MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Venus Williams watched the forehand sail into the net, the final shot of her loss to Francesca Jones of Britain at the Miami Open on Thursday afternoon.

Nobody seemed to know what to do next.

Jones, who wasn't even alive when Williams won her first two Grand Slam titles, raised her arms into the air to celebrate, then put them down after a few seconds. And on the way to the net, Jones saw Williams coming her way and did something not often seen after a match.

She bowed.

Such is the level of adoration that Jones — and surely plenty of others — have for Williams, who has been one of the biggest names in tennis for about three decades now. Williams broke into a big smile when Jones bowed, then offered a handshake, then a hug and even a quick word of encouragement. And Jones, oddly, was almost apologetic when her 7-5, 7-5 win was over.

“I've had a really rough year so far,” Jones said in the on-court interview following the match. “A lot of injuries and I'm still sick. I was coughing all the time. I was worried I was going to make a legend sick as well.”

She truly does think of Venus — and her sister Serena Williams — as legends.

Jones still has posters in her childhood bedroom of the sisters, wishing them good night before she goes off to sleep when she's there. She still remembers being taken by her father to Centre Court at Wimbledon as a 5-year-old so she could watch her heroes play.

“If it weren't for those two women, I'm not sure I would have made the step to do it. ... They're the reason that I'm here today,” Jones said.

When the match ended, fans slowly rose to their feet, first applauding Jones, then breaking into a full-on ovation as Williams — who was playing the Miami tournament for the 23rd time, while Jones is in it for the first time — gathered her things and walked off the grandstand court with a wave.

And, as is probably the case on some level every time Williams gets eliminated from the singles draw of a tournament these days, the question will hover in the tennis world: “How many more times will we see her play?”

Time will tell. There will be at least one more match in Miami Gardens; Williams is playing doubles in this tournament with Leylah Fernandez. The duo made a run to the U.S. Open quarterfinals last summer.

Carlos Alcaraz, the world's top-ranked men's player, said he hopes the Venus show keeps going for at least a little while longer.

“To be honest for us, the tennis world, someone like such an iconic player, such an iconic athlete, a legend from all the sport still playing, I think it’s great,” Alcaraz said, speaking while the Williams-Jones match was getting underway. “Thanks to her, I think she brought a lot of people to watch tennis, which is great. And I have a huge admiration for her. She’s still playing, still delivering great tennis, performing well.”

Williams, who got a wild-card spot into this field, has been part of the tournament at two different sites and with it having at least a half-dozen different names. She’s reached the Miami final in three different decades, winning titles in 1998, 1999 and 2001 and being the runner-up in 2010.

It’s a home tournament for Williams, which is surely part of the appeal. Her hometown is Palm Beach Gardens, about a 90-minute drive north of Hard Rock Stadium. And she’s still among the partners within the ownership group of the Miami Dolphins, who call the facility home.

For perspective:

— As Williams took the court, Moïse Kouamé of France was finishing off a three-set win over Zachary Svajda of the U.S. in a men’s first-round match. Kouamé, who became the youngest winner of a Masters 1000 match since Rafael Nadal did so in 2003, turned 17 earlier this month — meaning he’s nearly 29 years younger than Williams, who turns 46 in June.

— Only nine other women in the Miami field were born before Williams played her first pro match; her debut was as a 14-year-old in 1994.

“I don’t know how (much) longer we are going to watch Venus. Hopefully a couple more years, but we don’t know,” Alcaraz said. “All we have to do is just enjoy her matches as much as we could and let’s see. But I think it’s great for the sport, for tennis to see.”

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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis

Golden State coach Steve Kerr can do the math. He knows the Warriors are headed to the play-in tournament.

The Warriors have 13 games left in the regular season and their loss in Boston on Wednesday night — another game that Stephen Curry missed with a knee issue — left them 8 1/2 games out of sixth place and the final guaranteed playoff spot in the Western Conference.

That said, they're also 8 1/2 games ahead of 11th place. So, while it's still mathematically possible that the Warriors end up outside of play-in tournament range — that's for teams finishing seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th in each conference — Kerr knows that won't be the reality.

