Evan Mobley said his goal coming into the season with the Cleveland Cavaliers was to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award.

The Inland product from Rancho Christian High got it done.

The Cavs consider Mobley to be their best defensive player, and the league thought even more highly of him. Mobley held off fellow finalists Dyson Daniels of Atlanta and Draymond Green of Golden State for the award, the results being announced Thursday night in a broadcast on TNT.

Green won the award in 2017, was a top-three finisher for the fifth time, and was bidding to become the 11th player in NBA history to win it at least twice. Mobley won it for the first time, after finishing third in the voting in 2023. Daniels was a finalist for the first time.

Based on Daniels, Green and Mobley all being finalists, it’s reasonable to think that they will be on the All-Defensive team when it is released by the NBA later this spring. It would be the ninth All-Defensive selection for Green, the second for Mobley and the first for Daniels.

Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert won the award last season, his record-tying fourth DPOY trophy.

The award was voted on earlier this month by a global panel of 100 writers and broadcasters who cover the NBA.

NBA PLAYOFFS

Jalen Green made eight 3-pointers and scored 38 points to lead the Rockets over the Golden State Warriors 109-94 in a testy matchup Wednesday night in Houston to even the first-round Western Conference series at one game apiece.

The seventh-seeded Warriors never led and played short-handed for most of the game after Jimmy Butler left with a pelvis contusion after a hard fall on a foul late in the first quarter.

Stephen Curry had 20 points and nine assists for the Warriors and become the 11th player in NBA history to reach 4,000 career playoff points.

Celtics 109, Magic 100: Jaylen Brown had 36 points and 10 rebounds, Kristaps Porzingis returned to the game after getting a bloody gash to the forehead and finished with 20 points, as host Boston won Game 2 of the first-round playoff series.

The Celtics took a 2-0 series lead while playing without All-Star Jayson Tatum, who has a bone bruise in his right wrist and missed a playoff game for the first time in his career. He is listed as doubtful for tonight’s Game 3.

The Celtics made 12 3-pointers and went 25 of 33 from the free-throw line. Paolo Banchero had 32 points and nine rebounds for Orlando.

Cavaliers 121, Heat 112: Donovan Mitchell scored 30 points, including 17 in the fourth quarter, and host Cleveland held on Wednesday night for a 2-0 lead in their Eastern Conference first-round series.

The top-seeded Cavaliers set an NBA playoff record with 11 3-pointers in the second quarter and had 22 for the game. However, Cleveland had to hold off a second-half charge by Miami.

Tyler Herro scored 33 points for Miami, which hosts Game 3 on Saturday afternoon.

NHL PLAYOFFS

Connor McMichael and Dylan Strome scored a minute apart early in the second period, Logan Thompson made some spectacular stops among his 25 saves and the Washington Capitals beat the Montreal Canadiens 3-1 on Wednesday night in Game 2 to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven first-round series.

Stars 2, Avalanche 1, OT: Tyler Seguin scored at 5:31 of overtime after Dallas killed a late double-minor penalty, and the Stars beat Colorado in Denver in Game 3 for a 2-1 lead in the first-round series.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Flau’jae Johnson will return to LSU for her senior season, she told Front Office Sports late on Wednesday, putting to rest any doubts about her future.

There had been some speculation that Johnson would enter the transfer portal after she passed on the WNBA draft.

She even teased the possibility earlier this month on social media, instead announcing she would join rapper BossMan Dlow for four shows on his spring tour — an extension of her off-the-court career as a musical artist.

Johnson, named a third-team All-American by The Associated Press, averaged a career-high 18.6 points last season for the Tigers, who advanced to the Elite Eight of the women’s NCAA Tournament before falling to UCLA.

Nikki Blue is joining the staff of USC women’s basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb as an assistant.

Blue is making a quick pivot from the WNBA’s Sparks, who hired her as an assistant in January. She had been the interim head coach for the Phoenix Mercury over the final 28 games of the 2023 season after joining the franchise as an assistant in 2022.

TENNIS

This time, Iga Swiatek had the answers against teenage sensation Alexandra Eala.

After a quarterfinal loss to the rising star from the Philippines last month in Miami, Swiatek rallied to a 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory in the second round of the Madrid Open on Thursday.

The second-ranked Swiatek, who is the defending Madrid champion, is trying to reach her first final of the season.

Earlier Thursday, world No. 7 Mirra Andreeva, who will turn 18 on Tuesday, reached the third round by defeating Marie Bouzkova 6-3, 6-4, while Brazil’s Bia Haddad Maia rallied to beat Bernard Pera 2-6, 6-3, 6-1.

American Katie Volynets lost 6-1, 6-2 to Diana Shnaider, and countrywoman Emma Navarro won 7-5, 7-5 against Maya Joint.

Home-crowd favorite Carlos Alcaraz withdrew from the Madrid Open on Thursday because of muscle injuries, saying he didn’t want to risk making things worse before the French Open.

The third-ranked Spaniard blamed his injuries on the “really tight” schedule that is part of the “demanding sport” of tennis.

WOMEN’S HOCKEY

The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) selected Vancouver as its first expansion franchise as part of the six-team league’s objective to broaden its reach across North America. The addition of a second expansion team — with Seattle as a candidate — is on the horizon, PWHL executive Amy Scheer told the AP.