The Orlando Magic can put the finishing touches on their rebuild with two lottery picks in the 2023 NBA Draft. Which prospects should they target?The Orlando Magic built strong winning habits last season. While their record didn't always reflect it, the Magic were scrappy defenders who show...

England coach Sarina Wiegman says the Lionesses are under no illusions about what is expected of them these days, insisting England are ready to keep producing victories game after game. A stellar run over the past few years has seen the women’s national team win the European Championship and reach the Women’s World Cup final, where they lost to Spain. Now they are targeting success in the Uefa Nations League – and a place at the 2024 Paris Olympics too for Team GB – and face Belgium in their fourth Group A1 game. Wiegman says the squad are comfortable with the pressures on them, and believes they can improve on the 1-0 victory over the same opposition last week. “The expectations are very clear. Everyone expects us to win,” said Wiegman ahead of the game in Leuven. “We expect ourselves to win but we want to improve on our game. That makes the chances of winning higher. “I was happy with how we played Friday. We could have made it a little bit easier for ourselves, but how we were on the pitch, how we wanted to play out of possession and in possession, we did really well. “What we want to do in possession is be a little better in the final third. We create chances but the final pass, the final position and the execution, we want to do better. “What I really liked on Friday, there was so much energy in the team. You saw real intention. If we lost the ball, we really wanted to win it back. We had only one stage in the game [where] we dropped a little bit, then picked it up again. I want to see the same energy, intention of the whole team and the togetherness.” England are two points ahead of Belgium heading into the match and level with Netherlands, with Scotland bottom. Meanwhile, midfielder Georgia Stanway suggested the Ballon d’Or ceremony must be better planned in future to allow the top women to attend, given many are preparing for an international match on Monday night when the awards are dealt out. Regarding the upcoming match, she noted that England’s progression play was impressive, but more could be done in the final third to improve further. “The Belgium game we played the other day was a real show of who we are,” said Stanway. “We dominated possession and created a lot. But we didn’t get it over the line as many times as we wanted to. “After losing a [World Cup] final, it’s sometimes not motivating to turn up to training every day, but I think we hit the ground running. “Everybody has been firing in training. We have Fran Kirby back, which is also a real highlight. I love playing with her, so it’s important to have numbers all over the pitch.” Read More Fran Kirby felt like she’d never been away on return to England side England come out on top but it’s far from a complete performance against Belgium Mary Earps reveals difficulties with fan relationship with rise of women’s football England vs Belgium LIVE: Women’s Nations League latest updates Beth Mead ‘not close’ to England recall, Sarina Wiegman admits Fran Kirby returns to Lionesses squad as Sarina Wiegman reveals Beth Mead decision

Friday's roundup of transfer rumours includes news on Real Madrid's interest in Erling Haaland, Man Utd make contact with Lois Openda, Liverpool to battle Newcastle for Jarrod Bowen and more.

