3 games in, Suns ax coach
Phoenix Suns have fired coach Earl Watson just three games into the NBA season. The Suns announced the firing Sunday night after hours of meetings at the team’s headquarters. Assistant coach Jay Triano, a former head coach of the Toronto Raptors, was named interim coach. Triano was an assistant at Portland before coming to Phoenix last year.
Watson was promoted from assistant to interim coach of the Suns after Jeff Hornacek was fired Feb. 1, 2016. The interim tag was removed on April 19 of that year. With an extremely young team, the Suns struggled under Watson. He compiled a 33-85 record. Watson’s only full season was 2016-17, when the team went 24-58.
The 38-year-old Watson played collegiately at UCLA and in the NBA for 10 seasons.
Phoenix is 0-3 and two of the losses were especially ugly. The Suns were blown out, 124-76, by Portland in their season opener Wednesday night, the most one-sided loss in franchise history and the most one-sided season opener for any NBA team. Phoenix was routed by the Clippers in Los Angeles, 130-88, on Saturday night.
“I’d like to see the fight be a little bit more,” Watson said after the loss to the Clippers. “Or a lot more, until you know they’re just fatigued.”
TRUEX WINS IN NASCAR
Martin Truex Jr. overcame two early mistakes to win a NASCAR playoff elimination race at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan. It was an emotional victory for his Furniture Row Racing team following the death of a crew member. Kurt Busch was second while playoff contenders Kyle Larson, Matt Kenseth, Jamie McMurray and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. were eliminated.
Truex was already assured of advancing to the round of eight after winning at Charlotte. But after starting on the pole, the season’s most dominant driver calmly overcame a restart violation and a loose tire early on to win for the seventh time this season.
Hours before the race, the Furniture Row team learned that fabricator Jim Watson had died Saturday night of a heart attack while in town for the playoff race. He was 55.
LANGER WINS IN CHAMPIONS
Bernhard Langer made a 15-foot eagle putt on the par-5 18th hole to overcome a mediocre round and win the Dominion Energy Charity Classic in Richmond, Va., by one shot in the first event in the PGA Tour Champions’ Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs.