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Sports

How Warriors’ Jordan Poole, Nico Mannion fared in NBA return vs. Suns

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Fresh back from the G League bubble, Warriors Jordan Poole and Nico Mannion played some valuable minutes in Thursday’s 120-98 loss to the Phoenix Suns.

After toying with G League competition for weeks and leaving Orlando, Fla. as the second-leading scorer with 22.4 points per game, Poole scored an NBA career-high 26 points on 10-of-16 shooting in 26 minutes.

Before Poole left Golden State for the G League, Steve Kerr wished the second-year guard would be more aggressive. Poole scored 13 of his points in a second quarter that featured some nasty moves.

Poole also took over in the fourth quarter once the game was out of hand, taking seven shots in eight Warriors possessions at one point down the stretch.

Nico Mannion started his first NBA game in place of a resting Steph Curry and played 31 minutes. The rookie second-round pick scored nine points on 3-of-10 shooting, including 3-of-5 from 3-point range. Mannion dished out six assists, but he also had five turnovers.

Mannion clearly approached this contest with a pass-first mentality, while also showing some nice activity on defense by recording a steal and guarding Chris Paul. Mannion’s minutes will shrink drastically, but he performed well being thrust into a starting role on a night when the Warriors were without Curry, Draymond Green and Kelly Oubre Jr.

 

Don’t be surprised if Poole and Mannion push Brad Wanamaker for minutes in the second half of the season.

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Sports

Recap: Suns bust Lakers at Staples despite Devin Booker’s ejection, 114-104

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There was one decisive word to describe the atmosphere of this game: energy.

Energy, energy, energy – and both teams were diligent to ensure a losing plight didn’t come as a result of lack of effort.

Diving for loose balls, hard fouls, and ornery chatter were all ever-pertinent, and each unit pieced together a display that would epitomize an early Western Conference Playoff matchup.

And they could very well face off in a postseason series in these upcoming months.

The stars were aligned, although some (most notably Anthony Davis) were sidelined, tensions were high, and skills were on primetime as two titans squared off in one of this season’s most important matchups for both.

Lose, and the Lakers would surrender their second-seeded conference ranking.

And nothing could be more sweet for Phoenix than notching a victory against the defending champs.

Suns win, 114-104

1st Quarter

The breadth of each team’s high-volume scoring potency was brandished rapidly upon tip-off.

Jae Crowder splashed home a 3-ball to open scoring for the affair, and Mikal Bridges added a trey of his own to go up 6-0 early.

The Lakeshow stormed back though as Markieff Morris knocked down a step-back jay, and Lebron began unraveling his laundry list of deadly offensive moves to plant his stake in the scoring column.

Chippy gameplay and chirping mouths began to ensue shortly thereafter – a sentiment that wholly confirmed the importance both units had placed on this matchup heading into the All-Star break.

Monty Williams showed a clear desire to dominate down low, and opportunities for Deandre Ayton soared with Marc Gasol sidelined. Ayton ate heartily as Chris Paul fed him low post entry passes, and his early dominance became a glaring weak point for Frank Vogel and his defense.

Phoenix took a 24-15 advantage after Cam Johnson sprayed in a deep ball, holding steadfast to a decent cushion as they entered the break up 29-21.

2nd Quarter

Clearly unhappy with his team’s rocky start, Lebron James decided to take the bucket-getting matters into his own mitts.

The King unleashed a torrent of high-powered attacking drives and rim-running cuts as he exerted his reign on the inside block, thrusting his squad right back into contention.

Talen Horton-Tucker joined Lebron in his scoring governance, and capitalized on a few isolation chances to keep the Lakers in it.

They showed a feverish uptick in defensive intensity as well, and a few timely interceptions led to easy transition openings that allowed Lebron to flash the timeless springiness of his 36-year old legs. Their fortitude on that end ignited a 16-5 run that afforded them a 37-36 advantage.

CP3 showcased his passing wizardry on numerous half-court possessions as he strove to preserve the Suns’ early push, and his calm savviness allowed them to recapture a cozy margin as the quarter wound down.

Phoenix dished out 12 assists on 13 made baskets in an epic display of efficiency, and kickstarted their own 8-2 run, aided by Dario Saric and Cam Johnson that gave them a near 10-point edge.

A Mikal Bridges buzzer-beating 3 put Pheonix up 60-53 heading into halftime. They began the half with an open corner 3, and finished it out in chameleon-like fashion.

“Finished like they started,” in the words of commentator Jim Jackson.

Devin Booker had 15 points at the break, while Bridges finished the first half with 11. Phoenix shot 10/17 from beyond the arc.

Lebron scored 15 through the first two.

3rd Quarter

The Suns went right back to Ayton’s post arsenal at the second half’s inception.

And when he wasn’t receiving one-on-one on ball opportunities, he was the giddy recipient of lofty alley-op tosses from Devin Booker.

Phoenix continued to burn bright offensively as the Book-Ayton duo kicked up their production.

Book put the Suns up nine after converting a 3-point play on a crafty layup maneuver, which enveloped into four points after James was hit with a tech.

