'Pattern' of problems seen in GM cars, but regulators declined to act

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators twice declined to investigate faulty ignition switches in General Motors Co. cars that led to 13 deaths — even though one official found "a pattern" of problems, according to a new congressional report.

The report, released Sunday, added fresh details to a controversy that has shaken the revitalized automaker.

Already under fire for lengthy delays in recalling the vehicles, GM also was accused in the report of allowing the defective part to be installed in millions of vehicles after testing showed it did not meet the company's own specifications.

The developments came in a 16-page report that summarized an investigation by the House Energy and Commerce Committee ahead of a high-profile hearing Tuesday.

"We now know the problems persisted over a decade, the red flags were many, and yet those responsible failed to connect the dots," said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the committee's chairman.

GM Chief Executive Mary Barra and David J. Friedman, the acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, are scheduled to testify Tuesday before the panel's Oversight and Investigations subcommittee about the reason for delays in recalling vehicles with the faulty ignition switch.

The defective switch caused vehicle engines to turn off, disabling the air bags. The part has been linked to a series of crashes and, by GM's latest disclosure Friday, at least 13 deaths in six models. The Detroit automaker has recalled more than 2.6 million vehicles globally.

"The revelation that NHTSA had teed up an investigation and deep-sixed it is very troubling," said Sean Kane, president of Safety Research & Strategies, an independent, for-profit safety research company.

NHTSA on Sunday defended its handling of the GM ignition switch problems.

"As we have stated previously, the agency reviewed data from a number of sources in 2007, but the data we had available at the time did not warrant a formal investigation," the agency said.

"Recent data presented by GM provides new information and evidence directly linking the ignition switch to the air bag non-deployment. That's why we are aggressively investigating the timing of GM's recall."

Meanwhile, a group of siblings and parents of 16 people who were killed or injured in crashes linked to the faulty switches have sent an open letter to Barra, seeking a meeting when she is in Washington.

"Now that the truth has come to light — with more head-shaking disclosures every day — you must do what's right," lawyer Bob Hilliard wrote on behalf of the families in a letter over the weekend.

"They need to hear from you, listen to your voice to know you are truly sorry and that you share in their grief and, to an extent at least, you understand their loss," he wrote.

Greg Martin, a GM spokesman, reiterated that company officials "deeply regret the circumstances that led to the recall" and would cooperate fully with NHTSA and Congress "to help get them a better understanding of the facts."

House investigators have received more than 235,000 pages of documents from GM and NHTSA as part of the investigation, and "they paint an unsettling picture," said Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), the subcommittee's chairman.

NHTSA and the Justice Department have opened investigations into why it took so long for GM to recall the vehicles. Documents filed with NHTSA indicate the company knew about the problem as early as 2001.

Kane said he wasn't surprised by the agency's failure to launch an investigation.

"NHTSA is very scattershot about what they decide to do and when they decide to do it, and they have resisted setting guidelines for when to decide to take enforcement actions," he said.

The chronology investigators put together demonstrated why the safety agency needs clearly established and transparent standards for launching probes and establishing recalls, he said.

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Lonnie White dies at 49; Times sportswriter, USC football player

Lonnie White, a former USC football player who worked for two decades as a Los Angeles Times sportswriter, has died. He was 49.

White, who had a number of health problems over the last several years, died Saturday at Glendale Memorial Hospital, his sister Terri said.

White worked for The Times from 1987 to 2008. He covered the Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Kings, the NFL, UCLA football, USC basketball, high school sports and was a general-assignment reporter.

His work was recognized several times in the Associated Press Sports Editors annual writing contest and he wrote the book "UCLA vs. USC: 75 years of the Greatest Rivalry in Sports."

"Lonnie was one of the truly good guys in our business, respected and liked by almost everyone who knew him professionally and personally," said Times sports editor Mike James, who worked with White throughout his career at the newspaper and edited his book. "This is a very sad day."

White was born in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 7, 1964, and grew up in New Jersey, where he starred in football and track and field at Asbury Park High School. His brother, Timothy, lettered at receiver at USC from 1980 to1982, and White also became a Trojan.

White, a quarterback in high school, played receiver and also was a special-teams player at USC from 1982 to 1986. As a senior, he caught 11 passes for 217 yards and scored a touchdown. He also amassed 716 yards in kick-off return yardage, a school season record that stood until 2010. He made the New Orleans Saints roster in the NFL's strike-shortened 1987 season before beginning his journalism career.

"It's a tremendous loss for the entire Trojan family," USC athletic department spokesman Tim Tessalone said. "Lonnie was always one of the favorite sons of USC, and we've always been very proud of his post-USC accomplishments.

"He had a tough go the last few years, but he was a true Trojan and fought on and battled through a lot of things."

Said Marcus Allen, the 1981 Heisman Trophy winner from USC: "Obviously he was a loyal Trojan, that's for sure, even though he'd be as objective as he possibly could as a writer. I thought he did a good job of walking that line.

"He had a job to do. He wasn't writing for the Trojans, he was a Trojan who was writing. I thought he did a good job of balancing that. It's just sad. It's terrible."

In 2010, White was the subject of a Discovery Health Channel television show that documented his long struggle with hidradenitis suppurativa, a painful skin disease.

In 2011, in a first-person story for a sports news website, White wrote that he accepted $14,000 in cash and benefits while a player at USC. He wrote that most of the money came from selling the four season tickets provided to every scholarship player.

"To this day, it's something I'm ashamed about," White wrote. "Rent was overdue, and my household bills were delinquent. I needed the money to live. So accepting the $14,000 in different forms of 'benefits' over my college years three decades ago was an act of survival."

White later told friends he wrote the piece to clear his conscience and to shed light on the hardships endured by college athletes, even those on scholarship.

In addition to his brother and sister, White is survived by his wife, Kimberly, from whom he was separated; and sister Zeline White-Howard.

gary.klein@latimes.com

Twitter: @latimesklein

Times staff writer Sam Farmer contributed to this report.

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Lakers' Chris Kaman gets teammates involved in his best game

Chris Kaman found time to joke about his best game with the Lakers. The rest of the season, excruciating at worst and challenging at best, melted behind him.

He had 28 points, 17 rebounds and six assists in an easy 115-99 victory Sunday over the Phoenix Suns.

"I actually thought I had 30 because my career high was 29 a bunch of times. That last play, Jodie [Meeks] was open so I threw it to him," Kaman said.

Had he shot it down low on that late fourth-quarter play, it probably would have gone in.

Kaman didn't mind on a night he made 13 of 19 shots.

"I just try to play the right way," he said, code for involving teammates almost as much as involving himself.

Kaman has had an uneasy relationship with Coach Mike D'Antoni, who benched him for 10 consecutive games in March.

Sometimes he's vocal about it. Sometimes he's not.

Just two days earlier, Kaman frowned when he played the first six minutes against Minnesota and was benched the rest of the way. D'Antoni said he wanted to play younger post players Robert Sacre and Ryan Kelly that night as the Timberwolves ran away from the Lakers.

To which Kaman replied, "Steve Nash is 40 years old… He stayed with him" in the game.

Kaman doesn't really fit into D'Antoni's push-the-pace mind-set, but the Lakers coach had only good things to say about him Sunday.

"Chris can do that. He's that talented. He came ready to play obviously," D'Antoni said.

Kaman, Kelly and Sacre played well Sunday in the absence of Pau Gasol, who sat out a fourth game because of vertigo.

It means D'Antoni might have to make a decision about playing time when Gasol returns.

"It's going to be tough. I'll try to figure that one out," D'Antoni said.

Still ailing

Gasol completed some cardio work Sunday morning but still looked "a little loopy," D'Antoni said.

Gasol hasn't played since feeling dizziness and nausea forced him to leave a game at halftime March 23.

He wasn't the only player to sit out Sunday's game.

Xavier Henry was sidelined a second time in the last week because pain in his right knee flared up. He missed more than two months this season because of a bone bruise and cartilage abnormality in the knee.

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

Twitter: @Mike_Bresnahan

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Anze Kopitar leads streaking Kings past Winnipeg, 4-2

Their hard-earned road mentality survived the flight home intact, making the trip back to Staples Center with the Kings.

That hasn't always been the case this season.

But the Kings chased one goalie (Ondrej Pavelec) and scored once on his replacement (Al Montoya) to defeat the Winnipeg Jets, 4-2, on Saturday night for their sixth straight victory.

Leading scorer Anze Kopitar scored twice for the Kings, his 23rd and 24th goals of the season, his linemate Marian Gaborik added two assists, as did defenseman Willie Mitchell for his first multi-point game in nearly two years. Trevor Lewis had his sixth goal of the season, a career high.

The Kings scored twice in the first eight minutes, took a 3-0 lead by the end of the first period.

That was followed by textbook defense in the second period — holding the Jets to four shots — and managed to survive some sloppy moments in the final 20 minutes as the Jets scored twice, once on a fluke-ish play and once on the power play.

"It's pretty easy to ease up," Kopitar said. "But this time of the year, you want to sharpen up as much as you can before the playoffs.

"Everybody is stressing that. Everybody is talking about it. In this room, we all know that's what is going to happen, what should happen. We kept on pressing. We gave up a couple but sometimes that's the way it goes."

Said Kings goalie Jonathan Quick: "We can get better, that's for sure. There's a lot we can improve on. We've been playing good hockey but we want to play better hockey."

The multitalented Quick, who recorded his 26th win of the season, made an incredible kick save in the waning seconds when the Jets had pulled their goalie for an extra attacker. He went sliding and was on his stomach and kicked his right leg behind him and somehow managed to keep the puck out.

Naturally, Quick was downplaying the highlight moment. So were his teammates but they hadn't all seen the highlight of the down-and-out spectacular reflex.

"Kind of a little scrum in front. I lost my footing a little bit," Quick said. "The puck went to the side and I can't remember who took the shot from the corner. I was just trying to get coverage and luckily it hit my skate. I don't know if it was going in. It might have been going wide."

