the NHL, it wasn’t anything like that. It just didn’t necessarily work.’

He will become a free agent next year if he does not sign with Tampa Bay.

‘He values the opportunity to choose the club that he believes is the best fit for him,’ BriseBois said.

U.S. Olympic sprinter Fred Kerley was arrested for misdemeanor battery Thursday after allegedly striking a woman with a closed fist at a hotel ahead of this weekend’s Grand Slam Track event in Miami.

Kerley, the reigning Olympic bronze medalist in the men’s 100-meter dash, was booked into Broward County jail after allegedly encountering the woman, who told police she is Kerley’s ex-girlfriend, at the hotel. According to a police report obtained Friday by USA TODAY Sports, Kerley grew aggressive and stated that he was ‘going to (expletive) everyone up in here.’

‘(The woman) then advised that Kerley struck her one time in the facial area, causing her nose to bleed,’ the police report states.

USA TODAY Sports does not identify the victims of alleged acts of domestic violence without their permission.

Grand Slam Track confirmed in a statement that Kerley, who was scheduled to compete in the 100-meter dash on Saturday and the 200-meter dash on Sunday, would no longer compete at this weekend’s event and declined further comment.

Richard L. Cooper, an attorney for Kerley, told USA TODAY Sports in an email that he is ‘confident that the case lacks merit and will be dismissed in short order.’

‘Fred looks forward to going back to what he does best: Winning races and inspiring millions of young athletes,’ Cooper said.

Thursday’s arrest came about four months after Kerley was arrested for battery upon a law enforcement officer after a confrontation with police, during which the 29-year-old was wrestled to the ground, struck repeatedly and then subdued with a stun gun. Kerley was then also charged with domestic battery in an unrelated case from 2024. He has pleaded not guilty in both cases.

Kerley is one of the most well-known sprinters in the U.S. after winning Olympic medals in the 100-meter dash at each of the past two editions of the Summer Games. Originally a 400-meter runner, Kerley switched to the 100 ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, where he won a surprising silver. He then won the 100-meter world title in 2022, followed by Olympic bronze in the event at the Paris Games last summer.

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on social media @tomschad.bsky.social.

Sooner or later, this will all catch up to the New York Knicks. Unless they adjust. Now.

New York needed an 11-1 run and a Jalen Brunson game-winning 3 in the final minutes of Game 6 Thursday — nearly two weeks after it needed a 21-0 run in the fourth quarter of Game 1 — to close out the Detroit Pistons 116-113. Yet what should concern New York is that its other essential player, center Karl-Anthony Towns, was relegated to watching Brunson’s heroics from the bench, having fouled out.

The Knicks will face the No. 2 seed Boston Celtics, the defending NBA champions, a team with length and shooters all over the floor that will test New York in new ways. And it’s difficult to picture the Knicks pulling off the upset if this is the Towns they will get.

The Pistons exposed serious flaws in New York’s operation. For one, the Knicks lack depth and rely far too much on the starting unit. On Thursday night, the Pistons bench outscored New York’s by a margin of 31-6, and that tally in the series overall was 184-69.

That lack of depth, in turn, has made the minutes when Brunson is on the bench precarious. But even the minutes when Brunson returns to the floor have been spotty, with New York sometimes slow to recapture its rhythm.

This is precisely the time for Towns to take over, to ease the pressure to shorten Brunson’s minutes off the floor.

For another, the Knicks have had brutal stretches when turnovers and ball watching on offense degrade shot selection. Often, that has been coming out of halftime. Before Thursday, the Knicks had been outscored in each third quarter in the first round.

The Knicks, however, used Detroit’s aggressive tendencies against its own players; New York went at the Pistons coming out of halftime, baiting them into early foul trouble. By the eight-minute mark in the period, the Knicks were already in the bonus. In the third quarter alone, the Knicks attempted 16 free throws, making 11.

That slowed the game, preventing Detroit from breaking out into transition. The Knicks won the quarter, 37-24.

But in the fourth, New York reverted to sloppy play, committing four turnovers in the first six minutes. At stretches, the Knicks appeared tired, and the Pistons went on a 25-9 extended run to open a seven-point lead with 2:35 left.

Brunson, the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year, took over in the final minutes, scoring eight of the team’s last 11 points, including the game-winning crossover 3-pointer over Ausar Thompson.

That means that New York needed to come from behind in the fourth quarter in three of its four victories this series. It’s also worth noting that officials determined that a foul should’ve been called on Detroit’s attempt at a game-winning 3 in Game 4.

“It’s all about us staying poised and having our composure,” Brunson said of New York’s ability to come from behind. “Obviously we want to have it throughout the game but it’s most important at the end.”

This is also why the Knicks need a lot more out of Towns.

He finished with 10 points on 4-of-10 shooting Thursday, ranking fourth on the team in shot attempts. He was a force on the glass, collecting 15 rebounds. But Towns scored three points in the second half and attempted just four shots; Brunson, by comparison, put up 20 shots after intermission and scored half of his 40 points.

Towns is a supremely gifted 7-footer with elite range and spacing ability. He was instrumental in the fourth quarter of Game 4, hitting a pair of difficult shots to give New York the late lead.

Boston won’t be nearly as forgiving. The Celtics have their own stretch big in Kristaps Porziņģis, who can knock down 30-foot 3-pointers but also can protect the rim. Having Towns be effective from the perimeter will be crucial in keeping Porziņģis out of the paint.

“Every series is different, but we can learn from our experiences as we go on,” Brunson said. “We’re playing against the defending champs next time, so it’s going to be a lot different. Playing this team that we just played — I’m not discrediting them at all — but the Celtics have experience. Playing these guys, they were just physical. They brought the fight to us and we had to respond. And then we did.

“… You have to respect each opponent you play and then you have to go from there and make adjustments. Everything is going to be different.”

Game 1 is Monday in Boston.