Their momentum was quickly siphoned from their grasp however, when an ensuing technical on Booker culminated in his ejection from the game. He received the infraction after a not-so-friendly reaction towards a call in which he added a little extra mustard on a pass to the referee.

The tossing was costly for Phoenix, who quickly surrendered their margin as LA blasted off on its own 7-0 run.

But Chris Paul is battle-tested – and it was here that he showed just how valuable his veteran presence is to this unit.

He was CCC – cool, calm and collected in the heat of the moment, and kept the Lakers at bay as he enkindled several scoring plays to bolster his team’s lead. Their pace of play hastened, but Paul is an efficiency-architect, and his work in creating avenues for points is unmatched.

Phoenix entered the fourth with a slim 86-83 advantage.

Ayton posted 17 through three.

4th Quarter

Phoenix is a unit that refuses to be out-worked. Their best scorer was gone. They’d received litanies of infractions for their testiness. And still, they would not be denied.

The Lakers may have had more talent at their disposal throughout the fourth, but the Suns unloaded a slew of big-time hustle plays that ultimately closed the door on LA’s furious comeback attempt.

Chris Paul knocked down a 28-footer to take a 93-85 lead, before Abdel Nader and Mikal Bridges swished consecutive jumpers.

Lebron and company kept their fire ablaze, cutting the Suns’ edge to just five before Bridges pulled off a magnificent feat of court awareness and foot dexterity: saving a wayward-headed airball in Jae Crowder’s direction, who was waiting under the rim for an easy deuce.

Several scoring contributions from Saric kept the Suns’ lead close to double-digits, and while Lebron sprayed home a couple deadeye 3-balls, his efforts were rendered futile by Phoenix’s stifling defense.

Mikal Bridges’ thunder-jam was an emphatic deathblow to any inklings of Laker life, and Phoenix was able to escape Stales Center with a 114-104 victory.

Lebron would finish with 38 points on 16-24 from the floor in the loss.

The Suns meanwhile, move to the second spot in the West.

Player of the Game

Mikal Bridges: 19 PTS, 6-10 FG, 3-6 3PT, 6 REB, 5 AST



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Sports

Suns blitz Bulls in 4th for a pull-away victory, 106-97

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The Phoenix Suns picked up some steam in the 4th quarter to give themselves the victory 106-97.

Frank Kaminski was able to make up for Dario Saric missing the game in helping to keep the game close, while the starting line-up behind Deandre Ayton for the Suns were able to come in and finish the job.

The Suns went on a 26-6 run in the fourth to flip the margin, similar to their 37-7 fourth quarter run a week ago over the Pelicans.

Suns are now 21-11 on the year, while the Bulls dropped to 15-17.

First Half

In the first four minutes to start the game, the Suns looked to get Ayton the ball early with a little snarl from veteran point guard Chris Paul. Touching the ball four of the first 11 possessions hopes to spark a little bit of a urgency from Ayton.

The turnovers from the Bulls in the early going gave the Suns chances to build on a lead mounting to a total of four in the first quarter.

Mr. First Quarter himself, Devin Booker, continued the trend of leading the Suns in great shot attempts and points shooting 5-11 from the field with 10 points.

Mikal Bridges did what he did best in getting to the rim ending the quarter with five points. With the absence of Saric, coach Monty Williams will be looking for that contributor off the bench early.

Cleaning up on the mistakes the Bulls were able to tie the game at the at 26 each after the Suns were able to jump out to a 11 point lead.

It became the Thaddeus Young vs. Frank Kaminski game early in the second quarter, as they were exchanging blow for blow. Sounds like a boring matchup, but the passion to score on each other might show that they have a history of some sort together? They must of shared a girlfriend at one time maybe. Both would reach the bench at the eight minute mark in the second with Frank at six points and Young with eight.

Still continuing to struggle from beyond the arc, the Suns started the game 1-8 and the Bull 3-13.

To close out the first half, the Bulls went on a 9-0 run taking their lead to 42-48. After a Suns timeout, Paul and Booker were able to get to the line, something that you don’t see too often from the Suns. But unable to gain any traction on the Bulls after that, the Suns entered the tunnel at the half down 58-46.

Key half time Suns stats:

  • Suns gave up 30 points in the paint
  • ZERO turnovers
  • 10 points from the bench
  • 1-10 from 3
  • Out-rebounded 22-15 without giving up an offensive rebound

Second Half

Ayton was priority for the Suns to start the second half. Getting him the ball, leading to mostly nothing. That took the Suns offense in other directions. Getting to the free throw line from Booker and Bridges hitting a three to try and get the offense going.

Then, back to Ayton again. At the 7-minute mark in the 3rd quarter, the Suns were able to cut the lead to seven. Ayton was fed the ball over and over to get him to 14 points. When the mid-range game and the 3-point game isn’t flowing, the next action was to feed the inside.

The Suns were able to put together a 13-2 run, but the three-ball would not fall. The Bulls were able to knock down more than a couple threes to extend the lead to 12. That is Bulls mystery man- Luke Kornet nailing 3 of 3 from 3.

