Lance Pugmire

LOS ANGELES -- Jon Jones, the Ultimate Fighting Championship's youngest-ever champion, will defend his light-heavyweight belt for the third time Saturday in Atlanta against his former training partner and ex-UFC champion Rashad Evans.

Reggie Miller will be a TNT analyst alongside Marv Albert and Steve Kerr for the NBA All-Star game Sunday in Orlando, Fla., with the network airing exclusive coverage of All-Star weekend starting Thursday.

The former UCLA star knows the scene well, having played in five All-Star games during a distinguished NBA career (1987-2005) spent exclusively with the Indiana Pacers.

Raised in Riverside, Calif., and currently residing in Los Angeles, Miller, 46, scored more than 25,000 points and made more than 2,500 three-point shots during a career that included several memorable playoff battles against the New York Knicks and a trip to the 2000 NBA Finals against the champion Lakers.

LOS ANGELES -- The boos started at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas right after the ring announcer read the scorecards and revealed that Manny Pacquiao had won a close majority decision over Juan Manuel Marquez.

The booing was understandable.

Before the crowd swells at Churchill Downs in Kentucky for the two-day Breeders' Cup starting Friday, horse racing's star trainer Bob Baffert stood all but alone in the rain-dampened stands at Santa Anita Park last week, barking at two of his workout riders through a walkie-talkie.

"You're going too . . . fast!" Baffert ordered. "Now you're slowing too much! Pick it up! Aww!"

LAS VEGAS -- Floyd Mayweather Jr. was back in his element, smiling for the cameras, trash-talking with his opponent, holding court with reporters and generally acting like a man who believes he is the best boxer of his generation.

In the days leading up to his title bout Saturday against World Boxing Council welterweight champion Victor Ortiz, Mayweather looked relaxed and sounded supremely confident -- as if he were preparing to deliver a tutorial to a younger, less experienced fighter who had no idea what he was really in for.

"It's different on this level," Mayweather said. "He's used to ballrooms. I'm used to fighting in front of 17,000.

LOS ANGELES -- Manny Pacquiao smiled at the question, as many boxers before him have, flexed his right biceps and grinned in delight.

"I still feel young and strong," Pacquiao proclaimed last week.

Birthday No. 33 comes for Pacquiao on Dec. 17.

LOS ANGELES -- Fabricio Werdum had his Buster Douglas moment, and he's confident the similarities stop there.

Last June, Werdum shocked the mixed martial arts world with his upset of previously unbeaten Fedor Emelianenko -- just as Douglas had done in boxing when he knocked out then-unbeaten heavyweight champion Mike Tyson in 1990.

What Douglas found -- and couldn't handle -- is that tomorrow comes.