SPORTS LINE
The Milwaukee Bucks.
Entering the season, the Milwaukee Bucks had their strength and dream team ready. A combination of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Myles Turner, and Bobby Portis profiled as perhaps the best in the league. Unfortunately, Giannis has been hurt. And Turner has underwhelmed. Portis is what he is, and without the Greek Freak to compensate, he is more prone to being exposed on defense. In recent memory, the Milwaukee Bucks have struggled to find any real ball-handling spark off the bench. Post-trade deadline, an unexpected trio has emerged. Ryan Rollins, Kevin Porter Jr., and Cam Thomas put their collective powers on display by combining for 79 points Friday night in New Orleans. They have formed a fearsome hydra that not even Bucks fans, let alone opposing defenses, anticipated. Rollins is one of the best stories in the NBA, not just on Milwaukee’s roster.
Since a mid-January lull, Rollins has been even better lately. In six games this month, he is averaging 22.7 points and 5.7 assists on 52 percent shooting from distance. Against the Pelicans, he drained a career-high seven threes in route to a team-lead-tying 27 points. Kevin Porter Jr. is a similar case. He has taken an expected increase in production and thrust it full throttle, to the tune of leading the team in assists and steals per game. He’s also second in scoring average. If the Bucks keep both Rollins and Porter in the starting lineup, they don’t have another shot-creating guard, other than Thomas, off the bench. Other than Porter last season, in fact, the franchise hasn’t had any bench guard, at the point or otherwise, average double figures in the scoring column since Malcolm Brogdon in 2017-18.
We’ll see what Thomas does down the stretch, and whether he returns in free agency to give the Bucks a full season of fuel, but certainly there’s more intrigue and firepower in the second unit than this team has had lately. The
Winter Olympics.
The Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics have officially ended following the closing ceremony in northern Italy. It took place at Verona Olympic Arena, despite none of the sporting events happening in the city, which is 75 miles from Milan. Some 1,500 Olympians, a bit over half those who competed in the Games, paraded into the monument built in the first century for gladiator fights and exotic animal hunts. As Olympians filed into the arena, they waved small national flags to a rousing medley of Italian pop hits from the 20th century as the crowd sang along, taking their seats in the stone arena in places marked by green, red, and white lights for the Italian flag. After beginning with a tribute to classic Italian opera, flagbearers representing the 92 competing nations entered the stadium through large props from Aida and accompanied by a tribute to Italian film music. The final medals from Milan-Cortina 2026 were awarded in the women’s and men’s 50km mass start cross-country skiing events, before a tribute to the Games volunteers.
One of the key moments of the ceremony is when the Olympic flag is handed over to the next Winter Games host nation, France, and its flag is raised next to Italy’s and Greece’s. The 2030 Winter Games will be held in the French Alps, and the 2028 Summer Olympics will be hosted in Los Angeles. The United States fielded its biggest Winter Olympics team ever for the 2026 Milano Cortina Games, with 232 athletes competing, and broke the record for Team USA’s most gold medals at a single Winter Games. The U.S. was one of only two nations to compete in all 16 sports disciplines, along with host Italy.
