NBA champion head coach Tyronn Lue remains focused on his future with the Los Angeles Clippers — not the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Clippers were eliminated from the NBA playoffs after the team lost 114-101 to the Dallas Mavericks May 3.

According to The Athletic, the Clippers plan to pursue a contract extension with Lue this offseason. After Friday’s loss, Lue was asked whether he expected to remain with the Clippers. 

“I hope so. … You know, I hope so. I didn’t come here to bounce around and go all over the place,” Lue, who turned 47 Friday, said.

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The coach also spoke about his strong relationship with Clippers ownership and the front office.

“Mr. Ballmer, Lawrence (Frank, president of basketball operations), Mark Hughes (assistant general manger), Trent (Redden, general manager), Gillian (Zucker, president of business operations) … they’ve all been great to me. This is where I want to be, and hopefully they feel the same way. I haven’t had a better experience since I’ve been here. Mr. Ballmer showed me a lot of different things that I wouldn’t be privy to if I wasn’t here.”

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Lue declined to directly address speculation the Lakers would target him in their search after firing Darvin Ham.

“I don’t really have a comment on that,” Lue said when asked about his name surfacing in the Lakers’ search. “It’s great to be wanted. That’s a really good feeling. Like I said, I want to be here. Hopefully, we’re able to solidify that.”

LA Clippers head coach Ty Lue in the first quarter against the Indiana Pacers at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis Dec. 31, 2022. (Trevor Ruszkowski/USA Today Sports)

Lue has two years remaining on his contract.

The Clippers were without star forward Kawhi Leonard in four of the six games against the Mavericks due to his right knee inflammation. He missed three of five games in a first-round loss to Phoenix last year.

“I give our guys credit for just sticking with it through all the ups and downs and all the negative scrutiny and all the things that they went through this season,” Lue said. “Having to go into a series again short-handed.”

Tyronn Lue of the LA Clippers during Game 2 of the first round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs against the Dallas Mavericks April 23, 2024, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. (Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)

Lue coached Cleveland to the 2016 NBA title with LeBron James, who left for the Lakers in free agency two years later. Lue was gone just six games — all losses — into the season after James’ departure from the Cavaliers.

Lue was an assistant on Doc Rivers’ staff with the Clippers before taking over when Rivers and the club mutually parted ways following the 2019-20 season. Rivers ended up in Philadelphia.

The Clippers reached the Western Conference finals in Lue’s first season and have a 184-134 record in the regular season under him.

“This was a good year,” Lue said. “Overall, I wouldn’t trade it for anything, outside the early ending. I like the guys in the locker room. They respect me. I respect them. I’m ready to move on to next season and get better.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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As much as it pained Kyle Snyder to see Tyler Glasnow traded from Tampa Bay to the Dodgers last December, the Rays pitching coach predicted the move would benefit the 6-foot-8 right-hander from Santa Clarita.

“I genuinely think his best days are in front of him,” Snyder said in February. “He’s healthy. The injury that surfaced in 2019 was ultimately taken care of [with Tommy John surgery] in 2021. I would expect him to have his best years in the near-term and be as good a starter as there is in the National League, for certain.”

Glasnow continues to prove his former coach right, the new Dodgers ace delivering his third straight dominant start — this one a seven-inning, two-run, five-hit, 10-strikeout, one-walk effort — to help lead the Dodgers to an 11-2 victory over the Atlanta Braves in front of 44,474 at Dodger Stadium on Saturday night.

Max Muncy provided most of the power in a 16-hit attack with his first career three-homer game — a two-run shot in the second inning and solo shots in the seventh and eighth innings — and the first by a Dodgers player since Trayce Thompson hit three homers against the Arizona Diamondbacks on April 1, 2023.

Glasnow’s third 10-whiff game in eight starts pushed the Dodgers toward their 10th win in 12 games, a stretch in which their starting pitchers have given up only 16 earned runs over 68 ⅔ innings for a 2.10 ERA.

Glasnow improved to 7-1 with a 2.70 ERA on the season and has given up only two earned runs and 14 hits in 21 innings, striking out 29 and walking four, in his last three starts — wins over the New York Mets, Toronto Blue Jays and Braves.

He threw 61 of his 96 pitches for strikes and induced 11 swinging strikes and 12 called strikes.

Glasnow retired the first nine batters — three by strikeout — in the first three innings, dotting a knee-high, 98-mph fastball on the inside corner to whiff Travis d’Arnaud looking to end the second and dropping an 85-mph curve on the inside corner to whiff Jarred Kelenic looking to end the third.