“What I’m most interested in right now is can we prepare ourselves for the play-in," Kerr said after Wednesday's 120-99 loss. "We're going to be in the play-in. We know that — one way or the other. So, we’ve got to prepare.”

The regular season ends April 12 and the top six finishers in each conference are guaranteed playoff spots. The teams that finish 11th through 15th in each conference are eliminated.

For the other clubs, that leaves the play-in tournament, which will run from April 14 through April 17. A very small version of it was played in the bubble in 2020, and the version the league uses now has been in use since 2021.

It works like this, in both conferences:

— The No. 7 seed plays host to the No. 8 seed in Round 1, while the No. 9 seed plays host to the No. 10 seed.

— The winner of the 7-8 game goes to the playoffs to face the No. 2 seed in Round 1.

— The loser of the 7-8 game plays host to the winner of the 9-10 game, for the chance to play the No. 1 seed in Round 1 and the final spot in each conference's playoff bracket. The loser of that game is eliminated.

— The loser of the 9-10 game is eliminated.

“We’ve had our eyes on (the No. 6 seed) for a while. And that’s out of the question now," Kerr said. “I mean, we’re not getting there. And so, if we can string together some wins, try to get to eight, that’d be ideal. Get two cracks at it. We’re not getting to seven. We know that.”

The Warriors have spent most of the season in that play-in range, holding down the No. 8 spot almost without interruption from mid-November into March. Their current slide — they've lost eight of their last 10 games — has seen them fall to No. 10 in the West race.

Curry is on the Warriors' current road trip and has been working out and getting shots up, his knee evidently feeling better than it did a week or two ago. The team plans to update his status on Saturday, ahead of its game in Atlanta that night.

That means it's possible Curry could play against the Hawks.

“He may or may not have already had a little contact,” Kerr said.

The Warriors aren't getting Jimmy Butler back this season; he tore his ACL in January. But they do expect Curry, Al Horford and Moses Moody — all have been sidelined with injuries — back, and Kerr wants Golden State ready to find its best stride when that happens.

“Over the last few weeks, I’ve been telling the guys we have to build our habits and be ready for when we get guys healthy again,” Kerr said. “Then we can really have the firepower that can be complemented by a foundation of good habits, good fundamentals. ... Being prepared for that time is everything for us.”

Current play-in teams

Entering Thursday, Phoenix, the Los Angeles Clippers, Portland and Golden State would be the West's play-in teams. And while nothing is locked up, it would seem mathematically likely that the Clippers and Trail Blazers have the same sort of thinking as the Warriors do right now — since their odds of getting to No. 6, or falling below No. 10, are quite slim.

Assuming Kerr is right and the Warriors go to the play-in, it'll be their third consecutive trip there and fourth overall. The Suns have never been there, the Clippers' lone appearance there was 2022 and Portland's only “play-in” appearance was 2020 — when it and Memphis were the only teams who went to that round in the bubble season.

In the East, entering Thursday, the play-in lineup would be Miami, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Charlotte — all well ahead of the teams in that 11th through 15th range, though getting to No. 6 (or even higher) in the East isn't outside the logical realm for any of those clubs yet.

The Hawks have been to the play-in round in four consecutive seasons. The Heat have been there in each of the last three seasons, while Charlotte's last appearance was 2022 and Philadelphia's was in 2024.

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

All-Star guard Cade Cunningham of the Eastern Conference-leading Detroit Pistons has a collapsed lung and is expected to miss at least two weeks and possibly more, a person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The exact timeline for a return to play is still unknown, the person said.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because those details were not released publicly.

The regular season ends in less than four weeks. The Pistons — who listed Cunningham as out for Thursday's game in Washington with a left back contusion — wouldn't start their playoff run until April 18 or 19.

ESPN first reported the details of the injury.

Cunningham got hurt in Tuesday's win over Washington, leaving midway through the opening quarter with what the team called back spasms. He dove for a loose ball and collided into Wizards guard Tre Johnson with 7:44 left in the first, then seemed to be laboring until he checked out 1:04 later.

Cunningham is averaging 24.5 points and 9.9 assists for the Pistons, who are on pace for their best season in nearly two decades.

Detroit entered Thursday 49-19, 3 1/2 games ahead of Boston for the top spot in the East with 14 games remaining. Cunningham has played in 61 games this season, so an extended absence could also mean he doesn't reach the 65-game threshold for eligibility for awards like the All-NBA team.