First, Chris Billam-Smith was raised aloft. As Shane McGuigan hauled his fighter’s hulking frame into the air, for the adoring mass of fans to see, the cruiserweight’s face vanished behind his gloves. Somewhere under the battered leather, his left eye – swollen half-shut – closed completely. So did the right, trying to trap the tears. Inevitably, the dam broke. The stream washed away his sweat, while his bawls were drowned out by the flood of noise around him. Then, the cruiserweight sank to his knees, all 6ft of him reduced to the stature of a boy who once dreamt of this very moment. Or rather, this meshing of moments. To a young Billam-Smith, fighting in front of a sold-out crowd at the home of his beloved AFC Bournemouth would have represented a dream fulfilled; so would winning a world title. Doing both on the same night? If that plays like a scene from a Hollywood blockbuster, then it is the kind of moment that one would deride for stretching our suspension of disbelief a fibre too far. Boxing is not Hollywood. Boxing does not provide fairytale endings. Boxing is unforgiving, and cruel. But if any boxer has earnt a mote of kindness from this sport, it is Billam-Smith. It was granted in the form of his decision win over former teammate Lawrence Okolie last month, but it should not be taken for granted. Nor could it have been when “112-112” was the first scorecard to boom over the PA at Dean Court. “I remember listening and thinking... like frowning,” Billam-Smith, 32, tells The Independent, with stitches still hovering over his left eye. “I wasn’t really listening to the [other] scores, but I just knew it was obviously a majority decision. If I had listened, I think I would have known [I’d won] because obviously one of them was a 107, and that couldn’t have been me because I had no points deducted and wasn’t knocked down or anything. Obviously I was just waiting for them to say ‘and new’. He said it, and a wave of emotion came over me. I was just thinking, ‘I’ve done it.’ I just couldn't believe it. It was such... it’s been such a long journey.” As Billam-Smith knelt in the ring, his face soaked in tears, his mother came to his mind. Dedicating his victory to her, Billam-Smith revealed in the ring that she is battling cancer. “Obviously at the moment, with my mum being unwell and stuff,” he tells The Independent, “for it to be all worth it and worth all the hard graft put in over the years, the years of not earning any money as an amateur and even early on as a pro – not earning a huge amount of money and scraping by at times... To finally to do it and achieve my ultimate dream of winning a world title at the stadium, it was just... You can’t really put it into words to be honest with you. “I had so many reasons to win; I had 15,000 people there that I couldn’t let down, my mum, my wife, my son. I was never going in there without giving it 100 per cent, because of all those reasons. And obviously for myself as well, with the growth through the years. Yeah, my mum obviously was a huge part of that as well.” So was Billam-Smith’s son, Frank, as he says. “Having to miss my son’s first birthday the day before the fight, that’s a completely different emotion. It’s weird; he has no idea what’s going on, doesn’t know that I missed his birthday – thankfully – to stand half-naked in front of loads of people at Bournemouth pier. You know, it’d be amazing for him to grow up and hopefully be proud of his dad.” These various factors, and the emotional weight loaded into each of them, had to be put aside for the sake of performance; so did the sense of occasion around fighting at Dean Court. “On the Friday, I went and sat in my old season-ticket seat and just looked at the set-up,” says Billam-Smith. “I was like, ‘This is crazy.’ The ring-walk rehearsal was very important for me to visualise how everything was going to be, so it wasn’t overwhelming and I wasn’t like, ‘Oh my God, this is actually happening.’ [During the actual ring walk], there’s a point where I sort of look around and just nod to myself. Like, I’m still very much in the zone and focused and staying calm, but I thought: ‘This is awesome.’ “[In the fight], I very much had blinkers on. All the visualisation helped. I was very calm in the ring and the whole time in the build-up, just thinking about those 12 rounds and how I was going to react – making sure I reacted logically to every situation.” Billam-Smith did just that, capping off an eclectic trilogy of fights across the last 11 months. First, there was his war with Isaac Chamberlain, which ended as a points victory in Billam-Smith’s favour, then his knockout-of-the-year candidate against Armend Xhoxhaj in December, before this often-bitty bout with Okolie. The 12 rounds against Okolie will not be what fans remember from this particular night, however. They will remember the aftermath – the stirring scenes of a dream being realised in real time. “Now it’s about creating another dream,” says Billam-Smith, looking ahead to the future. “You know, I’d love to fight in Las Vegas, but most importantly I need to secure my family’s future financially. And I’m not the finished article as a boxer. “In any sport I’ve ever played, I’ve always just wanted to give it 100 per cent and improve. That’s still the same me now.” Lorton Entertainment’s“STABLE”, a four-part documentary series covering Shane McGuigan’s work with his fighters, will be released this Autumn. Read More Leigh Wood and Chris Billam-Smith win world titles with victories over familiar foes How a unique night of action could lay groundwork for future super-fight ‘I could kill a guy and get away with it’: Teofimo Lopez is treading a disturbing path through boxing How unique night of action could lay groundwork for future super-fight Leigh Wood and Chris Billam-Smith win world titles with victories over familiar foes Boxxer’s Ben Shalom: ‘I sacrificed my twenties, I sacrificed absolutely everything’

Spencer Torkelson hit a tiebreaking solo home run in the seventh inning, Tarik Skubal worked seven solid innings and the Detroit Tigers ran their winning streak to four games with a 3-2 win over the Chicago White Sox

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Shohei Ohtani's decision to get surgery or not has been widely discussed in anticipation of his free agency this winter.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — James Outman hit a go-ahead grand slam in the seventh inning and the Los Angeles Dodgers rallied for a 7-3 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday.

All Blacks coach Ian Foster said it was a "great result" that Scott Barrett avoided a World Cup ban after being...

Burnley never miss when it comes to a signing announcement video, and this time, they've joined the Barbie hype to welcome Aston Villa's Aaron Ramsey. The clip takes the iconic 'Hi Barbie' scene from the film, before it cuts to the England under-20 star saying: "Hi Burnely...I mean Barbie...up the Clarets!" 'He's Kenough', the club captioned it on Twitter. While some people thought it was 'cringe', others demanded their social media team get a raise. Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Mauricio Pochettino confirms Chelsea are looking to sign a new striker before the transfer window closes.

Check out the best and worst NBA City Edition jerseys worn by the Lakers over the last few years.