Quick's bid for a sixth shutout this season ended early in the third period, at 1:54. Jets forward Evander Kane's centering pass out of the corner went off Quick's stick right to the stick of forward Matt Halischuk, who scored his fourth of the season.

That cut the Kings' lead to 3-1. But the Kings' response was swift as they restored their three-goal lead 3:05 later, via a nice transition play starting in the Kings' end when Mitchell blocked defenseman Jacob Trouba's shot.

Kings youngster Tyler Toffoli put on a burst of speed on the left wing and finished it off with a sharp wrist shot. Toffoli has points in four straight games.

All that was left was to try to get Kopitar the hat trick. He chuckled when asked whether he was upset about not getting the third goal. For the record, he wasn't.

"It was nice to get them out of the way quick," Kopitar said of his two goals. "I thought, as a team, the first period was pretty good. It turned out to be the key to the game, a good start.

"We had three fairly quick and we took it in pretty nicely the rest of the way."

lisa.dillman@latimes.com

Twitter: @reallisa

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Ducks go back to basics to beat Canucks, 5-1

VANCOUVER, Canada — First place in the Pacific Division became the Ducks' again Saturday night, when they returned to the brand of play that put them there in the first place.

"It's a goal" to win the division, said center Saku Koivu, one of five Ducks players who scored in a 5-1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena.

"We're more trying to pay attention to our game, the way we want to play, the way it has to be," Koivu said.

Ducks rookie goalie Frederik Andersen stopped 31 of 32 shots as Anaheim established a new team record for most road wins (23) in a season and tied the 2006-07 Stanley Cup champions' team mark for most victories (48).

Most important, by virtue of the San Jose Sharks' loss at Colorado, the Ducks (48-18-8) now hold a one-point lead for the division lead and they have two more games on the schedule than the Sharks, who overtook the Ducks on March 20.

"We not only want first place, but to be playing as well as we can going into the playoffs," Andersen said. "Now, we'll focus on those last eight games, and focus on how we played earlier in the season now that we're in crunch time."

The Ducks also pulled within three points of the Western Conference lead behind the St. Louis Blues, who have eight regular-season games remaining too but would lose the tiebreaker to Anaheim.

After giving up nine power-play goals over a seven-game stretch from March 7 to 20, the Ducks killed all three penalties they committed in the second period and they even were able to extend their lead to 3-1.

Andersen stopped all 15 shots he faced in the period.

Koivu made them pay with 8:58 left in the second, halting his 17-game goal-less drought dating to Jan. 30 by backhanding a pass from behind the net by line-mate Daniel Winnik, beating Vancouver rookie goalie Eddie Lack.

For good measure, the Ducks, who began the night ranked 20th in the NHL in penalty kill effectiveness (81.3%), burned off the two minutes that came when forward Jakob Silfverberg tripped Lack.

Anaheim now has a four-game streak without allowing a power-play goal.

"We just kept trying to do what we want to do, keep them on the boards, focus on the ice," Andersen said.

Corey Perry, with his team-best 38th goal, and center Mathieu Perreault, with a power-play goal that extended his points streak to eight games, iced it by scoring in the third period.

Knowing San Jose lost in the afternoon, the Ducks surged to a 2-0 lead during a 71-second span early in the first period.

Defenseman Luca Sbisa produced his first goal of the season, blasting a shot just inside the blue line that passed Lack with big-bodied Ducks forward Patrick Maroon and forward Kyle Palmieri screening.

Then, Ducks forward Matt Beleskey took a no-look, backhanded pass from rookie center Rickard Rakell and beat Lack.

Vancouver (34-31-11) is five points behind the eighth-place Phoenix Coyotes with six games remaining.

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

Twitter: @latimespugmire

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Turks vote in local elections, a key test for ruling party

ISTANBUL – Turks went to the polls Sunday in municipal elections seen as a key test for the embattled ruling party as a corruption scandal swirls around Prime Minister

and his inner circle.

The vote was widely viewed as a litmus test of damage done to the ruling Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish initials AKP, by the graft probe and Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian stance in the face of it.

The party handily won the last three general elections, but a poor performance in Sunday's balloting could derail Erdogan's presidential ambitions. That election is set to take place later this year.

"Turkey is a very centralized country, so local elections are never really about the municipalities – rather they are seen as a rehearsal for general elections," said Cengiz Aktar, a senior scholar at the Istanbul Policy Center.

In the midst of the ever-expanding corruption investigation and a spate of leaked audios posted online over the past three months, Erdogan campaigned hard, casting the elections as part of a battle against sinister but unnamed foreign forces.

The prime minister's rhetoric grew increasingly incendiary as the pressure on him mounted, often referring to opponents as traitors and "bloodsuckers." In recent weeks, some pro- and anti-AKP rallies turned violent.

But despite Erdogan's seeming missteps, including heavy-handed efforts this month to curb access to Twitter and YouTube, many Turks see little real alternative to the AKP. The prime minister drew large and supportive crowds on the campaign trail.

Sunday's votes in Istanbul, the largest Turkish city, and the capital, Ankara, were the most closely watched. The southern cities of Adana and Antakya, which have borne the brunt of the exodus from neighboring Syria, were also seen as important in assessing public opinion on Turkey's Syria policy.

ALSO:

In China, Michelle Obama gently broaches free speech

Turkish fighter jets shoot down Syrian warplane in border zone

Spain's modern-day Robin Hood seeks to level the playing field

Johnson is a special correspondent.

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States that have struggled with healthcare sites consider lawsuits

Enrollments in the nation's healthcare program have nearly concluded, but for states whose insurance exchanges have been crippled by technical problems, a difficult phase is just beginning: potential legal battles and a race to overhaul their systems before federal grant money dries up.

Officials in Oregon, Massachusetts and Maryland are exploring legal options as they sever contracts with those who created their sites. All three states are considering a move to the federal exchange, which had its own grievous start-up problems but is now largely stable, or licensing the technology of a more successful state such as Connecticut.

In each case — and in Minnesota, where outside consultants said it could take two years to fix the state's website — the states have plowed remaining grant funds into tech surges to try to salvage their programs before Monday, the deadline for states that have not received extensions. IT teams were working in Maryland and Minnesota to help thousands of bewildered consumers whose applications were frozen or had vanished into what Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, called a "black hole."

In Oregon, where consumers still cannot enroll at the state exchange website, officials dispatched an army of workers and community allies to help panicked consumers — some with serious medical conditions and under threat of cancellation — enroll using paper applications. In Massachusetts, where the website failure threatened to increase the state's uninsured rate, officials have rushed to put more than 125,000 people on its Medicaid rolls to avoid a gap in their coverage.

But those rescues have been expensive, and contract disputes and painful decisions about whether to abandon $100-million projects will now play out just as Democrats are attempting to convince voters to embrace the law heading into the 2014 and 2016 elections. In addition to the legal entanglements, the federal Government Accountability Office plans to investigate what went wrong in Oregon and in other states, while the inspector general of Health and Human Services is looking into Maryland's difficulties.

David A. Friedman, who teaches business law and dispute resolution at Willamette University College of Law in Oregon, said the circumstances are aligned for lawsuits: "There are a lot of dollars on the table. There is reputation risk on the table for the companies that are involved. And there's probably a lot of opportunities for these companies to point the finger back at the people who employed them."

"Are you familiar with 'Bleak House'?" Friedman added, referring to the Charles Dickens novel about a never-ending lawsuit. "It could go on forever, and span entire terms of office for attorneys general."

The uneven performance of the independent exchanges in 14 states — which chose not to use the federal site, HealthCare.gov — has been among the biggest surprises of the Affordable Care Act. States including California, Washington and Kentucky have posted robust enrollment figures. But ironically, some of the biggest technical fiascoes have been in blue states where officials were most eager to expand coverage.

Like the federal government, a number of the underperforming states lacked a strong "systems integrator" who made sure all the pieces of the system worked together. State-to-state variance in performance has also exposed the "fundamental problems" with government technology contracting, said Sabrina Corlette, a professor at the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute's Center on Health Insurance Reforms.

"You have government employees, who are well-intentioned, good people but who don't understand software code, and basically have to trust that the vendors they hire know what they are doing," Corlette said. "There was such a gold rush on the part of these vendors that there was a lot of over-promising and underpricing."

Kevin Counihan, executive director of the much-praised Connecticut exchange, attributed his state's success to its effort to recruit outsiders who "were used to a lot of pressure, irrational time frames and a lack of resources," and were willing "to say no" when vendors offered complex features.

Nowhere have ambitious goals, technical limitations and a short time frame combined for a worse outcome than in Oregon, the only state where consumers still cannot enroll online. Although the state engaged in a herculean effort to enroll people through paper applications and its Medicaid fast track program, Gov. John Kitzhaber said during a recent news conference that he was angry and disappointed by the technical failures and that the state "retained all of our rights to pursue legal action." (The state has withheld payment of $25.6 million of the $69.5 million charged so far by its major vendor, Oracle America Inc.)

Two recent reports — an independent review commissioned by Kitzhaber and a federal "technical review" obtained by the Oregonian — outline potential legal arguments for the two sides. The federal technical review suggested that Oracle threw "bodies, rather than [a] skill set" at the website problems, but also found that the state exchange had no leverage in its contract "to make [Oracle] accountable" when things went wrong.

The independent review showed that the project suffered from disorganization, mistrust between government officials and what Kitzhaber called an "unrealistically high sense of optimism by key leaders" that Oracle could deliver.

In Maryland, where the state exchange board recently voted to end its $193-million contract with main contractor Noridian Healthcare Solutions, the question of blame has gone in circles. Last fall Noridian and one of its subcontractors, EngagePoint Inc., began fighting in court over the website failures. Shortly before the case moved to arbitration in late February, EngagePoint alleged that Noridian "lacked the expertise, resources and commitment actually required" to develop the website. Noridian said in a statement that EngagePoint's claims were "false, unsupportable and will be contradicted by evidence" and pointed to hundreds of fixes that it had made in attempts to repair the system.

Separately, Maryland officials have said the IBM Curam software that was used by Noridian to determine eligibility for tax credits led to lost applications, as well as to inaccurate calculations for some 4,000 applicants. IBM fired back that Maryland officials did not give enough direction to Noridian during the development and testing phase.

Massachusetts started the process with a high insurance rate — nearly 97% — due to the state's existing program. Its challenge was moving tens of thousands of insured people to coverage that complied with the new law. An independent review by Microsoft Corp. noted that the state had to "custom build" most of the components — increasing the risk for problems. "Every critical milestone to date" was missed, the February Microsoft report said, and there was no "single, integrated master plan" to manage all the subcontractors or a way to measure "how much of the website is even completed."

In each of the troubled states, officials have some flexibility this year to make fixes with grant funds. But federal money to operate the exchanges runs out next year, so the challenge of becoming fiscally sustainable now looms.

That fight is already under way in Obama's home state of Hawaii, where legislators are looking at whether to bail out the exchange — which has spent $100 million and enrolled only 5,744 people in private plans — by providing the $15 million it will need for next year's operating costs.

But lawmakers are forwarding an argument that will have a familiar ring this election year: First they want to see an accounting of dollars already spent.

maeve.reston@latimes.com

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Pointing to bridge report, Christie vows to reform Port Authority

TRENTON, N.J. — Reasserting himself publicly a day after his handpicked lawyers cleared him of involvement in September's massive George Washington Bridge traffic jam, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vowed Friday to reform the agency that controls the area's bridges — even as he defended the departing chairman, a longtime ally.

Attorney David Samson, a close ally of Christie and a fixture in New Jersey politics for decades, submitted his resignation effective immediately, Christie announced as he met reporters at the statehouse here for the first time since the bridge scandal erupted onto the national stage in January.

Christie, a Republican, said that he didn't ask for the resignation and remained confident that Samson wasn't involved in the decision to shut down local access lanes to the bridge in September, creating a monumental traffic jam in Fort Lee, N.J.

Christie has used the report's release to go on a mini media blitz to resurrect his status as a potential presidential contender. He acknowledged that the scandal had hurt his standing in the polls in New Jersey and nationally, but said it was too early for that to mean anything. And he suggested that voters outside the New Jersey region weren't paying much attention to the bridge scandal anyway.

The traffic jam occurred as he was en route to reelection in November; since then, the 2016 presidential campaign he had been expected to wage has seemed a more distant possibility.

The report, completed by lawyers hired by Christie at taxpayers' expense, concluded that the bridge scheme was hatched by two midlevel aides without Christie or anyone else in his office knowing about it. The report, written without interviews with the central players in the drama — they declined to cooperate — was immediately criticized as a whitewash by Democrats, who are leading their own investigation. In a statement, the legislative committee said Samson's resignation and his refusal to be interviewed left "far more questions than answers."

But Christie defended the review, saying that he had confidence in its authors.

"These are six former federal prosecutors who I can guarantee you have worked hard to develop the reputations that they've earned over the course of their career and would not give away those reputations to do some type of slipshod job for me," he said.

Yet he said he remained in the dark about the reasons for the traffic shutdown, which the report blamed on political retaliation. Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie's deputy chief of staff at the time, and David Wildstein, a Christie loyalist who was serving at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, were blamed for cooking up the lane closures to punish Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat who had declined to endorse Christie. Wildstein resigned in December and Kelly was fired by Christie in January.

"It mystifies me on every level why this was done," Christie said. "And I hope someday to have an answer to why it was done. But I certainly don't have a crystal ball and I can't tell you if or when I'll ever know. But do I hope to? After all this, you bet I hope to."

Samson's law firm has a large profile in New Jersey government and development, and has drawn increasing scrutiny and suggestions of possible conflicts between his post at the Port Authority and his private interests. The Democratic mayor of Hoboken, Dawn Zimmer, said top officials in Christie's administration leaned on her to support a project planned by one of the Samson firm's clients; the internal report said there was no evidence to support that allegation.

Christie said that Samson, 74, wanted to resign a year ago and that he had talked him into staying on then.

"I have complete confidence that he acquitted himself in a way that was appropriate and ethical," he said.

In a statement, Samson said: "The timing is now right, and I am confident that the governor will put new leadership in place to address the many challenges ahead."

Christie said Samson told him he thought it was necessary for him to step down so that Christie could move quickly to reform the dysfunctional two-state agency, which for years has been known for mismanagement and as a haven for patronage jobs. Christie, who vetoed a reform measure passed by the state Legislature in 2012, said he would consider splitting the authority.

The appearance, Christie's first news conference in 76 days, was marked by his usual signs of irritation toward reporters, who have hammered away at the governor since the scandal dubbed "Bridgegate" broke.

"I'd love to say I missed you, but I didn't," he said.

"I don't know whether you can't take notes or you're not listening," he said to one reporter, and ripped into another: "You have to get the facts right if you're going to ask me a question."

Christie said the scandal had shaken his confidence because he was responsible for hiring Kelly and Wildstein.

"There's no question that this shakes your confidence. And if it doesn't shake your confidence, then you're arrogant," he said. "I mean, you know, some people that I had believed in and had confidence in let me down."

In a statement on Friday afternoon, Kelly's lawyer, Michael Critchley, said that Kelly would be happy to tell her version of events, but only to the U.S. attorney's office with "appropriate procedural safeguards." The statement criticized Christie attorney Randy Mastro for his depiction of Kelly in the report.

"Ms. Kelly is not a liar. She is a single mother of four children who was deeply devoted" to Christie, he said.

In an interview set to air later Friday on Fox News, Christie referred to the aides by saying that he had "made a mistake in judging their judgment and their character."

"I admit that mistake and I'm sorry that it happened," he said. "But I can't, when I work with human beings, be held to a standard of perfection in them and in me."

joseph.tanfani@latimes.com

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Angels defeat Dodgers, 7-5, in Freeway Series opener

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By Kevin Baxter

March 27, 2014, 11:19 p.m.

AT THE PLATE: Hanley Ramirez doubled his spring home run total with a pair of solo shots — one to right, one to left — for the Dodgers. Dee Gordon got his fifth triple of the spring in the ninth. Kole Calhoun and Howie Kendrick each had two-run singles for the Angels.

ON THE MOUND: Zack Greinke, in his final tuneup before his first regular-season start Tuesday in San Diego, held the Angels to one hit through four innings before giving up two runs and three hits in the fifth. Jose Dominguez, battling for a bullpen spot, gave up two runs to the first three Angels he faced in the seventh. Left-hander Hector Santiago threw 104 pitches in his six innings for the Angels, giving up four runs and six hits and striking out five. Relievers Michael Kohn and Ernesto Frieri followed Santiago, combining to strike out four in two innings.

EXTRA BASES: The Dodgers' Adrian Gonzalez came out of the game for precautionary reasons after being hit by a pitch in the third inning. The Angels got two runs on a strikeout and a double steal in the seventh after catcher Drew Butera's throw to second bounced off Erick Aybar and into shallow left field, allowing Taylor Lindsey and Aybar to score.

UP NEXT: Angels vs. Dodgers, Friday at 7 p.m. at Dodger Stadium. On the air: TV: SportsNet LA, FS West; Radio: 570, 830, 1020.

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Dodgers President Stan Kasten frustrated by TV negotiations

Dodgers President Stan Kasten was full of good news. The Dodgers have sold a record 35,000 season tickets. For the first time they will have sold 3 million tickets by their home opener. TV ratings were up 40% last year and are expected to rise again this season.

Only, about that. Those rising TV ratings just might require that most of Los Angeles is actually able to view the games. The Dodgers' mainland opener in San Diego is Sunday and Time Warner Cable has yet to sign an other major provider up with the team's new regional sports network.

And for the first time Thursday, Kasten expressed frustration at the lack of progress in negotiations.

"I am disappointed that deals haven't been closed yet," Kasten said. "And I have to tell you with the first regular-season game coming on Tuesday, I am now concerned that some fans at the start will not be able to see games. And that's disappointing and it shouldn't be happening."

Sunday's game will be nationally broadcast by ESPN. Following Monday's off day, the Tuesday game in San Diego could be the first Dodgers game unavailable for viewing to the vast majority of Los Angeles residents.

Time Warner Cable is currently the only major provider broadcasting SportsNet LA, the Dodgers' new channel. That means approximately 70% of the Los Angeles market will be unable to watch the Dodgers on television Tuesday.

The Dodgers own Sports-Net LA but Time Warner Cable operates it. Kasten said the Dodgers are not directly involved in the negotiations with other cable distributors.

"I wouldn't say hands off, we're in communication all the time," he said. "But I do think the thing the Dodgers can do the most is make the product the best it can."

Kasten would not say if the team had plans to make any special accommodations (tickets, coupons) for fans unable to watch games on TV.

"I don't know, we haven't talked about that yet," he said.

The team's record of season ticket sales more than doubles the approximate 17,000 sold under Frank McCourt in 2011.

The Dodgers used to cap season tickets sales under owner Peter O'Malley at 27,000 per year.

Greinke sharp

Right-hander Zack Greinke went six innings Thursday in the Angels' 7-5 win at Dodger Stadium, allowing three runs (two earned) on five hits. He struck out two, did not walk a batter and said the strained calf that bothered him early this spring was again no issue. He threw 78 pitches, 53 for strikes.

"It felt good," Greinke said. "I felt like I could have gone another inning, but the plan was 85 pitches top. I guess it's a positive to feel strong still."

Greinke is scheduled to make his regular-season debut Tuesday in San Diego.

"I guess you're always nervous you're not 100% ready, but everything felt pretty good," he said.

Rotation on hold

With Clayton Kershaw scratched from Sunday's opener with a sore back, the Dodgers are hoping Hyun-Jin Ryu's sore toe enables him to take the start.

Ryu is scheduled to throw a bullpen session Friday and if he comes out of it well, he will start Sunday. If the toe presents a problem, Dan Haren will start.

Ryu went through pitching motions Wednesday without actually throwing the ball.

"Hyun-Jin came out of that pretty good yesterday," Manager Don Mattingly said. "He looks positive."

If Ryu starts Sunday, Haren will go Wednesday against the Padres. Kershaw did not throw Thursday, but is scheduled to do some light throwing Friday to test his back.

Short hops

Adrian Gonzalez was hit on the left elbow by a Hector Santiago fastball in the third and left the game the next inning for precautionary reasons. Gonzalez said he would likely play Friday. … Infielder Alex Guerrero, already optioned to triple-A Albuquerque, strained a side muscle Wednesday swinging a bat and is expected to be out several days. … Matt Kemp completed his final camp game Thursday (one for five, double, two stolen bases) against the Royals' triple-A team and was scheduled to fly back to Los Angeles afterward.

sports@latimes.com

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Clues emerge on Malaysia jet, but weather halts search

BEIJING -- More tantalizing clues emerged Thursday about the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 as fresh satellites photos showed a debris field in the South Indian Ocean off  Australia, but the retrieval was frustrated by poor weather.

Thailand announced that it had spotted 300 floating objects on an earth observation satellite photograph taken Monday, although Anond Snidvongs, director of the Geo-Informatics Space Technology Development Agency, cautioned: "We cannot -- dare not -- confirm they are debris from the plane." Japan also announced Thursday that one of its satellites had spotted debris in the same area.

The latest findings corroborate satellite photos taken over the weekend and provided by the French showing a debris field.

However, a flotilla of ships and planes has not been able to retrieve any of the debris for closer inspection because of gale-force winds and swelling seas. For the second time this week, the weather forced a suspension of search efforts.

A U.S Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft scheduled to join the search Thursday afternoon was grounded, while Australian and Chinese planes that went out in the morning were called back.

"The forecast in the area was calling for severe icing, severe turbulence and near zero visibility," Lt. Cmdr. Adam Schantz, the officer in charge of the U.S. Navy Poseidon P8 aircraft detachment, was quoted telling the Reuters news agency.

"Anybody who's out there is coming home and all additional sorties from here are canceled."

Five ships are continuing their efforts in a 30,000-square-mile search area in the rough waters of the Indian Ocean southwest of Perth, an area that Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott called "as close to nowhere as it's possible to be."

The delay is especially maddening because promising satellite photos were released Wednesday showing 122 objects in the ocean that could be wreckage from the Boeing 777. With the heavy seas and winds, however, the debris is likely to drift elsewhere.

The waters of the South Indian Ocean are among the most treacherous in the world with underground volcanoes and strong westerly winds between the latitudes of 40 and 50 degrees south contributing to a phenomenon called the "roaring forties."

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared March 8on a red-eye run from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Although the Malaysian government last weekend declared the flight lost without survivors, many families say they are unwilling to give up hope until confirmed debris is found.

However, Chinese insurance companies have begun to pay compensation on life insurance policies for passengers aboard the flight.

China Life, the country's largest life insurance company, said Thursday that it had already paid $680,000 to families of seven passengers. "China Life is deeply grieved at the news and will ensure compensation and all other related services are fully implemented," a company spokesman was quoted telling the official Xinhua news agency.

Two other Chinese insurance companies said they were also paying claims on the assumption that all passengers on the flight had died.

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Washington state mudslide rescuers share their stories

DARRINGTON, Wash. — The stories rang with fear and frustration, pain and the occasional flicker of joy. But the storytellers Wednesday were not the survivors of the deadly mudslide that slammed into the Stillaguamish Valley.

For the first time since a mountain of mud buried a small rural enclave called Oso and largely cut Darrington off from the rest of the world, a small number of rescuers spoke at length of their long hours on "the pile," of plucking the living from a square mile of mud and debris, of tagging the dead bodies of neighbors.

They described clawing their way through the slurry with gloved hands, discovering the remains of a nursery, the crib in splinters. Crying, "maybe 100, 200 times" a day since Saturday, when a few seconds of geological violence shattered this placid region.

Sixteen bodies have been recovered from the slide and an additional eight remain stuck in the mire, officials said at a Wednesday evening news briefing in Arlington. About 90 people are believed to be missing, and 35 others possibly unaccounted for. That is down from an estimated 176 on Monday night.

At a late-night community meeting in Darrington, however, a spokesman for the Northwest Incident Management Team, Brian McMahan, said one more body had been found in the late afternoon.

What drives the volunteer firefighters in this logging town of about 1,300 people is what Jeff McClelland called "rescue mode," even "a slight possibility of somebody being alive, in an air pocket or wherever. It may sound totally crazy to people, but if we could find one viable person."

McClelland and his wife, Jan, spend most of their time running a goat farm just outside Darrington, and it's birthing season, hopeful and busy. But they also are firefighters and emergency medical technicians. They arrived at the disaster site just minutes after the slide. They were looking for life. And they still are.

"There's a dog that came out Sunday afternoon, a chocolate Lab" rescued from the mud, McClelland told reporters in Darrington. "It was wonderful because it was a life. A life. Something living. If a dog could live, a human could live. That's what drives us. We don't give up hope. We don't get despair."

The McClellands and their firefighting colleague Eric Finzimer said that they were not trained for this kind of duty. But then, who could be? they asked. They rescue drowning people from rivers, hypothermia victims from mountains, screaming people from burning buildings.

"We're prepared for any emergency," McClelland said, "but things that we have not experienced before, we don't know what to do. It would be like being called to go to a nuclear blast.

"How would we be trained to deal with that?" he asked on his first day off after working the disaster site since Saturday morning. "These types of disasters tax us to our limits."

Shortly after arriving at the scene, the McClellands and other first responders donned swift-water gear and tied themselves to trees. The meadow they were searching was awash in mud, water and debris from houses that Jan McClelland said had been "pancaked and pushed around."

They were trying to reach an injured man in his 30s whom they could hear but could not see. He was about 100 feet away. Jeff McClelland kept sinking. When they finally spotted the man, they shouted out, asking how badly he was injured.

"And he said, 'My arm is just barely hanging on,'" Jan McClelland recounted. "We knew it was something where we had to get to him as quickly as we could. So we just kept pushing through."

When they finally stabilized the injured survivor, they looked around for a way to get him out. There was none. So they called for a helicopter.

"We took him out by helo," Jan McClelland said before tears welled up. "And I understand he was upgraded to serious from critical a day ago or whatever and that he's going to be all right. That is the biggest blessing to me."

Randy Fay, one of the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office helicopter crew chiefs, recounted plucking mudslide victims from a mix of "mushy slurry" and debris scattered like massive pickup sticks.

Helicopters darted around trees, he told reporters in Arlington, which is separated from Darrington by the massive slide. They hovered low to the ground, searching for anyone waving or moving.

At one point, Fay said, he spotted two women waving for help atop a house that had been pushed off its foundation and plopped into freezing water. They were coated in mud. One had freed herself from beneath a toppled tree.

When he landed on the roof, they stared at him in shock.

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Clippers punished in 98-96 loss to Pelicans

NEW ORLEANS — The Clippers have slipped in recent games, leaving Coach Doc Rivers to declare that the "basketball gods punish you for messing around."

Rivers also said that a poor mind-set from the outset will prove costly, and the Clippers didn't bring the right intensity in dropping a 98-96 game to the injury-riddled New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday night at the Smoothie King Center.

The Clippers are 2-2 in their last four games, all against sub.-500 teams.

BOX SCORE: Pelicans 98, Clippers 96

This loss came against a Pelicans team that had only nine healthy players and has the fourth-worst record in the Western Conference, but still won after Jamal Crawford missed a potential game-winning three-pointer as time expired.

"I really thought they [Pelicans] deserved the win," Rivers said. "I felt like that all game.

"If we had won the game, I would have taken it. But I think sometimes the basketball gods punish you for messing around and I thought that's what we did."

The Clippers had a chance to tie it after Blake Griffin (21 points) scored and was fouled on a drive, but he missed the free throw with 12.1 seconds left, leaving the them down, 97-96.

"You don't want to miss a free throw, especially in that type of situation," Griffin said. "But the one thing I've learned from a lot of guys, a lot of guys that make shots, is that you have to move on. You can't dwell on it. So, I'm not going to dwell on it."

Still, after Anthony Davis (16 points, 13 rebounds, four assists, six blocks) made one of two free throws with 9.4 seconds left, the Clippers had another opportunity.

But Chris Paul didn't take the shot, instead passing to Crawford on a "broken play."

Paul missed all 12 of his field-goal attempts, the worst shooting game in Clippers history.

"O for 12 [and] we lose by two," Paul said. "We still had a chance to win."

New Orleans played without guards Eric Gordon (right knee), Austin Rivers (upper respiratory infection) and Brian Roberts (left knee).

"We saw, in my opinion, it felt like we saw all their guys out, no point guards on the floor and that's how we played," Rivers said. "The team that plays the hardest for 48 minutes should win and I thought they deserved the win."

Anthony Morrow had 27 points for New Orleans and reserve Darius Miller had five of his 16 points in the final 2 minutes 46 seconds.

"When you turn a team on and you're on the road, you can't turn them back off. At least we're not that good to do that," Rivers said. "But I thought we turned a lot of their guys on and now at the end, we're trying desperately to turn them off and you can't.

"Today was a mind-set game and we didn't have the right mind-set to win the game."

broderick.turner@latimes.com

Twitter: @BA_Turner

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Ducks score twice in third period to beat Flames, 3-2

CALGARY, Canada -- Achieving redemption, conquering pressure and gaining two points on the teams above them, the Ducks took extra satisfaction from their 3-2 victory over the Calgary Flames on Wednesday.

Andrew Cogliano, who bluntly assessed the Ducks' 7-2 loss to the Flames at the Saddledome two weeks earlier as a teamwide "embarrassment," scored the game-winning goal with 5 minutes 19 seconds left in the third period.

The Ducks (47-18-7) stared down not only a 2-1 deficit at the start of the third, but another round of relentless pressure from the young, rising Flames (30-36-7).

"To come back is big for us. We showed a lot of character," Cogliano said after producing his 21st goal by rebounding defenseman Stephane Robidas' blast off Calgary goalie Karri Ramo.

"We needed to play better, obviously, got killed last time. To get a comeback win in this building is a huge win."

With Ducks Coach Bruce Boudreau calmly preaching before the final period that all it took was one goal, Ducks center Mathieu Perreault scored it by blasting in a shot Ramo couldn't gather, from Ducks defenseman Sami Vatanen.

"Fought hard in the third, a couple bounces went our way," Perreault said.

The victory pulls the Ducks to within two points of Pacific Division leader San Jose with Anaheim having two more games than the Sharks remaining. Western Conference leader St. Louis is four points ahead.

"Coming down the stretch, we're playing teams already out of the playoffs. We have to take advantage of those games," Perreault said.

Victory was clinched by Ducks goalie Jonas Hiller, who gave up three goals on five shots before being replaced in the March 12 blowout but returned Wednesday to blank the Flames on 23 combined shots in the first and third periods, shining especially in the frantic final minutes.

"The whole team was upset last time, but you get a chance to do better and I was happy with the way we responded," Hiller said. "It's important for our guys' confidence. You need those kind of games, you can build on that for next game. Everyone worked hard, we got the two points."

Calgary rallied from a first-period deficit 4:44 into the second when forward Brian McGrattan used his right knee to knock in a Tyler Wotherspoon shot deflected by Kevin Westgarth, beat-
ing a befuddled Hiller to his left.

The Ducks outshot the Flames 16-11 in the second but labored to find a way past Ramo, who stuffed a Rickard Rakell shot set up by a pristine Corey Perry pass.

The Flames then went ahead with 25 seconds left in the period when center Jiri Hudler capped more pressure on Hiller by blasting a shot that beat the goalie on his left.

The Ducks led 1-0 after the first period on Nick Bonino's power-play goal with 1:03 remaining.

After a three-for-47 skid on the power play dragged on over 14 games, the Ducks have now scored on the power play in three consecutive games.

"Two points back, two games in hand. It's a good start to the week," Boudreau said.

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

Twitter: @latimespugmire

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Dirk Nowitzki, Mavericks top Kevin Durant, Thunder

Dirk Nowitzki scored seven of his 32 points in overtime Tuesday night, leading the Dallas Mavericks to a 128-119 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Dallas.

Nowitzki also had 10 rebounds and six assists, and six of his teammates scored in double figures in a victory that moved the Mavericks (43-29) half a game ahead of Phoenix for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

Kevin Durant led Oklahoma City with 43 points. He has scored at least 25 in 36 consecutive games, the longest such streak since Michael Jordan's 40-game run during the 1986-87 season.

Russell Westbrook, who had missed two of the Thunder's previous three games because of knee issues, scored 23, none in overtime.

at Orlando 95, Portland 85: Tobias Harris' 25 points and 11 rebounds helped Orlando end a nine-game skid and hand the Trail Blazers their third straight loss and eighth in 11 games. Portland, playing without injured leading scorer LaMarcus Aldridge for the seventh consecutive game, is fifth in the West but only 21/2 games out of ninth.

at Cleveland 102, Toronto 100: Dion Waiters scored 24 points and the Cavaliers ended a five-game home losing streak.

at Lakers 127, New York 96

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Lakers not very Zen-timental in rout of Knicks

Probably better that way for him.

His former team drilled his new team, the Lakers bashing New York, 127-96, in front of a keyed-up crowd that hadn't seen a victory this one-sided all season.

BOX SCORE: Lakers 127, New York 96

The Lakers avoided another loss and also the "We want Phil!" chants that would drift through the arena from time to time. Tuesday would have been ripe for them because Jackson became the Knicks' president last week.

Fans instead chanted "We want tacos!" as the Knicks, not the Lakers, were the more troubled team Tuesday. Jackson definitely has some work to do.

The Lakers scored 51 points in the third quarter, a franchise record for any quarter. They scored 49 two other times, most recently in 1972 against Golden State.

It was also the most points the Knicks have ever given up in a quarter.

The Lakers have set plenty of records for futility this season. They were happy to finally get one in the positive column.

"It's really infectious when you start taking good shots, they start going in, and even the hard shots start to go in," Lakers Coach Mike D'Antoni said. "We understand that the season's upside down. But at the same time, why can't we get better? Why can't they get better individually? Why can't we do some things positive like the franchise record, whatever-it-is in a quarter?"

Another stunning stat came via financial books: Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony makes $21.5 million this season, more than double the entire Lakers' starting lineup of Wesley Johnson, Jordan Hill, Chris Kaman, Jodie Meeks and Kendall Marshall ($9.7 million).

There was also the effort of Xavier Henry.

He was told he needed surgery on his left wrist because of a torn ligament. He didn't care.

Surgery will come after the season for Henry, who had 22 points on eight-for-11 shooting Tuesday.

"You don't have to worry about me always complaining about anything," said Henry, who also is playing with a cartilage abnormality and bone bruise in his right knee. "I'm going to push it as far as I can and if it gets unbearable, you'll notice it. But right now I can take the pain."

Nick Young was also solid, scoring 20 points and shaking off a burglary at his home of almost $100,000 in goods.

The Lakers were sublime from long range, making 18 of 28 for 64.3% accuracy. The Knicks made only four of 15 from long distance (26.7%).

Chris Kaman had 13 points and nine rebounds after getting the start when Pau Gasol was ruled out because of vertigo. Gasol will consult with a doctor Wednesday to determine if he'll make a brief trip to Milwaukee and Minnesota.

Meanwhile, Jackson's fiancée, Lakers governor Jeanie Buss, sat in her seat across from the Lakers' bench Tuesday as Jackson took the low-key approach.

Another guest took the high-profile road, Metta World Peace arriving late in the first quarter, hugging Buss almost immediately and taking a courtside seat across from the Knicks' bench.

He was waived by the Lakers last summer via the one-time amnesty clause, picked up by the Knicks and cut by them last month. He hoped to sign with a contender, but it hasn't happened.

It didn't look like a Lakers victory would happen Tuesday. They were scoreless until 7:56 of the first quarter and had only 14 points going into the second.

The third quarter was ridiculous, though, the Lakers making 19 of 26 shots (73.1%), including six of nine from three-point range. Kaman had nine points, Jodie Meeks and Henry each had eight, and Hill added seven.

"When you get 51 points in a quarter, everybody has to score," D'Antoni said.

It was something to remember, for sure, in an otherwise forgettable season.

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

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North Korea test-fires two medium-range ballistic missiles

SEOUL — North Korea test-launched two medium-range ballistic missiles early Wednesday off its east coast in its longest-range launch since 2012, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported, citing military sources.

The South Korean military say the missiles were launched just after 2:30 a.m. local time and flew for around a little more than 400 miles. North Korea last held a ballistic launch with that range in December 2012, when it successfully sent a satellite into orbit.

"Our government is intensifying monitoring of North Korea's military and preparing for all possible outcomes," spokesman for South Korea's Ministry of National Defense Kim Min-seok said in a morning press briefing, according to the Donga Ilbo newspaper.

"We call on North Korea to immediately cease all provocative behavior," Kim said.

In recent weeks, North Korea has held intermittent firings of short-range artillery missiles, including a volley of 30 such missiles on Monday. Those firings weren't deemed much of a threat by South Korea or the U.S. due to their short range failed to garner much attention.

Wednesday's launches violate a United Nations Security Council resolution that bans North Korea from long-range missile tests. The resolution was enacted in 2009 after North Korea's second nuclear test.

Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, head of U.S Forces Korea, said in Washington on Tuesday that he believes North Korea could have a long-range missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland by 2024.

The annual Foal Eagle military exercises between the U.S. and South Korean militaries were underway in South Korea. A scaled down version of the exercises is being held this year, with the apparent intention of being less provocative to North Korea. This year's drills do not include an aircraft carrier or B-52 bomber jets. A seperate exercise dubbed the Key Resovle training took place previously and consisted almost entirely of computer simulations. The Foal Eagle field training exercises will run until April 18.

Though the exercises are defensive in nature, Pyongyang objects to them, describing them as rehearsals for an invasion of North Korea. Aproximatley 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea.

The launches come on the four-year anniversary of the sinking of the ROK Cheonan warship, which left 46 South Korean navy personnel dead. Seoul attributes the sinking to a North Korean torpedo attack, while North Korea has denied any involvement.

Signs of a possible détente were evident in recent months after years of unfriendly relations on the Korean peninsula. In February, the two sides held reunions of family members divided by the Korean War for the first time since 2010. But after the successful reunions, Pyongyang rejected the South's offer to hold talks on holding the family meetings on a regular basis.

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Gov. Jerry Brown amasses $19.7 million for reelection bid

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown has built a war chest of $19.7 million to fund his bid for an unprecedented fourth term, easily eclipsing the money raised by his challengers, according to new campaign reports filed with the state.

Brown has raised nearly $3 million this year and spent nearly $95,000, his report shows.

Top contributors include several labor unions, Netflix Inc. co-founder Reed Hastings, Napster co-founder Sean Parker and several descendants of the founders of the Gap Inc., the clothing company where Brown's wife, Anne Gust Brown, was once an executive.

Each gave $27,200, the maximum allowed by law.

Among the governor's primary challengers, Republican Neel Kashkari reported bringing in $1.3 million in the two months since he kicked off his campaign. He has $903,478 in his political account, according to his filings.

Kashkari's campaign hopes to raise several million dollars before the June 3 primary election, to pay for television ads aimed at state voters. If the former U.S. Treasury official continues to raise money at his current clip — averaging $162,500 a week — that goal appears out of reach.

His fundraising dropped off sharply after an initial burst when he announced his bid in January. After raising $1 million in his first two weeks as a candidate, Kashkari raised $300,000 in the next six weeks.

Many of his largest donors had ties to the banking industry and finance. Several contributors are associated with Goldman Sachs, where Kashkari worked before joining the Treasury Department. His old boss, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Paulson's wife each gave the maximum.

Other big-name donors include former Univision chairman Jerry Perenchio, News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch and cellphone pioneer Craig McCaw, who raised significant sums of money for 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Another gubernatorial candidate, Republican state Assemblyman Tim Donnelly of Twin Peaks, reported raising $183,206 from Jan. 1 to March 17, the period covered by the filings. But he spent more than that, leaving only $10,765 in the bank and $148,000 in unpaid bills.

The bulk of Donnelly's contributions, which have totaled more than $500,000 since he began fundraising, appeared to come from small-dollar donors. Several of them gave the symbolic figure of $17.76.

In contests for other statewide offices, one of the scrappiest is the race for secretary of state, California's top elections official.

Two candidates, Democratic state Sens. Alex Padilla of Pacoima and Leland Yee of San Francisco, each spent more than $500,000 during the first part of the year. Padilla reported $614,426 left in his political account, while Yee had $135,000.

Dan Schnur, a no-party-preference candidate and former chairman of the state Fair Political Practices Commission, reported $260,441 in the bank. Democrat Derek Cressman, a former director of Common Cause, filed with $77,316 on hand.

Republican candidate Pete N. Peterson, who runs a public policy institute at Pepperdine University, reported $1,637 in available funds.

Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) is running for state controller. He has almost $1.8 million in the bank, dwarfing the sum that his main Democratic opponent, state Board of Equalization member Betty Yee, has after spending $439,600 during the reporting period. She has $100,529 on hand.

Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin, a Republican, entered the controller race just before the close of the filing period. Her fundraising efforts began after the deadline, said her campaign manager, Tim Clark.

In other statewide campaigns:

• State Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris, a Democrat, has $3.16 million for her reelection effort. Republican challenger Phil Wyman, a former state senator who entered the race less than a month ago, had not yet filed a report, but candidates had until midnight Monday to do so. Wyman said he had raised $15,000.

• Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, reported having $1.9 million. Republican challenger Ron Nehring, who entered the race last month, had not filed but said he had raised a little more than $10,000.

• Incumbent Democratic Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones has $1.57 million. Challenger Ted Gaines, a Republican state senator from Rocklin, reported $32,000.

One hundred seats are also up for election in the Legislature this year. A highly competitive race is for the 26th Senate District seat being vacated by Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), who is running for Congress.

Democratic candidates include Manhattan Beach Mayor Amy Howorth, with $348,339 on hand; physician Vito Imbasciani, $168,133; former Assemblywoman Betsy Butler, $145,709; and attorney Barbi Appelquist, $4,774.

Other contestants had not filed late Monday.

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

seema.mehta@latimes.com

Times staff writer Melanie Mason contributed to this report.

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Spurs hand 76ers their 25th straight loss

Austin Daye had 22 points and Tim Duncan added 19 as the San Antonio Spurs earned their 14th straight win with a 113-91 victory Monday night that sent the Philadelphia 76ers to their 25th consecutive loss.

Philadelphia will face Houston on Thursday with the dubious distinction of being a loss shy of tying the NBA record for consecutive losses set by the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2010-11.

Kawhi Leonard and Patty Mills scored 15 points each and Cory Joseph added 12 for the host Spurs, who maintained the league's best record at 54-16. San Antonio did not play starters Tony Parker, Tiago Splitter and Danny Green.

Thaddeus Young and Michael Carter-Williams each scored 19 points for Philadelphia (15-56).

at Miami 93, Portland 91: LeBron James scored 32 points for the Heat, including a layup with 11.4 seconds left, and Chris Bosh capped his 30th birthday by blocking Damian Lillard's layup in the final moments. The Trail Blazers overcame a 17-point deficit with nine minutes left.

at Chicago 89, Indiana 77: Taj Gibson scored 23 points and the Bulls kept the Pacers from clinching the Central Division title.

at Oklahoma City 117, Denver 96: Kevin Durant had 27 points and eight assists and Caron Butler scored 23 points, his highest total since the Thunder added him right after the trade deadline.

Houston 100, at Charlotte 89: James Harden scored 31 points and Dwight Howard had 10 points and 10 rebounds for the Rockets after missing three games in a row with an ankle injury.

at New Orleans 109, Brooklyn 104 (OT): Tyreke Evans scored 33 points and the Pelicans rallied from 22 points down in the third quarter. The Nets lost for the first time in five games.

Phoenix 102, at Atlanta 95: Eric Bledsoe scored 20 points to lead five players in double figures and the Suns won their fourth in a row.

at Memphis 109, Minnesota 92: Mike Conley had 23 points and six assists and the Grizzlies won their 10th in a row at home.

Detroit 114, at Utah 94: Andre Drummond had 19 points and 14 rebounds, and the Pistons shot a season-best 55% to end a road losing streak at 14 games.

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Clippers take their time passing the Bucks but still get 50th win

All you need to know about the season Milwaukee is having is that Philadelphia is on a 25-game losing streak . . . and still has a better record than that of the NBA-worst Bucks.

The Bucks brought their traveling woe show to Staples Center on Monday night and somehow kept things more than competitive against the Clippers.

The Clippers led by only four points with a little more than three minutes left before starting to vaguely resemble the team that has the league's second-best home record, emerging with a 106-98 victory that fell squarely into the scarier-than-it-should-have-been department.

BOX SCORE: Clippers 106, Bucks 98

Jamal Crawford helped the Clippers wipe their brows in relief by making a high-arc three-pointer from the corner with 3 minutes 7 seconds remaining, sparking a 5-0 mini-run that gave his team a 101-92 lead and essentially ended the Bucks' hopes.

"It's not going to be pretty every night," said Clippers guard Chris Paul, who had 14 points and seven assists, "so tonight it was do whatever you have to do to win."

Blake Griffin had 27 points, 14 rebounds, six assists and three blocked shots for the Clippers. He put the exclamation point on a largely dreary showing by his team with a ferocious one-handed dunk with a little more than a minute to go.

The triumph had special significance because it was the Clippers' 50th of the season, giving them at least that many for a second consecutive season and only the second time in franchise history. The Clippers (50-21) won 56 games last season.

"We've got to get a lot more wins, it looks like, because everybody's winning," Clippers Coach Doc Rivers said, referring to the Western Conference playoff race. "We have to try to get home court and keep home court" for the playoffs.

Darren Collison had 15 points and six assists for the Clippers, who will start a five-game trip Wednesday in New Orleans.

Small forward Jared Dudley logged more than a minute of playing time for the first time since March 4, scoring five points in five minutes. He sat out three games because of back spasms and has lost his spot in the rotation to Danny Granger.

Ramon Sessions, making a rare start, finished with a season-high 28 points plus seven assists and six rebounds for the Bucks (13-58), who were blown out Sunday night in Sacramento.

The Clippers built a 15-point lead in the first half but couldn't hold it, Milwaukee closing to within a point midway through the second quarter and staying within single digits for most of the rest of the game. The Bucks took advantage of 13 turnovers and slipshod defense by the Clippers.

"I wasn't real happy with us offensively tonight," Rivers said. "I didn't think we moved the ball a lot and then I thought we were careless with the ball as well. But I'll take the win."

Said Paul: "I guarantee you when the playoffs start, nobody will remember this game."

The Clippers can only hope.

ben.bolch@latimes.com

Twitter: @latbbolch

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Lakers beat Magic, 103-94, but it's a rough night for Pau Gasol

They beat the Orlando Magic, 103-94, Sunday at Staples Center and ended a four-game losing streak with a career-high 28 points from Jordan Hill.

But Pau Gasol couldn't finish the game, staying in the locker room at halftime after feeling dizzy and nauseated. He received three liters of IV solution, a sizable amount, and was to spend the night at a hospital for precautionary reasons.

Lakers Coach Mike D'Antoni theorized it was an illness or influenza though admitted he did not know what caused Gasol's discomfort. A concussion was ruled out.

The Lakers also kissed away some ping-pong ball percentages Sunday. They were chasing, if you will, Orlando for the NBA's third-worst record, a task that became practically impossible.

The Lakers aren't trying to lose on purpose. Too many players are in the last years of their contract to let that happen. And the NBA would frown upon such behavior if true.

But the team with the third-worst record has a 15.6% chance at winning the No. 1 pick at the May 20 lottery. The fourth-worst team has an 11.9% chance and fifth-worst gets an 8.8% chance. The Lakers (23-46) fell further behind Orlando (19-52) and "vaulted" Boston and Utah (both 23-47).

They now own the NBA's sixth-worst record, good for only a 6.3% chance at the top pick.

A devastating victory Sunday? "We need games like this because you could feel people getting frustrated," D'Antoni said. "The enthusiasm was draining out a little bit. You've got to get some sugar back for something. They played hard, they got rewarded."

Their fans were ecstatic, able to chant "We want tacos!" for one of the few times in recent months.

The Lakers, though, are still approaching their worst record since moving to Los Angeles in 1960. It's something that would upset Gasol and Nick Young. They recently decided in an optimistic conversation that they didn't want to be part of such a team.

To which D'Antoni replied Sunday when asked by reporters, "Probably should have had it sooner."

Hill was happy just to A) make it through a game without being ejected and B) shed the embarrassment of missing the team photo last week. (A seething Kobe Bryant angrily waited 20 minutes that day before the team decided to snap the picture without Hill. Bryant, who glowered in the photo, muttered under his breath that he didn't like posing with teams that were so far under .500.)

Hill made nine of 15 shots and took 13 rebounds against the Magic. His production helped ease the loss of Gasol, who had only six points and two rebounds.

"They must have never seen me play," Hill said of the Magic. "Offensive rebounds, get the ball in the post — I can definitely go to work."

D'Antoni favors power forwards who can stretch the floor with their outside touch, not Hill's strong suit at all, leading to spotty stats for him most of the season.

"His system is a great system for guys that can shoot, the four man who likes to spread the floor," Hill said. "Of course I want to go out there and play, but anything can happen. I'm just going to stay ready."

There were other notes of interest Sunday.

It felt like a while since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was at a Lakers game, but there he was with A.C. Green, sitting in the second row across from Orlando's bench.

Also, Young scored 26 points and converted his fifth four-point play, increasing his Lakers single-season record for the statistical oddity.

The Lakers could feel better about one thing. They're not as bad as Orlando, which dropped to 4-34 on the road.

Small victories for the Lakers. Very small. State of their season, for sure.

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

Twitter: @Mike_Bresnahan

Times correspondent Eric Pincus contributed to this report.

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'Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' offers clues at PaleyFest

The "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." characters and stars have Level 7 clearance. The PaleyFest  audience was granted Level 7 clearance. But the show's producers and writers are Level 8, and they're protective of their secrets.

But this much was declassified: Marvel's "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" opens April 4, and a new episode of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." airs April 8 — and, it was hinted repeatedly, the two may be related. (Hey, Cap does work with S.H.I.E.L.D. — and Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury and Jaimie Alexander's Asgardian Lady Sif, both Marvel movie presences, have appeared on the series.)

That piece of intel was released during the ABC comic-book-inspired adventure show's panel Sunday afternoon at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, where secrets were the order of the day.

"This whole  season has been one of jaw-dropping surprises" for the cast as well as audiences, said actress Ming Na-Wen, who plays the combat-tested Agent Melinda May. "The writers, they don't tell us anything…."

Series co-creator Jed Whedon, joking about actors popping by the writers room, pantomimed one trying to get a peek at story notes on whiteboards.

There are plenty of questions around Chloe Bennet's hacker, Skye. Who were her parents? What's with the mystery-alien-derived medicine in her blood? The actress is dying to know.

"All day on set, I'm on Wikipedia and I'm on Twitter and I'm on Marvel sites, and I'm like, 'Am I this?' And they're like, 'Nope,'" she said.

Actors Clark Gregg and Ming-Na Wen arrive for PaleyFest's "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." panel Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. (Michael Bulbenko for Paley Center for Media)

Wen, Whedon and Bennet were joined by fellow stars Clark Gregg, Brett Dalton, Iain de Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge; co-creator Maurissa Tancharoen and fellow executive producers Jeph Loeb and Jeffrey Bell. The panel was moderated by actress Felicia Day, who worked with Whedon and Tancharoen on "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog."

Loeb, Marvel's TV chief, said the freshman show, which has aired infrequently over the last several months, would return April 1 with seven straight weeks of first-run episodes to close the season. Its future is uncertain.

And that Level 7 clearance did pay off for the crowd: They got an early screening of the April 1 episode, which included several surprises as the agents close in on the identity of the mysterious villain known as the Clairvoyant. Spoilers? Sorry. Those are classified.

The actors do have theories about their characters' pasts and future.

"I want Skye to be the love child of May and Thor," Wen said to audience laughter. "And flash back to those scenes."

Clark Gregg cracked: "I was gonna say Coulson and Sif."

During the audience Q&A, a fan in a yellow "Coulson Is My Homeboy" shirt got the cast and crowd laughing when he pointed out that, for a secret group, S.H.I.E.L.D. has a lot of stuff bearing its logo.

"The organization is not a secret," Gregg, who plays "Avengers" casualty / resurrected team leader Phil Coulson, replied. "What they do is."

After it was noted the team's plane has an espresso machine bearing the force's emblem, Gregg joked, "And Fitz can give you a latte where the foam is the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo."

OTHER PANEL HIGHLIGHTS:

– Gregg twice hopped off the stage to hug fans, one of whom brought a framed felt artwork for each actor's character as gifts for the cast. Another was just happy his character was alive after being sad when he had apparently died in "The Avengers."

Brett Dalton's looks were a frequent topic during Sunday's panel. Talking about live-tweeting the show, Gregg cracked that "even [Dalton's] puns are sexy." (Michael Bulbenko for Paley Center for Media)

– When Day asked Brett Dalton about his character Grant Ward, who's had a physical relationship with Agent May and seems to have his eye on Skye, the actor said the combat expert field agent was no longer a lone wolf, adding waggishly, "He's learned to play with the team."

– How did the #coulsonlives Twitter phenomenon get started? When Day playfully asked if Gregg did that, he joked, "I can now confess that I have 11,000 Twitter aliases, all of whom were very integral to starting the #coulsonlives movement."

– Tancharoen said Agent May was originally called Agent Rice. Then they cast Ming-Na Wen and thought better of it. Also, the scientist team of Leo Fitz (de Caestecker) and Jemma Simmons (Henstridge), popularly known as FitzSimmons, were inspired in part by Casey Affleck's and Scott Caan's character chemistry in "Ocean's Eleven."

– Are there romantic prospects between Fitz and Simmons? De Caestecker said the geniuses are more like brother and sister.

– Though the show has yet to be renewed, Bell said the producers know where they'd like a possible Season 2 and Season 3 to end, "and we know which character will still be alive. This is, in fact, a Joss Whedon joint." (Joss Whedon, "Avengers" director and "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." co-creator, was not on the panel.)

– The cyborg Deathlok features on the show, and Gregg said the cast and crew's lives are kind of like the show. He said that Bell recently had a bike accident that required head staples — "and now they call him Jefflok."

– Phil Coulson died and came back to life – but it's still not clear how. Gregg talked about the changes in the character: "The real dilemma has been Coulson starting to feel physically the way a lot of trauma survivors do … he doesn't feel the same." The actor noted that some characters who apparently knew Gregg before his "death" think he's changed, raising more questions.

– Will Day appear on the show? It could happen.

– There will be more appearances by Bill Paxton as Agent John Garrett.

Chloe Bennet, whose past as a teen pop singer in China came up during the fan Q&A, noted that Maurissa Tancharoen had done some pop music work too. (Michael Bulbenko for Paley Center for Media)

– A fan, after asking the panel whether the show has been renewed for Season 2 and being told not yet, asked, "Who do I have to shank?"

– Bennet, responding to a fan question about what one item cast members would take to a desert island, said "Brett Dalton's abs" and added that she'd wash her clothes on them. Tancharoen cracked:  "This is why we give them dialogue."

– Asked if "S.H.I.E.L.D." characters would interact with characters from Marvel's upcoming Netflix series, Loeb noted that it is all one universe and said, "If it makes the fans happy, I'm in favor of that."

– Responding to a question about which Marvel character cast members would like to play or share a scene with, Henstridge said she'd like to have one with Loki – "sit around, have a cup of tea …" Gregg, whose character was killed by the mischievous Asgardian in "The Avengers," piped up: "You know, I've been in a scene with Loki. Somehow I suspect you would have a different result."

And when it ended, what seemed like most of the crowd swarmed toward the stage seeking autographs.

PaleyFest is an annual celebration of television that over two weeks brings fans together with on-screen and behind-the-scenes talent from current hit shows and past favorites. It continues through Friday.

– Blake Hennon | @BlakeHennon | @LATHeroComplex

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Egypt sentences 529 Morsi supporters to death

CAIRO — An Egyptian court has convicted 529 supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, sentencing them to death on charges of murdering a policeman and attacking police.

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Chivas USA gives up three goals in short span, loses to FC Dallas, 3-1

FRISCO, Texas — Fabian Castillo, Je-Vaughn Watson and Michel scored in a 15-minute span of the second half Saturday night to keep FC Dallas unbeaten with a 3-1 victory over Chivas USA.

Dallas (2-0-1) sits atop the Western Conference with an MLS-best seven points.

Castillo opened the scoring in the 71st minute off a Mauro Diaz set piece, and Watson outran defender Tony Lochhead on a long ball and then juked goalkeeper Ian Kennedy for the eventual game-winner in the 78th minute.

Chivas forward Erick Torres got his third goal of the season in the 81st minute to put the pressure back on the hosts, but Michel, a second-half substitute, slotted in a low, left-footed free kick in the 86th and Chivas (1-1-1) lost for the first time this season.

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Chris Paul pushes Clippers to 112-103 victory over Pistons

Chris Paul made sure the Clippers didn't let a 16-point lead, and the game, slip away, making history in the process.

Paul made sure by scoring 11 of his 28 points in the fourth quarter to push the Clippers to a 112-103 victory over the Detroit Pistons on Saturday night at Staples Center.

Paul also had 15 assists and six steals, and was 10 for 15 from the field.

BOX SCORE: Clippers 112, Pistons 103

Paul's assist with 53.2 seconds left in the first quarter — a pass to Griffin — was the 6,000th of his career.

Paul became the seventh player in NBA history to get at least 6,000 assists before the end of his ninth season. He now has 6,011.

He shook hands with Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas, his idol, at halftime.

"Chris, he is an amazing point guard, one of the best of all time," Clippers Coach Doc Rivers said. "And he played in front of one of the best of all time, in Isiah. They are very similar in a lot of ways with their ballhandling."

But it wasn't as if Paul didn't have help in this win.

Blake Griffin had 25 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, and Matt Barnes had 14 points.

With guards Darren Collison and Jamal Crawford back playing, the Clippers are slowing starting to get healthy again.

Collison, who had missed the last two games with a stomach virus, started against the Pistons and scored 11 points.

Crawford, who had missed eight of the last nine games with a strained left calf, was back coming off the bench to score nine points.

Now the Clippers continue to wait on guard J.J. Redick, who missed his 19th consecutive game with a bulging disk in his back.

The Clippers just pushed forward, playing much better defense in the third quarter than they did in the first half, when the Pistons shot 51.1% from the field and scored 55 points. But the Clippers tightened the defense in the third quarter, helping them to go on an 18-3 run and build a 74-58 lead.

The Clippers held Detroit to 15 points on 22.7% shooting in the third.

