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Clark to play at Iowa again
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever will be playing the Brazilian National Team this WNBA preseason at the University of Iowa.
The Fever announced the addition to their preseason schedule Thursday. The game on May 4 will allow Clark to play as a pro with her current team at Carver-Hawkeye Arena where she starred in college on her way to becoming the No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA last spring.
Indiana, scheduled to open the Fever's 25th WNBA season May 17 against Chicago, also has Damiris Dantas on the roster. She played in two Olympics for the Brazilian National Team, at the 2012 London Games and the 2016 Rio Games.
Iowa is retiring Clark's No. 22 on Sunday. Clark finished her college career last season as the all-time leading men's or women's scorer in NCAA Division I history and is widely regarded as a transformational figure in the women's game. The flair of her game and long-distance 3-point shots spawned a legion of fans adorned in her No. 22 jersey at games both home and away.
She then joined fellow All-Stars Kelsey Mitchell and Aliyah Boston in her WNBA debut, helping the Fever reach the playoffs for the 14th time in franchise history.
Cavaliers bounce Hawks
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Darius Garland scored 26 points and Evan Mobley had 16 points and 10 rebounds after both were named All-Star reserves, helping the NBA-leading Cleveland Cavaliers to a 137-115 win over the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday night.
Donovan Mitchell scored 24 points and Ty Jerome added 20 points off the bench for Cleveland (39-9), which has the best home record in the league at 23-3. Jarrett Allen had nine points and 15 rebounds.
Hawks rookie Zaccharie Risacher, the No. 1 overall draft pick, scored 30 points and De'Andre Hunter had 25 points and made all 12 of his free throws. Atlanta has lost a season-high seven straight.
Cleveland built a 29-point lead in beating the Hawks for the first time in three games this season. Atlanta won the first two meetings by a combined 27 points on Nov. 27 and Nov. 29.
Takeaways
Hawks: Point guard Trae Young, who is averaging 22.7 points and a league-high 11.4 assists, was not chosen as an All-Star. He missed 11 of 16 shots and finished with 15 points and 10 assists.
Cavaliers: All-Star starter Mitchell has been the driving force behind Cleveland's three-game winning streak that followed its initial three-game skid of the season, scoring 79 points in 88 minutes.
Tucker faces allegations
BALTIMORE (AP) -- The NFL will look into allegations that Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker behaved inappropriately toward massage therapists at four spas and wellness centers in the Baltimore area, a league spokesman said.
The Baltimore Banner detailed the accusations in a lengthy report Thursday. The paper said it spoke to six massage therapists who recounted firsthand experiences with Tucker from 2012 to 2016. Several therapists said they ended Tucker's sessions early or refused to work on him again, and managers from two spas said they banned him from returning.
"We first became aware of the allegations from the reporter investigating this story as they were not previously shared with the NFL," league spokesman Brian McCarthy said in a statement. "We take any allegation seriously and will look into the matter."
Tucker is accused of exposing his genitals, brushing two therapists with his exposed penis and leaving what they believed to be semen on the massage table after three treatments, according to the Banner.
Tucker posted a statement on social media calling the allegations about him in the Banner story "unequivocally false."
"In accusing me of misconduct, the article takes innocuous, or ambiguous, interactions and skews them so out of proportion they are no longer recognizable, and it presents vague insinuations as fact," he said.
Tucker, 35, just finished his 13th season in the NFL, all with the Ravens. He's achieved stardom both league-wide and among Baltimore fans in a way that's rare for a kicker, and his 66-yard field goal in 2021 remains the longest successful kick in league history.
In 2022, Tucker agreed to a four-year contract extension through the 2027 season. That deal included $17.5 million guaranteed.
"We are aware of the Baltimore Banner's story regarding Justin Tucker as well as his response," a Ravens spokesman said. "We take any allegations of this nature seriously and will continue to monitor the situation."
According to the Banner, a representative of the spa chain Ojas said Tucker was "immediately terminated as a client" in 2014 after "a massage therapist reported an incident that allegedly occurred during a massage therapy session with Justin Tucker." Owners of Studio 921, which is now closed, said through an attorney they "took immediate and decisive action to ban this individual from our business and services to ensure a safe environment for all."
In his response, Tucker said: "I have never received any complaints from a massage therapist, have never been dismissed from a massage therapy or bodywork session, and have never been told that I was not welcome at any spa or other place of business."
The allegations have some similarities to unrelated accusations made against another NFL player, quarterback Deshaun Watson. More than two dozen women accused Watson of sexual assault and harassment during massage therapy sessions while he played for Houston. After being traded to the Cleveland Browns, Watson missed the first 11 games of the 2022 season after an independent arbitrator determined that he had violated the league's personal conduct policy.