BASKETBALL

Jacob Gilyard scored 28 points, Keon Johnson added 26, and the fifth-seeded Long Island Nets used a fourth-quarter surge to beat the top-seeded Osceola Magic, 120-112 in a G League Eastern Conference semifinal Friday night in Osceola, Florida.

The result means the Maine Celtics will host Long Island in the conference final at 7 p.m. Sunday at the Portland Expo.

Mac McClung, the two-time NBA All-Star slam dunk champion, led Osceola with 29 points, but the Magic were outscored 35-24 in the fourth quarter.

NBA: The league fined the Philadelphia 76ers $100,000 for violating injury reporting rules by initially listing Joel Embiid as out in a game he later played in.

Embiid returned from a 29-game absence after left knee surgery Tuesday night, leading the 76ers to a 109-105 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder. That came after the 76ers had listed him as being out in the initial injury report. He was upgraded to questionable by late afternoon.

Teams are required to list the status of a player whose participation may be affected by injury by 5 p.m. local time the day before a game, unless they are on a back-to-back. The injury report is then updated throughout the course of the day.

HOCKEY

ECHL: Xander Lamppa, Gabriel Chicoine, Sebastian Vidmar and Brooklyn Kalmikov scored in a four-goal first period, and the Maine Mariners solidified their hold on third place in the ECHL’s North Division with a 6-2 win over the Worcester Railers at Cross Insurance Arena.

Adam Mechura added a power-play goal early in the third period and Connor Doherty scored an empty-netter as Maine moved three points ahead of Worcester, Trois-Rivières and Reading.

FOOTBALL

NFL: Pro Bowl defensive end Derrick Brown is staying in Carolina.

Brown agreed to a four-year, $96 million extension that includes $63.1 million in guaranteed money, according to his agents Drew Rosenhaus, Jason Rosenhaus and Robert Bailey.

Brown, a first-round pick in 2000 out of Auburn, is coming off a year in which he set an NFL record for tackles by a defensive lineman with 103, breaking the mark of 98 set by Miami’s Christian Wilkins in 2022. Tackles became an official NFL stat in 1994.

• The Miami Dolphins are signing defensive tackle Teair Tart to a one-year deal to further bolster their defense, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press.

Tart started nine games for the Titans in 2023, with 21 tackles, eight tackles for loss and a sack before being waived in December. Houston then claimed him off waivers, and Tart had three tackles in two games with the Texans.

• The New York Giants re-signed linebacker Isaiah Simmons and free agent running back Dante Miller.

Simmons was acquired by the Giants from Arizona in a trade before the start of last season. He started 4 of 17 games and had 50 tackles, a sack, one forced fumble, one fumble recovery and an interception that he returned 54 yards for a touchdown in November at Washington.

Miller last played in 2022 at the University of South Carolina as a graduate transfer walk-on from Columbia University. He appeared in each of the first six games of the season for the Gamecocks, rushing six times for 38 yards.

TENNIS

CHARLESTON OPEN: Top-seeded Jessica Pegula saved four match points in a third-set tiebreaker and beat Victoria Azarenka 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7) to reach the semifinals in Charleston, South Carolina.

Pegula squandered four match points of her own, up 5-4 in the final set against Azarenka, a two-time Australian Open champion. But tied 7-7 in the tiebreaker, Azarenka missed wide with Pegula at the net, then pushed a service return long.

Pegula will play Daria Kasatkina on Saturday for a spot in the final. The 11th-ranked Kasatkina defeated Jaqueline Cristian 6-7 (4), 6-2, 6-3.

Danielle Collins, the Miami Open champion, won her 11th straight match with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Elise Mertens.

SOCCER

MLS: Lionel Messi is coming back to Inter Miami’s lineup, with the team saying his absence for a hamstring injury will end Saturday at home in an MLS match against the Colorado Rapids.

Messi has missed Inter Miami’s last four games, including one Wednesday when the club wasted a 1-0 lead and lost 2-1 to Mexico’s Monterrey in the first leg of a CONCACAF Champions Cup quarterfinal. Tensions boiled over after that physical game, with members of both teams – Messi included – involved in a postgame shouting match near the locker room area at Chase Stadium.

GOLF

LIV: Sergio Garcia decided to refurbish the putter he used 25 years ago when he was a rookie and played like it was 1999. He was bogey-free at Trump National Doral for a 5-under 67 to share the lead with Talor Gooch and Peter Uihlein in LIV Golf Miami in Doral, Florida.

Gooch had the lead until a bogey on his final hole, the par-4 second hole in the shotgun start. Uihlein dropped only one shot, at the par-4 18th, in his round of 67.

They led by one shot over a group that included Bubba Watson, a three-time runner-up on the Blue Monster course at Doral when it hosted a World Golf Championship event on the PGA Tour.

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