But the Pistons wouldn't go away quietly.

At one point, the Clippers had a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter and looked as if they would put the Pistons away. But the Pistons pulled to within six.

Then, after DeAndre Jordan missed two free throws with 3:37 left, the Pistons had a chance to cut into more of the Clippers' lead.

But when Greg Monroe went up for a dunk attempt, Crawford stripped the ball away. Jordan then made one of two free throws and went downcourt to block a shot by Will Bynum, leading to a 24-clock violation by the Pistons.

Paul scored while being fouled and made the free throw to give the Clippers a 104-94 lead that stood.

broderick.turner@latimes.com

Twitter: @BA_Turner

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Prep basketball: Mater Dei holds off Westchester to reach state final

Trailing by 18 points in the second quarter against unbeaten Santa Ana Mater Dei on Saturday night, Westchester seemed headed for a long, quiet bus ride home from Ontario.

Then something happened that few saw coming — a Westchester surge that swept the Comets to a stunning six-point lead with less than three minutes left in the Southern California Regional Open Division final at Citizens Business Bank Arena. Elijah Stewart's basket put Westchester ahead, 53-47, with 2:48 left.

But Mater Dei (34-0) once again found a way to win, and earned a trip to the state championship game in Sacramento.

Rex Pflueger made two free throws with 47.6 seconds left to break a 53-53 tie, and Stanley Johnson made four consecutive free throws in the final 22 seconds to seal a 59-54 victory for the Monarchs, who withstood a valiant performance by the City Section runner-up Comets (30-7).

Stewart finished with 19 points for Westchester, which rallied from a 35-21 halftime deficit. Johnson scored 19, La'vette Parker had 15 and M.J. Cage 13 for Mater Dei.

"I'm proud of them," Westchester Coach Ed Azzam said. "They had every opportunity to fold and go away and they didn't."

With Johnson playing the role of facilitator, Parker and Cage stepped up to be offensive standouts. Mater Dei's largest lead in the first half was 26-8. Parker made three of four shots from three-point range and had 13 points. The Monarchs made 14 of 24 shots and led at halftime, 35-21.

In the third quarter, a full-court press by Westchester produced turnovers and turned the game around. Stewart got hot, and then in the fourth quarter, Myles Stewart scored six consecutive points to put Westchester on top, 46-45.

Mater Dei will face Oakland Bishop O'Dowd and 6-foot-9 junior Ivan Rabb in next Saturday's 8 p.m. final at Sleep Train Arena. The Monarchs defeated Bishop O'Dowd, 63-59, in overtime in December in Las Vegas.

Mater Dei Coach Gary McKnight will be going for his 11th state championship in 32 years.

eric.sondheimer@latimes.com

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UCLA puts the 'dog out with 76-59 NCAA tournament victory over Tulsa

SAN DIEGO — The warning signs were out there for UCLA.

High-seeded teams were being sent home from the NCAA tournament left and right. It got the fourth-seeded Bruins' attention.

They cleared one potential pratfall Friday night with a 76-59 victory over Tulsa in Viejas Arena, scratching Item No. 1 off their tournament to-do list.

"We all watched the games, and we saw Duke and a couple high seeds lose," said forward Travis Wear, who was five for five from the field and scored 10 points. "We knew we didn't want to be one of them."

2014 NCAA tournament bracket

So Wear knew that "as long as we focused and took care of what we had to take care of, we would be OK."

The Bruins (27-8) took care of enough things to hang around the tournament. Jordan Adams had 21 points and Norman Powell scored 15, and both had spotlight moments that finally buried the 13th-seeded Golden Hurricane (21-13).

Tulsa pulled to within 59-54 with less than five minutes to play. It only served to get the Bruins' attention. Powell had a three-point play on a steal, layup and free throw. Adams dropped in a three-point jumper. UCLA closed the game with a 17-5 run.

So it was on to the next step.

The Bruins will play another upstart, 12th-seeded Stephen F. Austin, on Sunday, with the winner going to Memphis for the South Regional semifinals. The Lumberjacks pulled out a stunning, 77-75 victory over Virginia Commonwealth, after a four-point play by Desmond Haywood forced overtime.

"The first [tournament] game is the toughest test for sure," UCLA guard Kyle Anderson said. "We got that out of the way with a 17-point win. We got to sustain that energy we had today."

Another victory would be a watershed moment for the Bruins, who have not advanced beyond the tournament's first weekend since reaching the Final Four in 2008.

Wear will remain wary.

"It's the NCAA tournament, you got to stay sharp," he said. "That's where our heads are at right now. You just look at all the upsets and look how hard Tulsa played today. We realize it's going to be a battle every single game."

The Bruins got more of a skirmish Friday.

This game was played at a playground pace. You almost expected to see five other guys on the side calling "next."

The game also went through that new-car-break-in period, that first 20 minutes where an underdog determines whether it can play at this level or decides to call it a season. The Golden Hurricane players showed no signs of wanting to take their NCAA parting gifts and fly home.

The Bruins had that better-team look, but led only 35-30 at the half.

UCLA pushed to a 28-19 lead five minutes before halftime. The Golden Hurricane appeared to have reservations on the NCAA's midnight charter flight.

James Woodard wasn't ready to check his bags. He finished off an 11-2 run with a three-pointer and a dunk on which he blew past three Bruins. UCLA found itself tied, 30-30.

BOX SCORE: UCLA 76, Tulsa 59

The Bruins shot only 38% in the half.

"Their defensive pressure was very good when they came out and I think we were a little too anxious," Anderson said. "Coach [Steve Alford] stressed that we needed to get better shots, cut better and find each other."

The Bruins found Adams and Powell during a 10-0 run to start the second half. Adams had the first six, with a three-pointer followed by a three-point play on a rebound and layup. Powell had the next four, including a flying dunk, for a 45-32 lead.

Those two did much of the work down the stretch, combining for 11 of the Bruins' last 15 points.

Now comes Stephen F. Austin.

"It's going to be fun," guard Bryce Alford said. "We could hear their crowd [in the locker room] and we had no idea what was going on. It's going to be a fun atmosphere, but we'll be ready."

chris.foster@latimes.com

Twitter: @cfosterlatimes

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UCLA has fun with sound fundamentals in victory over Tulsa

SAN DIEGO — No Duke here. No Ohio State anywhere. And no, giggle, not even a hint of New Mexico.

At the late-night end of two NCAA tournament opening days filled with higher seeds laying giant eggs, UCLA finished Friday's madness with a simple, dominating march.

The Bruins stomped through fears a talented fourth seed would overlook a pesky 13th-seed, trampled worries their new coach couldn't win a tournament opener, and even flattened a 20-year-old nightmare with a 76-59 victory over Tulsa.

Oh, yeah, no Princeton or Detroit Mercy here either.

"A statement win," said the Bruins' Tony Parker, who had 11 points and six rebounds off the bench. A big-time win."

The fun Steve Alford instilled in his team before its three-game romp through the Pac-12 tournament last week was still there Friday, UCLA flying and flinging in a manner that filled Viejas Arena with roars from the large Bruins contingent whose two-hour drive was well worth it.

They didn't play with the tentativeness seen from a UCLA tournament team in recent years. They played unafraid, unabashed and sometimes so quick as to be untouchable by a Tulsa team that chased them for nearly two hours.

"We are now playing with a comfort that comes from our coaches," said Kyle Anderson, who had five turnovers yet kept playing hard. "We are not playing to avoid a mistake, we're playing to make a play, every time."

They actually played like a Steve Lavin tournament team, only with sound fundamentals and relentless defense. The Bruins had 17 assists on 29 baskets. They missed just two of 15 free throws. They had 11 steals and five blocks.

Every time the Golden Hurricane stunned, the Bruins stunned back, most notably at the start of the second half, when Tulsa closed the gap to 35-32. The Bruins went into overdrive and the Hurricane was never that close again.

Jordan Adams hit a three-pointer. Adams grabbed an offensive rebound and laid it in for an eventual three-point play. Then, in a play that brought Bruins fans to their feet and sent the Hurricane scurrying to Coach Danny Manning on their bench, Norman Powell stole a pass and scored on a soaring dunk after a give-and-go with a fastbreaking Adams. That highlight gave UCLA a 43-32 lead and it never again felt close.

Did you notice Adams' name showing up a few times in those previous two paragraphs? The Bruins' 6-foot-5 scoring leader was everywhere Friday, with 21 points, eight rebounds and four assists. He was helped by a glorious homecoming for San Diego-native Powell, who had 15 points, three steals, and two breathtaking dunks.

"I hope we can keep it rolling," said Adams.

The next twist and tumble will come in a preamble to a Sunday afternoon matchup here that could really get those Bruins upset fears churning. In a game that could send them to the Sweet 16, the Bruins must now play a 12th-seeded Stephen F. Austin team that, in the evening opener here, overcame a five-point deficit in the final 32 seconds to eventually defeat Virginia Commonwealth, 77-75, in overtime.

That game kept the Bruins in their locker room about 15 minutes longer before taking the floor against Tulsa, not that they watched the game, or even blinked at the delay. "I heard it went to overtime and I just put back on my headphones and turned on my music," said Anderson.

He'll have to notice now. The Lumberjacks have won 29 games in a streak that ranks second to Wichita State's 35-game streak. Yeah, they haven't lost since before Thanksgiving. And nobody in this town is suddenly more popular. The loudest cheers for any players in the building Friday night were for the Stephen F. Austin players in street clothes who were spotlighted at the top at the stands midway through the first half of the Bruins game.

The Bruins are headed for a classic Cinderella versus the Evil Alford matchup, but, for once, they seem ready.

Friday was the day after the 50th anniversary of the Bruins' first national championship victory, a 98-83 victory over Duke in Kansas City. Yet nearly as memorable to current UCLA fans is the fact they haven't been to the Sweet 16 in six years.

That could change Sunday, the madness maybe ending, the march perhaps only beginning.

bill.plaschke@latimes.com

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