The bench including Abdel Nader and Frank were able to come in and string together a 11-0 run helping the Suns close the gap. A little more ball movement from the Suns and mistakes (including a Billy Donavan tech) by the Bulls defense added to the help.

Frank started the 4th quarter with his 13th point and a big block on the other end. The battle between Frank and Young had a taste for more blood. A jersey swap after the game might have taken place.

Ayton replaced Frank in the heat of battle and the Suns fed the big man. All the touches in the first half and the 3rd quarter led

The Suns to the led at the 6:14 mark in the 4th quarter with a Cam Johnson lay-in 89-87.

Even with the lack of respect from the refs again for Booker, the emotions were kept in check just enough to not get a technical. The focus on finishing out the Bulls on the defensive end and inside the paint completed the comeback as Ayton was fed and the shots began to fall in.

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Sports

Suns’ Devin Booker snubbed, Chris Paul named NBA All-Star reserve

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Chris Paul #3 of the Phoenix Suns talks with Devin Booker #1 during the second half of the NBA game against the New Orleans Pelicans at Phoenix Suns Arena on December 29, 2020 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

The Phoenix Suns will have an All-Star this season but there’s a good case they should have had two. While point guard Chris Paul was named to the Western Conference All-Star reserves on Tuesday, shooting guard Devin Booker was not.

The Athletic’s Shams Charania first reported the news.

For the second straight year, Booker was not named to the original list of All-Star reserves. He was an injury replacement for Portland’s Damian Lillard last year and could be in line for that spot again with injured Los Angeles Lakers forward Anthony Davis among the reserves.

His per-game numbers this season are down, but his efficiency is up. Booker is averaging 24.7 points, 4.3 assists and 3.5 rebounds per game while shooting a career-high 50% from the field. He’s also hitting 38% from three-point range.

Booker is coming on strong of late for the 20-10 Suns, who have won 12 of their last 14 heading into Tuesday. His monthly averages reflect his steady tune-up as the year has gone on, as he averaged 20.2 points in December, 24.3 in January and 26.8 points so far in February.

While coaches’ votes for the All-Star reserves were already due before Phoenix beat the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday night, Booker’s 34-point outburst in 29 minutes exemplified his impact on the team as it cruised to a second-straight 30-plus-point victory.

“There’s no doubt about it,” head coach Monty Williams said after the 132-100 win. “Nobody can debate Book’s not an All-Star. End of story.”

Paul, in his 16th NBA season, clinched his spot on the exhibition roster by ranking sixth in the league in assists per game (8.5), including a 19-assist performance against the Pelicans on Friday night.

Paul, who was acquired from the Oklahoma City Thunder via trade this offseason, is averaging 16.6 points, 8.5 assists and 4.5 rebounds per game while shooting 49% from the field and 40% from deep.

Paul has made 10 trips to the All-Star Game heading into this season. He made a yearly pilgrimage between 2008 and 2016 and appeared once again last season with Oklahoma City.

Paul will be joined on this year’s Western Conference All-Star roster by starting guards Stephen Curry and Luka Doncic, plus starting frontcourt players LeBron James, Nikola Jokic and Kawhi Leonard.

The NBA All-Star Game will be held at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena on Sunday, March 7.

Here are the Western Conference reserves reported by Charania:

Anthony Davis, Los Angeles Lakers

Paul George, Los Angeles Clippers

Rudy Gobert, Utah Jazz

Damian Lillard, Portland Trail Blazers

Donovan Mitchell, Utah Jazz

Chris Paul, Phoenix Suns

Zion Williamson, New Orleans Pelicans

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Science

Unprecedented Map of the Sun’s Magnetic Field Created by CLASP2 Space Experiment

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Artistic visualization of the Sun’s magnetic field in the active region observed by CLASP2. Credit: Gabriel Pérez Díaz, SMM (IAC)

Every day space telescopes provide spectacular images of the solar activity. However, their instruments are blind to its main driver: the magnetic field in the outer layers of the solar atmosphere, where the explosive events that occasionally affect the Earth occur. The extraordinary observations of the polarization of the Sun’s ultraviolet light achieved by the CLASP2 mission have made it possible to map the magnetic field throughout the entire solar atmosphere, from the photosphere until the base of the extremely hot corona. This investigation, published today in the journal Science Advances, has been carried out by the international team responsible for this suborbital experiment, which includes several scientists of the POLMAG group of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC).

The chromosphere is a very important region of the solar atmosphere spanning a few thousand kilometers between the relatively thin and cool photosphere (with temperatures of a few thousand degrees) and the hot and extended corona (with temperatures above a million degrees). Although the temperature of the chromosphere is about one hundred times lower than that of the corona, the chromosphere has a far higher density, and thus much more energy is required to sustain it. Moreover, the mechanical energy necessary to heat the corona needs to traverse the chromosphere, making it a crucial interface region for the solution of many of the key problems in solar and stellar physics. One of the current scientific challenges is to understand the origin of the violent activity of the solar atmosphere, which on some occasions perturb the Earth’s magnetosphere with serious consequences for our present technological world.

