The Sports Report: A dominant performance by Manny Pacquiao

Howdy everyone, and welcome to the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times daily sports newsletter. My name is Houston Mitchell and I’m your host for the festivities.

Let’s get to it. The weekends will have abbreviated versions of the newsletter as I try to avoid working too hard seven days a week. But, a new feature debuts in this newsletter.

Boxing

Manny Pacquiao dominated Adrien Broner, who seemed confused about what the word “boxing” means. He seemed to think the winner throws the fewest number of punches. Read all about it here.

Rams-Saints

Today’s the big day. Rams vs. the Saints in New Orleans for a Super Bowl berth against the winner of the other big game today, New England vs. the Chiefs in Kansas City.

The Rams vs. Saints start at noon Pacific and will be on Fox.

The Patriots-Chiefs game will be at 3:30 p.m. Pacific on CBS.

Let’s all meet up Monday in this newsletter to discuss the results.

You voted in our poll!

We asked you to vote in our poll to predict who will win each game, and 1,648 of you did. Here are the results

Who will win the Rams-Saints game?

Rams, 69.4%

Saints, 30.6%

Who will win the Patriots-Chiefs game?

Chiefs, 59.8%

Patriots, 40.2%

Lakers

The Lakers blew a 21-point lead against the Houston Rockets before losing in overtime, 138-134. The worst part though is they may have lost Lonzo Ball for a while due to an ankle injury.

Read all about it here.

UCLA vs. USC

In a season where much has gone wrong for both teams, USC’s men’s basketball team defeat UCLA, 80-67, to end a four-game losing streak against the Bruins.

Read all about it here.

Kings

The Kings gave up six goals in the second period of a 7-1 loss to Colorado.

Read all about it here.

Ducks

Troy Terry scored his first career goal to lead the Ducks past the New Jersey Devils, 3-2.

Read all about it here.

This date in sports history

1968: Houston ends UCLA’s 47-game basketball winning streak, 71-69.

1980: The Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Rams, 31-19, in Super Bowl XIV at the Rose Bowl.

1985: The San Francisco 49ers defeat the Miami Dolphins, 38-16 in Super Bowl XIX.

Notable birthdays

1964: NBA guard Ron Harper

1966: NFL quarterback Rich Gannon

1973: NBA player Jalen Rose

Notable deaths

1947: Negro League star and Hall of Fame catcher Josh Gibson, 35, of a brain tumor

1984: Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller at age 79, stroke.

1997: Baseball player Curt Flood, 59, throat cancer.

Ask a Times sportswriter

A new feature of this newsletter will be you, the loyal subscriber, being able to ask any Times sports reporter a question. Just click here to send me an email. Include in the email who you want to ask a question of and what your question is. I’ll pass it on and it will be answered in a future newsletter. Ever wanted to ask Bill Plaschke a question? Want to ask Tania Ganguli a question about the Lakers? Have a question for Sam Farmer about the NFL? Click here and ask away. But make sure you let me know which sportswriter you want answering the question.

And finally

That concludes the newsletter for today. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, please email me here. If you want to subscribe, click here.