The Braves nicked Glasnow for a run in the fourth, but Glasnow struck out three of four batters in the fifth. He pitched around a Ronald Acuña Jr. leadoff double in the fifth, striking out No. 2 hitter Ozzie Albies with an 89-mph slider, Austin Riley with an 85-mph curve in the dirt and, after walking Matt Olson, Marcell Ozuna with an 85-mph curve.

Glasnow gave up his second run in the seventh when d’Arnaud led off with a double, took third on a groundout and scored on Orlando Arcia’s groundout.

The Dodgers hit two other homers in the game — by Shohei Ohtani and Andy Pages — and blew the game open during a four-run fourth inning in which they batted around.

Muncy followed Will Smith’s leadoff walk in the second with his sixth homer of the season, a two-run shot off Braves starter Bryce Elder that traveled 412 feet to center field for a 2-0 lead.

Ohtani led off the third with his eighth homer, a relatively modest — by his standards — 392-foot shot to right that pushed the lead to 3-0 and moved the slugger past manager Dave Roberts and into first place on the franchise leaderboard for homers by a Japanese-born player.

Roberts, a former Dodgers outfielder, hit seven homers for the club from 2002 to 2004.

The Braves cut the deficit to 3-1 in the top of the fourth when Acuña, doubled and scored on Riley’s RBI single to center.

Pages got that run back in the bottom of the fourth with a leadoff homer to left-center, giving the rookie outfielder four homers in 16 games since his mid-April promotion to the big leagues and extending his hitting streak to 10 games.

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The Dodgers were just getting warmed up. James Outman walked, Gavin Lux grounded into a fielder’s choice, and Mookie Betts walked to put two on for Ohtani, who slapped an opposite-field RBI single to left for a 5-1 lead.

Atlanta manager Brian Snitker replaced Elder with left-hander Dylan Lee, who yielded RBI singles to Freddie Freeman and Smith that extended the Dodgers’ lead to 7-1.

Muncy sparked a three-run seventh with a 404-foot leadoff homer to right off left-hander Tyler Matzek, his seventh of the season, and he sent his eighth homer of the season 371 feet to left-center off right-hander Jackson Stephens in the eighth.

Luis Arraez was traded to the San Diego Padres just minutes before he was supposed to lead off for the Miami Marlins.

But one of the prospects he was traded for learned of the news when he was actually playing.

Nathan Martorella entered Friday night as a prospect for the Padres, trying to make a name for himself with the San Antonio Missions, San Diego’s Double-A affiliate.

The trade seemingly came out of nowhere. There had been no rumblings of any move, and considering that Arrzez and Martorella were both in their respective lineups, they obviously didn’t know much was coming either. It’s also not like we’re near the July 31 trade deadline.

But one could tell that Martorella was extremely surprised.

In the top of the third inning, not exactly when a pinch-runner would be used, Martorella was taken out of the game while standing on second base, but he looked around and even pointed at himself to make sure it was he who was supposed to come off the field.

Martorella jogged off the field, still confused, but it seemed like he got word once he entered the dugout.

Nathan Martorella, #39 of the San Diego Padres, bats during the eighth inning of a spring training game against the Chicago White Sox at Camelback Ranch on February 28, 2024, in Glendale, Arizona.  (David Durochik/Diamond Images via Getty Images)

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He and another player, Jakob Marsee, then grabbed their gear and made their way to the other side of the field where the clubhouses were.

Marotella and another player hugged several players and coaches on the walk, and exited the field.

The prospects, along with two others, were sent to Miami for the two-time defending batting champion. Arraez hit an MLB-leading .354 last season during his first year with the Marlins, who acquired him from the Minnesota Twins after he won the American League batting title in 2022 with a .316 average.

The Venezuelan infielder boasted a .400 average into late June, a feat no one had accomplished since 2008. (Ted Williams remains the last player to hit .400 in a season, way back in 1941.)

Miami Marlins’ Luis Arraez (3) flips his bat after hitting the go-ahead run to win the game in the tenth inning of a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies, Sunday, July 23, 2023, in Miami. The Marlins defeated the Rockies 3-2.  (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

Arraez finished in eighth in NL MVP voting last year and 13th in the AL vote in 2022, earning a Silver Slugger Award at second base each season.

This season, so far, he is “only” hitting .299.

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