The red colored image, obtained with NASA’s SDO telescope, shows the active region simultaneously observed by CLASP2 and Hinode. The green lines on the left panels show the slit position of the CLASP2 spectropolarimeter. At each point on the slit, CLASP2 measured the wavelength variation of the intensity (upper right panel) and circular polarization (lower right panel) of various chromospheric lines of the solar ultraviolet spectrum. At the same time, the circular polarization of photospheric lines in the visible spectral range was measured by the space telescope Hinode. Such circular polarization signals arise from the magnetic fields present at different heights in the solar atmosphere and, from them, the researchers were able to determine how the magnetic field varies from the photosphere to the base of the corona. Credit: NAOJ, IAC, NASA/MSFC, IAS

“It is impossible to understand the solar atmosphere if we cannot determine the magnetic fields of the chromosphere, especially in its outer layers where the plasma temperature is of the order of ten thousand degrees and the magnetic forces dominate the structure and dynamics of the plasma,” says Javier Trujillo Bueno, CSIC Professor at the IAC and lead scientist of the POLMAG group of the IAC. The theoretical investigations carried out by this group, funded by an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council, indicated that this goal could be reached by observing the polarization that various physical mechanisms produce in the radiation emitted by neutral hydrogen and ionized magnesium atoms in the solar chromosphere.

Because the Earth’s atmosphere strongly absorbs the solar ultraviolet radiation, one must go to observe it at altitudes above 100 kilometers. An international consortium was established with this goal, led by the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA/MSFC), the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), the French Institute of Space Astrophysics (IAS) and the Spanish Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). This international team designed a series of space experiments that were selected through competitive calls within the Sounding Rocket Program of NASA. These space experiments are known as CLASP, the “Chromospheric Lyman-Alpha Spectro-Polarimeter” (CLASP1, launched on the 3rd of September 2015) and the “Chromospheric LAyer Spectro-Polarimeter” (CLASP2, launched on the 11th of April 2019). Both experiments were a great success, which NASA has acknowledged by granting the “Group Achievement Honor Award” to the international team.

Longitudinal component of the magnetic field (in gauss) at each point along the spatial direction indicated by the green line in the left panels of figure 1. The strongest and weakest magnetic fields are found in the photosphere (green curve), where there are strongly magnetized regions (up to 1250 gauss) separated by others that are weakly magnetized (10 gauss). This substantial variation in the magnetic field intensity when moving horizontally in the photosphere decreases at heights corresponding to the lower chromosphere (blue symbols) and is even smaller in the intermediate (black symbols) and outer (red symbols) layers of the chromosphere. These results confirm and prove that, in such active regions of the solar atmosphere, the lines of force of the magnetic field expand and fill the whole chromosphere before reaching the base of the corona. Credit: NAOJ, IAC, NASA/MSFC, IAS

The research paper recently published in the prestigious journal Science Advances is based on a small part of the unprecedented data acquired by CLASP2. The team analyzed the intensity and the circular polarization of the ultraviolet radiation emitted by an active region of the solar atmosphere in the spectral range containing the h & k lines of Mg II (ionized magnesium) around 2800 Å (see figure 1). Within this spectral region there are also two spectral lines produced by Mn I (neutral manganese) atoms.

The circular polarization observed by CLASP2 arises from a physical mechanism known as the Zeeman effect, through which the radiation emitted by atoms in the presence of a magnetic field is polarized. “The circular polarization signals of the magnesium (Mg II) lines are sensitive to the magnetic fields in the middle and outer regions of the solar chromosphere, whereas the circular polarization of the manganese (Mn I) lines responds to the magnetic fields in the deepest regions of the chromosphere,” explains Tanausú del Pino Alemán, one of the scientists of the POLMAG group and of the international team.

While CLASP2 was carrying out its observations, the Hinode space telescope was simultaneously pointing at the same active region on the solar disk. “This made it possible to obtain information about the magnetic field in the photosphere through the polarization observed in neutral iron (Fe I) spectral lines of the visible range of the spectrum,” notes Andrés Asensio Ramos, another IAC researcher who participated in the project. The team also made simultaneous observations with the IRIS space telescope, measuring the intensity of the ultraviolet radiation with higher spatial resolution (IRIS was not designed to measure polarization).

The team’s investigation, led by Dr. Ryohko Ishikawa (NAOJ) and Dr. Javier Trujillo Bueno (IAC), allowed to map for the first time the magnetic field in the active region observed by CLASP2 throughout its entire atmosphere, from the photosphere to the base of the corona (see figure 2). “This mapping of the magnetic field at various heights in the solar atmosphere is of great scientific interest, as it will help us decipher the magnetic coupling between the different regions of the solar atmosphere,” comments Ernest Alsina Ballester, a researcher of the international team who just joined the IAC after his first postdoc in Switzerland.

The achieved results confirm and prove that, in these regions of the solar atmosphere, the lines of force of the magnetic field expand and fill the whole chromosphere before reaching the base of the corona. Another important result of this investigation is that the magnetic field strength in the outer layers of the chromosphere is strongly correlated with the radiation intensity at the center of the magnesium lines and with the electron pressure in the same layers, revealing the magnetic origin of the heating in the outer regions of the solar atmosphere.