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Inter Miami's Lionel Messi got a milestone. And Nashville got a tie that felt like a win.

Messi got the 900th goal of his career, but Cristian Espinoza scored in the 74th minute to give Nashville a good-enough-to-advance 1-1 tie with Inter Miami in the second leg of their CONCACAF Champions Cup Round of 16 matchup on Wednesday night.

The teams tied both legs of the matchup, after a 0-0 game in Nashville started the series last week. Away goals were the tiebreaker, meaning Nashville will move onto the tournament's quarterfinals — denying the reigning MLS champions' bid for another trophy.

Espinoza scored on a wild play where he was in the right place at the right time.

Nashville's Alex Muyl took a shot that was blocked by a sliding Inter Miami defender Gonzalo Luján. The ball ricocheted off Luján and into the air, the topspin carrying it toward the goal mouth and Inter Miami goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair had to scramble to his feet in order to punch it away.

He didn't punch it far. St. Clair's momentum carried him into the net, where three other Inter Miami defenders also wound up, and Espinoza had an easy goal to pull the match even.

It was Inter Miami's first match at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale since last season's MLS Cup final — and, if all stays according to plan, it may be the club's last match in the facility as well. Messi's team doesn't play a home MLS match until April 4, when it is scheduled to open its new stadium near Miami International Airport.

And if this was the Fort Lauderdale finale, it wasn't a loss — but probably felt like one.

Messi, the Argentinian superstar, scored his 900th career goal in the seventh minute for a 1-0 lead. It was quintessential Messi, with him making something out of very little.

He was well-defended when he took the pass with his back to the net, about 12 yards from the goal mouth and with other players creating more traffic in front of the goal.

No problem.

He turned and his left foot sent the ball skittering across the wet grass on a rainy night in South Florida, actually getting it through the legs of Nashville defender Jeisson Palacios and past the left arm of diving goalkeeper Brian Schwake for the opening goal.

But Inter Miami didn't score again, and eventually Nashville broke through.

Nashville had a great chance to tie it in the 67th minute, when Hany Mukhtar — despite Inter Miami arguing that he was offside, and replays suggesting that the Herons had a case — got free in the middle of the field.

Mukhtar came in alone on St. Clair, but wound up missing the net. A few minutes later, that was all forgotten. Messi had one good chance in the four minutes of stoppage time, but the shot was blocked away and soon afterward Nashville was moving on.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Lionel Messi has reached another milestone, getting his 900th career goal in the opening minutes of Inter Miami's CONCACAF Champions Cup Round of 16 match against Nashville on Wednesday night.

The back-to-back Major League Soccer MVP, eight-time Ballon d'Or winner and World Cup champion got it as would be expected — with his left foot, like the majority of his career goals for club and country. He took a pass in the middle of the box in the seventh minute, controlled the ball, spun and lined a low shot past two defenders and into the far corner of the net.

Cristiano Ronaldo is the only other men's player with more than 900 goals. It took Ronaldo about 100 more matches to get to the milestone than Messi needed; Ronaldo was 39 when he got to 900 goals in September 2024, while Messi doesn't turn 39 until June.

Messi remains the game's most popular and most-followed player. His No. 10 Inter Miami jersey has been the best seller in the league since he arrived in MLS, and everything he does becomes major news in all corners of the soccer world.

This milestone joins countless other awards and accomplishments over Messi’s career, including eight Pichichi trophies as La Liga’s top scorer, six La Liga best player nods, three Best FIFA Men’s Player awards, three UEFA Men’s Player of the Year wins, two FIFA World Cup Golden Balls and no fewer than 15 selections as Argentina’s best player in a given year.

He’s also been part of winning 47 trophies for club and country — including the 2022 World Cup for Argentina and last season's MLS title with Inter Miami — making him the most decorated player the men’s game has ever seen.

“The reality,” Inter Miami coach Javier Mascherano said late last season, “is that Leo clears all doubts.”

More than half of Messi's goals came with Barcelona, the place he played for nearly two decades. He joined Inter Miami in 2023, was under contract through the end of last season originally and now has a new deal stretching into 2028.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer