Off the wire

BASKETBALL Rockets’ coach won’t return

Mike D’Antoni has told the Houston Rockets that he will not be back as coach with them next season, essentially choosing free agency over a return to the club with whom he has spent the last four seasons. D’Antoni told the Rockets on Sunday — not even a full day after the team’s season ended with a playoff loss to the Los Angeles Lakers — that he would seek coaching options elsewhere for next season and not return to Houston. Team owner Tilman Fertitta confirmed the move later Sunday. It was not totally unexpected; the Rockets and D’Antoni couldn’t agree on an extension last year, meaning he was coaching this season with no guarantee of his future in Houston. D’Antoni, 69, had already been mentioned as a potential candidate for vacancies in Indiana and Philadelphia.

HOCKEY Lightning grab 3-1 series lead

Blake Coleman tied it 15 seconds after the New York Islanders took the lead, Ondrej Palat scored the go-ahead goal 12 seconds later and the Tampa Bay Lightning moved within a victory of the Stanley Cup Final with a 4-1 victory Sunday in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Final in Edmonton, Alberta. Brayden Point added a goal in the third period in his return after missing Game 3 with injury. Point was visibly playing through pain after getting tangled up with Islanders defenseman Adam Pelech in the third period and missed the rest of the game, yet when he was on the ice he and the Lightning’s best players were a big reasons they took a 3-1 series lead. Tampa Bay put 36 shots on net, wore down New York

defenders and made opposing goaltender Semyon Varlamov work. Andrei Vasilevskiy, who has played every minute of every game this postseason made 26 saves to push the Lightning to the verge of their first Cup Final appearance since 2015. The “Triplets” line of Palat, Tyler Johnson and Nikita Kucherov got the Lightning to that final, and the first line this year of Palat, Point and Kucherov may be even better. The three combined on the third-period goal that provided some breathing room after a furious stretch of three quick goals in the second.

MOTOR SPORTS Hamilton wins Tuscan GP

Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton kept his cool amid the mayhem caused by an unpredictable circuit, winning a crash-marred Tuscan Grand Prix in Mugello, Italy, on Sunday for the 90th win of his incredible career. He is just one win behind Michael Schumacher’s record and inching closer to matching the German great’s record of seven F1 titles. The first F1 race on a Mugello track with super-fast corners usually used by MotoGP riders was incident-packed. Two crashes on the first seven laps saw six drivers go out, and a red flag suspended the race for the first time after the second one. A second red flag late on following Lance Stroll’s heavy crash meant another grid restart — on Lap 46 of 59 — and gave Valtteri Bottas another chance to beat race leader Hamilton if he made a strong start from second. Hamilton held firm and Bottas is now 55 points behind Hamilton in the title race.

GOLF Scheffler out of U.S. Open

Scottie Scheffler became the second player forced to withdraw from a major championship because of the coronavirus with a positive test result that knocks him out of the U.S. Open this week at Winged Foot. The USGA said Scheffler, the leading candidate as PGA Tour rookie of the year, was asymptomatic and at home in Dallas. Scheffler was replaced in the field by Branden Grace, who was the first alternate based on the Aug. 23 world ranking. Oddly enough, Grace had to withdraw from the PGA Championship last month when he tested positive for the virus.

BASEBALL Reds place Gray on IL

Pitcher Sonny Gray was placed on the 10-day injured list by the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday because a strain in the right side of his midback, a move retroactive to Friday. Gray allowed 5 runs, 6 hits and 3 walks over 31/3 innings at the Chicago Cubs on Thursday,. He is 5-3 with a 3.94 ERA in nine starts but has allowed 11 runs in his last two outings after giving up just nine earned runs in 412/3 innings over his first seven. Gray was an All-Star last year, going 11-9 with a 2.71 ERA in 31 starts in his first season with the Reds.