The CLASP1 and CLASP2 space experiments represent a milestone in astrophysics, providing the first observations of the relatively weak polarization signals produced by various physical mechanisms in spectral lines of the solar ultraviolet spectrum. Such observations have spectacularly confirmed previous theoretical predictions, thus validating the quantum theory of the generation and transfer of polarized radiation that these scientists apply in their investigations about the magnetic field in the solar chromosphere.

The international team has just received the good news that NASA has selected their recent proposal to carry out a new space experiment next year, which will allow them to map the magnetic field over larger regions of the solar disk. “Of course, systematic observations of the intensity and polarization of the solar ultraviolet radiation will require a space telescope equipped with instruments like the ones on CLASP, because the few minutes of observation time allowed by a suborbital flight experiment are not sufficient,” clarifies Javier Trujillo Bueno. The team is convinced that, thanks to what CLASP1 and CLASP2 have achieved, such space telescopes will soon become a reality and the physical interpretation of their spectropolarimetric observations will allow for a better understanding of the magnetic activity in the outer layers of the Sun and other stars.

Reference: “Mapping Solar Magnetic Fields from the Photosphere to the Base of the Corona” by Ryohko Ishikawa, Javier Trujillo Bueno, Tanausú del Pino Alemán, Takenori J. Okamoto, David E. McKenzie, Frédéric Auchère, Ryouhei Kano, Donguk Song, Masaki Yoshida, Laurel A. Rachmeler, Ken Kobayashi, Hirohisa Hara, Masahito Kubo, Noriyuki Narukage, Taro Sakao, Toshifumi Shimizu, Yoshinori Suematsu, Christian Bethge, Bart De Pontieu, Alberto Sainz Dalda, Genevieve D. Vigil, Amy Winebarger, Ernest Alsina Ballester, Luca Belluzzi, Jiri Stepan, Andrés Asensio Ramos, Mats Carlsson and Jorrit Leenaarts, 19 February 2021, Science Advances.
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abe8406

Principal Investigators of the CLASP2 space experiment:

  • David McKenzie (NASA/MSFC, USA)
  • Ryohko Ishikawa (NAOJ, Japan)
  • Frédéric Auchère (IAS, France)
  • Javier Trujillo Bueno (IAC, Spain)

IAC scientists participating in CLASP2:

  • Ernest Alsina Ballester (IAC)
  • Andrés Asensio Ramos (IAC)
  • Tanausú del Pino Alemán (IAC)
  • Javier Trujillo Bueno (IAC)

CLASP2 is an international collaboration led by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (USA), the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (Tokyo, Japan), the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC, Tenerife, Spain) and the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS, France). Additional members are the Istituto Ricerche Solari Locarno (Switzerland), the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory (USA), Stockholm University (Sweden) and the Rosseland Center for Solar Physics (Norway).

The IAC participation in CLASP2 receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Advanced Grant agreement No. 742265).



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Sports

New Orleans Pelicans’ ‘disastrous’ 4th quarter leads to historic collapse vs. Phoenix Suns

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12:50 AM ET

  • Andrew LopezESPN

NEW ORLEANS — For three quarters on Friday night, things were going the New Orleans Pelicans’ way against the Phoenix Suns.

The Pelicans carried an 11-point lead into the fourth quarter, and their offense was humming to the tune of 102 points in the first 36 minutes. But games are 48 minutes long. And the final 12 were certainly ones the Pelicans would like to soon forget.

The lead evaporated in four minutes. Then not even four minutes later, the Suns were up double digits. When the final horn sounded, the Suns joyously walked off the court with a 132-114 win, while the Pelicans headed to their locker room in a daze, trying to figure out what just transpired.

According to research by the Elias Sports Bureau, the 18-point defeat was the largest in the NBA in the shot-clock era (since 1954-55) for a team that entered the fourth quarter up double digits.

So what happened?

“I saw Chris Paul take control of the basketball game,” Pelicans forward Brandon Ingram said.

Paul finished with 15 points, 19 assists and was plus-28 in the fourth quarter — and he didn’t even play 10 minutes. The veteran point guard helped the Suns seize control and never looked back.

“Man is orchestrating out there. He knows what’s going on on the floor before it even happens,” Suns guard Devin Booker said. “With him, the game is never out of reach. The game is never over until the horn sounds. He did a good job of leading us, keeping our composure throughout the whole game.

“In that fourth quarter, it’s a work of art. The way he was picking apart their defense and making plays for others and at the same time scoring when he had to.”

Paul was seemingly three steps ahead of everything the Pelicans wanted to do in the fourth quarter. His falling 3-pointer over Pelicans guard Lonzo Ball with 4:41 left felt like the dagger to put New Orleans away. He ran back up the court with his teammates chasing him, as Pelicans coach Stan Van Gundy called a timeout to try to salvage something in the final minutes.

However, contrary to what social media suggested in the moment, Paul didn’t scream “I own this place.”

“I said I know this place, I know this place,” said Paul, who played in New Orleans for the first six seasons of his career. “I know it. I do. I spent some of the best years of my life was playing here in New Orleans.”

While the Suns were figuring out a way to come out with the victory, the Pelicans were left trying to figure out how they let the game slip away.

“Just being in the game, I think us not getting stops kind of demoralized on the offensive end,” Ball said. “Seeing them hit 3s back to back to back, we weren’t getting any ball movement or good shots over the course of the fourth quarter. It just got worse and worse.”

Aside from the barrage of 3-pointers Phoenix was sending New Orleans’ way, the Pelicans got sloppy with the basketball as well. After committing just seven turnovers in the first three quarters, the Pelicans coughed it up six times in the first six minutes, leading to 12 Phoenix points.

It’s a problem that has plagued New Orleans this season. With Friday’s loss, New Orleans falls to 12-9 this season in games in which they’ve had a double-digit lead. That’s the most losses after leading by double digits in the NBA this season, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.

“The thing is when chaos is going on, we gotta figure out how to settle down,” Ingram said. “We have to be able to adjust during the game.

“Whatever defensive scheme, whatever we wanna do on the offensive end to make our team the best team, that’s what we need to do. After these losses, it’s frustrating. We don’t have much to say. The coaches don’t have much to say. You just look at the film and try to be better tomorrow.”

Van Gundy said he doesn’t think his team’s issue is age.

“A lot of teams in this league have quarters like that,” Van Gundy said. “I’ll never throw the young card out there. We’re a basketball team with really talented people, and we didn’t get the job done in the fourth quarter.”

He did call it a “disastrous quarter,” though. And it was. The minus-29 point differential was the largest for the Pelicans in any quarter in franchise history.

“They were hitting us with haymakers at the end, then it just snowballed,” Van Gundy added.

Pelicans forward Zion Williamson said there’s only one way to handle a loss like this.

“Really, the thing for us is learn from it,” the 20-year-old said. “Honestly, I think that’s the best thing we can do. Learn from it.”

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Sports

James Harden leads shorthanded Nets to 24-point comeback in road win over Suns

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If you didn’t believe in the Brooklyn Nets entering Tuesday’s game against the Phoenix Suns, well, you weren’t exactly alone. The Suns were heavily favored at home against a Nets team missing both Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, and in the first 24 minutes of the game, that status appeared justified. Phoenix raced out to a 75-54 halftime lead, and at one point, led by as many as 24 points. The Nets, midway through a five-game road trip with games against the Lakers and Clippers upcoming, probably would have been justified in packing it in and calling it a night. 

But that’s not what happened. Behind a scorching hot shooting half and the individual brilliance of James Harden, Brooklyn pulled off one of the most impressive comebacks of the season and won, 128-124 to maintain their undefeated road trip and move into sole possession of the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference. 

The comeback began in earnest midway through the third quarter. With Phoenix leading by 20, a quick 7-0 run brought the Nets back within striking distance. The two sides traded blows for a bit before Harden led another 7-0 run that cut the lead down to single digits. The Suns pushed it back up to 12 to end the third, but with Harden on the bench, Joe Harris, Tyler Johnson and Landry Shamet led a ferocious fourth-quarter run that cut the lead down to two. That was all the help Harden needed. Despite some almost-heroics from Chris Paul, Harden scored nine huge points and assisted on three other buckets to secure the victory. His 3-pointer with 30 seconds left turned a one-point deficit into a permanent lead. 

The success or failure of the Harden trade will ultimately be determined in the postseason, but in a sense, this victory could be viewed as justification for the deal. While the Nets obviously plan to have all three stars available when it counts, them having three means having an extra lying around when injuries or circumstances force one or two of them off of the floor. The Nets, in theory, won’t have to play a single big minute without a superstar on the floor. As Harden showed on Tuesday, that in itself is often enough to steal a win. 

But perhaps more importantly, this was a win keyed by defense and depth, two things many assumed Brooklyn didn’t have. The Nets held Phoenix to only 49 second-half points, and a large chunk of the comeback came with Harden on the bench. To beat a team like Phoenix on the road under such circumstances is one of the most impressive feats of Brooklyn’s season, and franchise history. 

The Nets had never overcome a 21-point halftime deficit entering Tuesday. They have now. The 24-point lead is the biggest that Phoenix has ever blown. With as much shooting as Brooklyn has, the Nets are never out of a game, and Tuesday will serve as proof of that for the rest of the season. 

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Science

Viral image of sun’s surface is edited, not taken by NASA

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The White House offered its “full support” for the Space Force on Wednesday, one day after Press Secretary Jen Psaki provoked a backlash with seemingly dismissive comments about the Trump-era addition to the U.S. military. (Feb. 3)

AP Domestic

The claim: Image shows a clear picture of the sun’s surface

A viral image circulating on social media purports to show a clear close-up view of the face of the star at the center of the solar system.

“One of the most clear pictures of the sun’s surface,” reads a Feb. 7 Facebook post with over 10,000 shares and over 800 comments. The image was shared by the Facebook page Astronomy World, and it credits Jason Guenzel for the photo.

Other Facebook pages and users shared the same photo but attributed it to U.S. space agency NASA, like Amazing Physics, which posted the photo on Feb. 7 with this text: “The most clear picture of the sun surface published by NASA.”

“Take a breath cuz you’re looking at the most clear picture of the Sun’s surface. Credit: NASA,” wrote another user along with the image that was shared to the group Space Time. 

USA TODAY reached out to Astronomy World, Amazing Physics and the Facebook user for comment.

Fact check: Viral photo of star is an illustration and wasn’t taken by the Hubble telescope

Image taken by photographer, heavily processed

A reverse Google image search reveals the photo was taken by photographer Jason Guenzel, as claimed in one of the posts, not by NASA. 

Guenzel confirmed to USA TODAY he captured the image on Dec. 10 and shared it to his Twitter, Facebook and Instagram account in early January. He writes in his posts that it is a “heavily software-processed image.” 

“I shared it on social media in early January and somehow in the last week it was shared all over with the false NASA headline,” Guenzel said. “People have been claiming it’s fake and CGI so I have been very detailed in the steps I took.”

“This session on the Sun was marred by sub-par atmospheric conditions leaving a loss of contrast and detail,” Guenzel wrote along with the image on Facebook. “I took this opportunity to heavily process the resulting image into a stylized rendition of the visible surface of the sun.” 

Guenzel also noted that the images are captured in black and white by nature, so the image has been colorized. 

NASA’s heliophysics communications lead Karen C. Fox confirmed to USA TODAY via email that the photo is not a NASA image and that the photo is a ground-based H-alpha image that has been digitally enhanced to create an attractive artistic image. 

Fox said Guenzel’s original picture shows the chromosphere, low levels of the sun’s atmosphere. Photos of this same region captured by NASA’s IRIS spacecraft are available online. 

“Hydrogen plasma interacts strongly with the magnetic field of the sun, so I worked to enhance and display that aspect,” Guenzel said. 

Fact check: Hoodie ad doctored to create fake H&M product in meme

The closest image of the sun 

The closest pictures ever taken of the sun were captured by NASA’s Solar Orbiter Mission, an international collaboration between the European Space Agency and NASA to study the sun. 

Holly Gilbert, NASA project scientist for the mission at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in July that the “unprecedented pictures of the Sun are the closest we have ever obtained” and that the images will help scientists piece together the sun’s atmospheric layers. 

The close images of the sun show thousands of miniature solar flares, which scientists have dubbed “campfires.” The campfires may be mini-explosions known as nanoflares, tiny sparks to help heat the Sun’s outer atmosphere, according to NASA. 

Fact check:Images of Saturn, Jupiter are real, taken from Massachusetts telescope

Our ruling: Missing context

An image claiming to show a clear, close-up view of the sun’s surface is MISSING CONTEXT, based on our research. The photo is authentic, however, some posts are misleading as the original photographer has publicly stated that the image is heavily altered. A spokeswoman also confirmed that claims that the photo was captured by NASA are false.

Our fact-check sources: 

  • Jason Guenzel, Jan. 13, Tweet
  • Jason Guenzel, Jan. 12, Instagram post
  • Jason Guenzel, Jan. 12, Facebook post
  • Jason Guenzel statement to USA TODAY
  • Karen C. Fox statement to USA TODAY
  • NASA, July 16, ESA/NASA’s Solar Orbiter Returns First Data, Snaps Closest Pictures of the Sun
  • NASA, IRIS-Science
  • NASA, IRIS Image Gallery

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

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Sports

Phoenix Suns’ Chris Paul airs frustrations after team’s third straight loss

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After losing a third straight game to drop to 8-8 on the season, a frustrated Chris Paul put it bluntly about the current state of the Phoenix Suns: They have to play better.

“We’re not …” Paul started, pausing briefly, “playing well enough right now. I’m not going to say we’re not good enough, but we’re not playing well enough right now.”

The Suns fell 102-97 at home on Wednesday to Paul’s former team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, with the final three minutes going the wrong way for Phoenix. The Thunder finished on an 11-2 run, with the Suns missing their final six shots.

Paul, who led the Thunder to a surprising 5-seed last season behind brilliant clutch-time play, scored a season-high 32 points in 35 minutes against OKC. But two clean looks in the final 20 seconds didn’t fall, the first being a go-ahead midrange turnaround that spun out of the rim, and the second a potential tying straightaway 3 that caught all air.

The Suns have been without All-Star guard Devin Booker the past two games because of a sore hamstring. While the team has missed his scoring ability, coach Monty Williams refused to acknowledge that, or anything else, as an excuse.

“Until this team understands consistency for four quarters, we’re going to feel like this a lot,” Williams said. “We can try to get everybody to feel sorry for us. It ain’t going to work. We’ve got to be consistent. This is on us.”

Williams, clearly aggravated in his two-minute postgame availability, harped on Suns’ need for consistency.

“Down the stretch, we had an unbelievably poor finish,” he said. “We have open shots, missing shots under the basket. It’s just poor. Poor execution and poor finishing. That’s it.

“At some point, you just have to finish out games and understand what it takes to be a really good team is consistency,” Williams said. “Period. That’s the deal.”

Williams made it known if he was going to be asked any question from that point on, he would answer the same way: consistency.

“Whatever you ask me, I’m going to say ‘consistency,'” Williams said. “That’s it.”

The Suns led by 15 at the end of the first quarter. But with sloppy turnovers and stagnant offense, they scored only 10 points in the second quarter, prompting a 21-4 run by OKC to take the lead heading to the break.

As Paul tends to do, he calmly settled into the game, deferring early but asserting himself late. He scored 13 points in the fourth quarter to give the Suns a late lead, but defensive lapses and bad offensive possessions led to Phoenix collapsing.

“We play in spurts,” Paul said. “We’ve gotta respect who we’re playing against. Every night. Respect the opponent. They get paid just like we do.”

For Paul and the Suns, a promising start to the season has slipped in the past three weeks. The addition of Paul had appeared to help sustain the momentum they built with their undefeated bubble run, but a disruption to their season with a three-game break from health and safety protocols and then Booker’s injury has brought it to a halt.

The Suns have lost five of their past six games, with pretty much all the recent losses being close calls — back-to-back overtime games against the Denver Nuggets not going their way, a four-point loss to the Memphis Grizzlies and a five-point loss to OKC.

“I’m just trying to figure out how we can win,” Paul said. “Because the losing stuff gets old.”

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Science

“Against All Odds” –NASA’s Planet-Hunting Tess Discovers a Unique Star System with Six ‘Suns’ (Weekend Feature)

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“The system exists against the odds,” said Brian Powell, a data scientist at NASA’s High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center about the source of starlight that was mysteriously brightening and dimming some 1,900 light-years away. The source, named TIC 168789840, is a system of three pairs of binary stars: three different stellar couplets revolving around three different centers of mass, but with the trio remaining gravitationally bound to one another and circling the galactic center as a single star system.

“Just the fact that it exists blows my mind,” said first author, Powell. “I’d love to just be in a spaceship, park next to this thing and see it in person.”

Eclipses in the Lightcurves

The breadth of observation of TESS, encompasses nearly the entire sky, allowing for the identification of many candidate multiple star systems through the analysis of eclipses in the lightcurves. A collaboration between the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the MIT Kavli Institute, in conjunction with expert visual surveyors, has found well over 100 triple and quadruple star system candidates.

Most Systems are Quadruples

The large majority of the TESS discovered candidate triple and quadruple star systems are quadruples, followed by triples since it began searching the galaxy for exoplanets in 2018. But the source of starlight that was mysteriously brightening and dimming some 1,900 light-years away,” reports Robin George Andrews for the New York Times, “may top all those discoveries for its science fiction-like grandeur.”

“Though quadruple systems are much more rare than triple systems,” reports NASA, “the large outer orbit of the third star in a hierarchical triple, necessary for stability, substantially reduces the probability that the eclipse or occultation of the third star will be visually noticed in a TESS lightcurve. Beyond quadruple stars, the probability of systems with more stars being identified via photometry alone is remote, as the formation of sextuple systems is likely quite rare. This low probability is compounded by the requirement that each binary must be oriented in such a manner that they are all eclipsing.”

A Unique System

Although several of other six-star systems have been discovered, reports Andrews about NASA’s TESS discovery, this is the first in which the stars within each of those three pairings pass in front of and behind each other, eclipsing the other member of its stellar ballet, at least from the TESS space telescope’s view.

 

 

“These are the types of signals that algorithms really struggle with,” said lead author Veselin Kostov, a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at Goddard Space Flight Center working. “The human eye is extremely good at finding patterns in data, especially non-periodic patterns like those we see in transits from these systems.”

Although exoplanets within the star system have yet to be confirmed, only one of the pairs could have any planets. Two of the system’s binaries orbit extremely close to one another, forming their own quadruple subsystem. Any planets there would likely be ejected or engulfed by one of the four stars. The third binary is farther out, orbiting the other two once every 2,000 years or so, making it a possible exoplanetary haven.

Its Origin a Mystery

“The origin of this whirling six-star system will remain a puzzle until we find others like it,” concludes Andrews. “Just the fact that it exists blows my mind,” said first author, Powell. “I’d love to just be in a spaceship, park next to this thing and see it in person.”

In 2019, TESS discovered its TOI 1338 its first circumbinary planet, a world orbiting two stars, 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Pictor. The two stars orbit each other every 15 days. One is about 10% more massive than our Sun, while the other is cooler, dimmer and only one-third the Sun’s mass. TOI 1338 b, the only known planet in the system. It’s around 6.9 times larger than Earth, or between the sizes of Neptune and Saturn. The planet orbits in almost exactly the same plane as the stars, so it experiences regular stellar eclipses.

The Daily Galaxy, Jake Burba, via Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Arxiv.org PDF, and New York Times Science

Image Credit: NASA/MIT/TESS shows the spacecraft’s 13-sector mosaic of the southern sky, recorded over the course of a year. One object shown in the mosaic is a long, bright edge of our Milky Way galaxy.

 



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