FROM THE SOLD-OUT stands in Boston's TD Garden, Terry Pritchard could feel the swell of anticipation building around him as his son checked in to the game with four seconds left before halftime. Seated about nine rows behind the Celtics bench, Terry rose from his seat, along with thousands more, anticipating what might happen next.

It was June 17, 2024, and the Celtics were hosting the Dallas Mavericks in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. At that moment in a potential title-clinching game for Boston, Mavericks star Luka Doncic was at the free throw line, trying to convert a three-point play. Celtics guard Payton Pritchard had checked in for Derrick White, with the Celtics comfortably leading by 18 points.

From his perch in a fifth-floor suite above midcourt, Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens looked on, and he, like everyone else in the arena -- if not the entire league -- knew what would happen next..

"He'll never not take a heave," Stevens told ESPN of Pritchard. "It's not about what his shooting percentages are. It's about winning. And I love that."

The shots provide huge momentum swings and are often worth more than the point total, Stevens said. Pritchard proved as much in Game 2, when he sank a buzzer-beating 34-footer at the end of the third quarter -- his only points of the game -- that gave the Celtics an eight-point lead.

Boston won, and Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla called it the "play of the game."

With the Celtics seemingly cruising toward their 18th championship in Game 5, Doncic missed his free throw. Celtics big man Al Horford grabbed the rebound with two seconds left, turned his head and immediately passed to Pritchard, who was calling for the ball.

"Here's Pritchard," broadcaster Mike Breen announced, as Pritchard sprinted up court, taking one dribble before entering his shooting motion. "He loves these."

"In the moment of the game and the adrenaline, it doesn't matter how far it is, it just makes you lock in to a whole other level," Pritchard told ESPN. "I don't know how to explain it, but the moment is there and everything slows down -- and I just truly believe that when I put it up, I can make this."

On the bench, Celtics reserves were already celebrating as the ball sailed through the air from half court, raising their arms in anticipation.

"BANG!" Breen announced as the heave splashed through the net, a 49-footer that registered as the longest made shot in the Finals in nearly a quarter century. "Pritchard at the buzzer!"

The Garden erupted.

"I've been in TD Garden now for 12 years of basketball games," Stevens said. "I don't know if I've ever heard it like that -- at that very moment."

A frenetic celebration around Pritchard ensued, and the Celtics went on to win their 18th NBA title. This season has been an extension, an encore celebration for the 28-year-old Pritchard.

He's averaging a career-best 14.1 points and has scored 664 total points off the bench, the most in the NBA.

He has made the seventh-most 3-pointers for any player overall -- on 41.5% shooting. He has been one of the NBA's best fourth-quarter scorers all season. And when Pritchard brings the ball up the floor for the Celtics, they're averaging 1.21 points per possession -- a figure that is sixth best among NBA players who have brought up the ball for 800 or more possessions, according to Second Spectrum tracking.

The others on that list? Cleveland's Darius Garland, Denver's Jamal Murray, Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Dallas' Kyrie Irving and Golden State's Stephen Curry. Of that crew, Pritchard is the only one who comes off the bench. Pritchard is a front-runner for Sixth Man of the Year, a candidate for Most Improved Player and a vital piece of a Celtics team that aims to repeat as champion.

For Pritchard, it's the culmination of a pursuit that began so many years ago.

IN 2015, WHEN Blake Griffin was already a five-time All-Star with the LA Clippers, he received a message from his alma mater, the University of Oklahoma.

Lon Kruger, then the Sooners' men's basketball coach, relayed to Griffin that there was a 16-year-old in Oregon who had verbally committed to Oklahoma, and Kruger wanted Griffin to meet him. Griffin obliged. He gave Pritchard a pass to come to the arena after the Clippers faced the Trail Blazers in Portland, and the two met for the first time.

"He was super shy," Griffin told ESPN. "We talked for a little bit, but I mean, dude, when I say he was scrawny, I was like, man, this kid must be nasty on the court."

Pritchard had long known his appearance didn't exactly convey that he was a high-level player -- let alone someone with NBA aspirations. Growing up, he wrote in notebooks that he wanted to play in the league, but even his father, a former tight end at Oklahoma, wasn't so sure.

"Obviously, he used to get mad at me because I'd tell him, 'Hey, you got to have a plan B in school,'" Terry Pritchard said. "And he'd get mad at me and say, 'I'm going to prove you wrong. You don't believe me.'"

During middle school, Pritchard would set an alarm for 5:30 a.m., enter the family garage and dribble a coarse, weighted ball for up to an hour, sometimes to the point that his fingers bled. During lunch, he'd run around the school track. After school, he'd work out for another hour. For years he did this at least five days a week. He won four state championships at West Linn High School in Oregon, earned various state player of the year honors and became a four-star recruit with offers from blue-blood college programs.

Ultimately, despite the meeting with Griffin, Pritchard chose to stay closer to home to play for Oregon, where he started in the Final Four as a freshman. As a senior, he was named the Pac-12 Player of the Year, was a consensus All-American and won the Bob Cousy Award as the nation's top point guard.

"There was a drive there, a consistency that not many players have," Ducks coach Dana Altman told ESPN. "They give themselves a long stretch off, or a day here, a day there. Payton didn't do that."

From afar, Danny Ainge, then the Celtics' president of basketball operations, paid close attention. He loved Pritchard's shooting, his playmaking and especially his competitiveness, and told ESPN he considered Pritchard as driven as any player he'd ever seen.

Ainge sang Pritchard's praises to other members of the Celtics' front office and made them watch one of his college games three times.

In 2020, the NBA schedule was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, moving the draft from June to November, giving Pritchard an even longer wait than most to be selected. On draft night, the Celtics selected Pritchard, with the 26th pick in the first round.

When Ainge spoke with Pritchard that night, the newest Celtic -- who hadn't been able to play an organized game since March, when Oregon's season was shut down -- said, matter-of-factly, "When can I get to work?"

AROUND THE TEAM, coaches and front-office staff quickly saw how Pritchard challenged Celtics stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown to one-on-one sessions after practice. They saw how he'd challenge others to do the same. They heard how he'd return to the practice facility at night for running and shooting workouts. A reputation was quickly established.

"He works as hard as anybody I've ever seen in my 20-plus years of being around the game," said Stevens, who coached Pritchard as a rookie.

"He's the kind of guy that, especially when I was coaching in college, I would have to change or tailor our practice plans because I would know that he's doing way more," Stevens said. "You don't want to take that away from him, because I think he's always been a great worker. I think as he's aged, he's gotten even better about how to work and the right way to approach it. But he's really got to. I mean, he's at the highest echelon of work ethic for sure."

Asked about these workouts, Pritchard cites a player so well known for them that it has become an NBA cliché: Stephen Curry.

"They talk about his shooting. He's unbelievable, right? But ... he never stops moving, so that makes him so hard to guard. By the fourth quarter, when guys are tired of chasing, he's still going the same speed," Pritchard said of Curry. "So at the end of the day, conditioning is really that. ... When you start to get so tired, you start to lose your train of thought and everything goes into that."

Even on a stacked roster with Tatum and Brown and several deep playoff runs of experience, Pritchard averaged 19.2 minutes per game as a rookie, eighth best on the team.

As the season progressed, he became a steady double-digit scorer. After his rookie campaign, Pritchard earned all-summer league first team for the Celtics -- and then scored 92 points in a Portland pro-am game the following month.

The following season, when Stevens transitioned to an executive role, Pritchard's minutes dropped, slightly, to 14.1 per game, under first-year head coach Ime Udoka. The Celtics reached the NBA Finals, where they fell to Golden State in six games.

In July 2022, still reeling after the Finals loss, the Celtics sought more of a scoring punch around Tatum and Brown and added veteran guard Malcolm Brogdon.

That acquisition helped create a logjam at the guard position already crowded with Marcus Smart and Derrick White. The following month, the team added Griffin, who was immediately struck by how hard Pritchard -- the once-scrawny kid he helped recruit -- worked on his game.

"This kid will play one-on-one with anyone at any hour of the day, all day, every day," Griffin said. "And he is just torching guys. I mean, he's going at [Brown], going at [Tatum], he's going at guys. And not to say they don't get some stops every now and then. And not to say they weren't going at people, too, but I was so impressed with just his mindset and then also his work ethic. This guy works his ass off."

"That has been his great separator his whole life," Stevens said. "It continues to be."

Still, Pritchard saw his minutes sink to 13.1 per game in his third season -- when Mazzulla took over for Udoka, who was suspended for violating team policies -- and he played in just 48 regular-season games after averaging 68 the two seasons before.

It was agonizing. To fall further down the bench after all the work he'd put in was demoralizing.

"He was losing his mind not getting minutes," a team source said.

Pritchard called his father, Terry, often.

"Just wait your time," Terry told his son. "I don't care if you're getting in for one minute -- just be the best player on the court for that one minute."

Griffin saw the toll, too.

"Hey, just stick with it, man," Griffin told Pritchard. "Just stick with it. I get your frustration."

Pritchard didn't -- or couldn't. When the February trade deadline approached, Pritchard asked to be traded.

The front office made calls to try to honor the request, team sources said, but no call yielded enough interest to warrant a deal, and Pritchard remained a Celtic.

"I had to sit behind a lot of people, a lot of good guards that honestly I've learned a lot from," Pritchard said. "But it was tough to sit there for those times."

Pritchard continued to attack practices, post-practice one-on-one sessions, scrimmages and pickup games. In their final two regular-season games, the Celtics sat several starters before the 2023 playoffs, and Pritchard made the most of his minutes. On April 7, he scored 22 points in a win over Toronto. Two days later, in a win over Atlanta, Pritchard made nine 3-pointers and tallied 30 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists for his first triple-double. The Celtics' front office took note.

"The way his career has gone as far as playing time and not playing time, he's always handled it the right way," Mazzulla told reporters after the game. "He has a competitiveness, a professionalism and work ethic about him."

Internally, there was belief that Payton was ready for a bigger role, and, that offseason, the Celtics turned over their guard depth, first trading Smart, then Brogdon, and acquiring former Bucks All-Star Jrue Holiday. Then, in October 2023, they signed Pritchard to a four-year, $30 million deal.

BY THE MORNING of October 28, 2024, before facing the Celtics in Boston, Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers went over the game plan with his team.

He specifically circled Pritchard's name.

"This guy comes in," Rivers said, "and he's a game changer."

His words proved prophetic. When Pritchard caught the ball with about six seconds left in the third quarter and dribbled up the court, Rivers' hands dropped to his knees. When Pritchard pulled up from the right wing for a step-back 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left, Rivers watched it go through the net, and his gaze sank to the floor, defeated.

It was Pritchard's sixth 3-pointer of the game, and it came during a decisive 18-2 run that stretched from the third quarter and into the fourth -- a "gut-punch," Pritchard said after.

"Payton, what he does speaks for itself. He's a killer," the Celtics' Brown said after. "And he's always looking to put pressure on the defense. And we just played through him tonight. And we love that."

Pritchard has 16 games with five or more 3-pointers when coming off the bench this season, the most in a season in Celtics history and one game shy of matching the NBA record. He also ranks in the top five in made catch-and-shoot 3-pointers and catch-and-shoot 3-point field goal percentage this season. And his average made 3-pointer distance is 26.7 feet, about the same as Curry.

In some ways, it is fitting that his heaves and long 3-pointers have gained folk-hero acclaim, because Pritchard always heard that his dream of making the NBA was just that. That part of him has never left.

"I am 100% still the same person," Pritchard said. "Every day, I'm trying to prove that I can still reach another level. I can still show people what I'm trying to become. That's why I'm always challenging the best that we have -- like Jaylen and Jayson. I'm trying to become as good as them one day. That's why I challenge them. I'm trying to keep taking steps to better myself, which, at the end of the day, is only going to better our team."

Two months after the Celtics' championship win, Pritchard headed to receive another ring, this one at a ceremony officiated by Griffin.

ON A WARM Saturday in August 2024, Pritchard stood at the Wychmere Beach Club on the elbow of Cape Cod, wearing a white linen suit with a peak lapel. Next to him, in a Vera Wang wedding dress, was his soon-to-be wife, Emma MacDonald. And next to them, in a navy tuxedo with a shawl collar, was Griffin.

Before them were hundreds of family and friends, including many members of the Celtics organization, along with the team's newest championship trophy.

Pritchard had asked Griffin to lead the ceremony in part because Griffin had played a key role in Pritchard's relationship with his wife, even attending one of their first dates, in Dallas, during a Celtics road trip. ("Yo, come to dinner with us," Pritchard told Griffin. "I don't want it to be weird.")

But it was also meaningful for Pritchard because he recalled how much Griffin consoled him during their lone season together, when Pritchard ultimately asked for a trade request.

"I love Blake," Pritchard said. "I owe him a lot, just to help me get through that year. Just having somebody as a positive figure and as big as the person he is to really try to help me through that. I feel like he really took me under his wing."

That season together in Boston marked Griffin's 16th and final year in the NBA. Retired now, the six-time NBA All-Star has enjoyed Pritchard's success from afar. "He's one of those guys that makes you go harder because you see how hard he's going," Griffin said.

Pritchard is still searching for balance. His obsession with the game remains. "I live it, breathe it. I think about it," he said. "My wife, sometimes she'll be talking to me and then she's like, 'Oh my God, you're thinking about basketball right now.' And I really am. My mind's always consumed with it and I'll put everything into it to become what I want to be."

Fly-half Sam Prendergast "trained fully" despite a dead leg as Ireland reported a clean bill of health before Saturday's Six Nations opener at home to England.

Prop Tadhg Furlong has already been ruled out of the game, but all 36 players in interim head coach Simon Easterby's squad took part in Tuesday's training at the team's camp in Portugal.

Prendergast had his leg strapped for the session but assistant coach Andrew Goodman said he is "sure" the 21-year-old will be "all right" for the visit of Steve Borthwick's side to Dublin.

The Leinster number 10 made his Test debut from the bench against Fiji in November before starting the games against Fiji and Australia ahead of Jack Crowley.

"It's been a great couple of months for Sam," said Goodman.

"Just the game experience he's managed to gather up both with Ireland, first with Emerging Ireland, then Ireland, then some big Champions Cup games away to La Rochelle, home to Bath, so it's been a great period for him to get real game experience.

"I know he valued the time at Leinster when he was training alongside the senior squad as an academy member, but to get out there and feel it for himself, there's been huge growth in his game."

Kirill Kaprizov will miss at least four weeks as he will have surgery on a lower-body injury, Minnesota Wild general manager Bill Guerin said Tuesday.

Guerin said that while the Wild's star winger be out of the lineup, it is not a season-ending injury. He said Kaprizov will be week-to-week.

A three-time 40-goal scorer, Kaprizov was having what appeared to be the strongest season of his career. He entered late December as a Hart Trophy candidate for the league's most valuable player. He was tied for second in the NHL in goals while tied for fourth in scoring, just seven points behind Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon for the league lead.

Kaprizov then sustained a lower-body injury that kept him out of the Wild's lineup for a month. He returned Jan. 23, logging zero points in 16:39 of ice time in a 4-0 loss to the Utah Hockey Club. Kaprizov would play two more games, registering an assist in both contests while averaging more than 21 minutes in each game before Guerin's announcement.

"I think he's handled it the best that he could," coach John Hynes said. "To his credit, he does everything that the doctors ask. He's a workhorse. He does anything he can do to get himself ready to play even though he's not feeling great, he's certainly done that."

The provided timeline suggests the earliest Kaprizov could return to the Wild would be late February or early March. One detail that could minimize Kaprizov's absence would be the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament that runs Feb. 12-20. The Wild have six games before the four-team international tournament featuring Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States.

Minnesota's first game back from the 4 Nations Face-Off would be Feb. 22.

"We just need to deal with the situation," Guerin said. "It's not the end of the world. We're going to keep playing and continue to get better. When Kirill's healthy and all healed up, he'll be back, and we'll be even better."

Regardless of how many games Kaprizov misses, his absence is expected to play a significant role in the Wild's bid to reach the playoffs after missing the postseason in 2023-24. Previously, the Wild had made the playoffs in four straight seasons while only missing the postseason once since the start of the 2012-13 campaign.

Minnesota (29-17-4) opened the season with a 20-6-4 start only to go 9-11 since Dec. 14. Since then, they've had two separate three-game losing streaks but remain in the hunt for a playoff spot.

The Wild entered Tuesday third in a rather tight Central Division race in which they are a point behind the second-place Dallas Stars and two points ahead of the Avalanche, who hold the first of two wild-card positions.

Neymar will return to his boyhood club Santos, the team's president announced on Tuesday, a day after he ended his disappointing 17-month stay with Saudi Pro League side Al Hilal.

Neymar, 32, won six titles with his boyhood club Santos, including a Copa Libertadores trophy in 2011. He will return to the club after a frustrating spell at Al Hilal, where he played only seven matches and scored once.

"It is the time [to come back], Neymar. It is time for you to come back to your people. To our home, to the club in our hearts," Santos president Marcelo Teixeira said in a social media post.

"Welcome, our boy Ney! A boy of Vila [Belmiro, Santos' stadium]. Come back to be happy again with the white and black shirt. The Santos nation awaits you with open arms."

Neymar spent much of his time in Saudi Arabia on the sidelines due to an ACL injury he picked playing for Brazil in October 2023.

ESPN reported on Sunday that Neymar was nearing a return to his native Brazil. He had been linked with a transfer to the Chicago Fire, but sources told ESPN his preference was always to rejoin Santos over a move to Major League Soccer.

Since leaving Santos for Barcelona in 2013, Neymar established himself as one of the sport's biggest stars. His move to the Camp Nou saw him team up with Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez to form a feared frontline that came to be known as "MSN."

That partnership resulted in a Champions League crown, two LaLiga titles and three Copa del Reys during his four years at Barcelona. In 2017, he made made a stunning move to Paris Saint-Germain for a world-record fee of around 222 million ($231m).

While the club had little difficulty in earning success on the domestic front, Neymar and his fellow stars -- that later included Messi and Kylian Mbappé -- failed to win the Champions League, coming closest in 2020 when they were beaten by Bayern Munich in the final.

Liverpool head coach Arne Slot believes the similarities between his own playing style and that of Jurgen Klopp have helped to make his transition to English football a seamless one.

Slot's team is currently six points clear at the top of the Premier League table and have already guaranteed automatic qualification for the round of 16 in the revamped Champions League with a game to spare.

The Anfield club need only a point against PSV Eindhoven on Wednesday night to top the league phase table ahead of Barcelona, though Slot is set to field a much-changed side at Philips Stadion, with nine first-team players -- including Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold -- having been omitted from the matchday squad.

Reflecting on what has helped his team reach such a commanding position, Slot said: "The way I work is I think about is how I can bring in my style of play as soon possible with this team.

"The reason that the club ended up with me is because of many characteristics that I share with Jurgen Klopp, some personalities too -- that is the first focus. As a group, I'm happy to be in the position we're in. Thanks to the new Champions League format, it doesn't matter if we win or lose tomorrow."

Slot added: "It took me a while to understand this format, but now I can be 100% sure that it doesn't matter at all if we end up one or two as we play [the team that finishes] 14th, 15th, 16th or 17th and then it's a draw to see who we're going to face.

"This is a game for us that has no importance in terms of the result for league table. But a very wise man said to me I've never seen anything good from losing a football game, so we will do everything we can to try and win."

Slot was joined for his news conference by forward Cody Gakpo, who has recorded an impressive tally of 14 goals and five assists for Liverpool in all competitions this term.

Asked whether Liverpool can learn from the disappointment of falling away in the Premier League title race last season, Gakpo said: "I think the biggest difference at this point is that last season we had a lot of injuries.

"A year has gone by and as a team you get more experience, more togetherness as well. I think we were growing together last year, we're growing this year as well, so hopefully we can bring it to a good end."

MLS announced the guidelines for their 30 teams that will take part in four North American cup competitions in 2025 and 2026, which will see an increased presence in the U.S. Open Cup, and a decreased number of teams at the joint Leagues Cup with Liga MX.

"The framework for MLS club participation in North American cup competitions rewards club performance, manages player workload, and ensures that every MLS club has the opportunity to compete in at least one, but no more than two, North American competitions that run concurrently with the MLS league season," said a statement from the league that also outlined participation in the Concacaf Champions Cup and Canadian Championship.

As opposed to 2024 in which every MLS side took part in the Leagues Cup competition against Liga MX, 18 will now be selected to match the total number of clubs from the Mexican top flight. Set to be played from July 29-Aug. 31, MLS' participants are decided by the top nine teams from each conference from the previous season.

The Vancouver Whitecaps, who finished eighth in the Western Conference last season, will not take part in the Leagues Cup due to their involvement in a maximum of two cup competitions through the Concacaf Champions Cup and Canadian Championship.

In their place, expansion side San Diego FC will take their spot in the 2025 Leagues Cup. According to the league, this "allows for all 30 MLS teams to compete in at least one, but not more than two, North American cup competitions."

Through the new guidelines, the number of MLS first teams will double in the U.S. Open Cup from eight in 2024 to 16 in 2025, expanding the footprint for the league's top sides after last year's controversial decision to trim that number to 8.

Any U.S.-based MLS team that didn't qualify for the Leagues Cup or Concacaf Champions Cup, will take part in the U.S. Open Cup.

The final seven of the 16 MLS first teams were selected through standings in 2024's Supporters' Shield table -- not including those who are going to take part in the Concacaf Champions Cup.

In the previous U.S. Open Cup, MLS made headlines after initially attempting to only send affiliated third division teams from MLS Next Pro to the oldest soccer tournament in the country, then later agreeing to a limited participation with eight senior teams.

One year later, MLS' 16 senior teams will be joined by 10 MLS Next Pro teams for the U.S. Open Cup in 2025.

Criteria for qualifying for the Concacaf Champions Cup, which will feature 10 MLS teams in the tournament that runs from Feb. 4-June 1, was previously set by Concacaf. In the Canadian Championship, which will run from April-Oct., all three Canadian MLS teams are automatically invited.

Qualification parameters for involvement in the four North American cup competitions in 2027 and beyond will be reviewed at a later date.

Outside of the Concacaf region, MLS' Seattle Sounders and Inter Miami will also take part in the Club World Cup wfrom June 14-July 13.

The regular season will be paused from June 15-24, and if Miami or Seattle were to advance to further stages in the Club World Cup, scheduling adjustments in MLS would be considered for either team.

Full list of MLS clubs' North American cup participation for 2025:

Eastern Conference

Atlanta United FC: Leagues Cup

Charlotte FC: Leagues Cup, U.S. Open Cup

Chicago Fire FC: U.S. Open Cup

FC Cincinnati: Concacaf Champions Cup, Leagues Cup

Columbus Crew: Concacaf Champions Cup, Leagues Cup

D.C. United: U.S. Open Cup

Inter Miami CF: Concacaf Champions Cup, Leagues Cup

CF Montréal: Leagues Cup, Canadian Championship

New York City FC: Leagues Cup, U.S. Open Cup

New York Red Bulls: Leagues Cup, U.S. Open Cup

Nashville SC: U.S. Open Cup

New England Revolution: U.S. Open Cup

Orlando City SC: Leagues Cup, U.S. Open Cup

Philadelphia Union: U.S. Open Cup

Toronto FC: Canadian Championship

Western Conference

Austin FC: U.S. Open Cup

Colorado Rapids: Concacaf Champions Cup, Leagues Cup

FC Dallas: U.S. Open Cup,

Houston Dynamo FC: Leagues Cup, U.S. Open Cup

LA Galaxy: Concacaf Champions Cup, Leagues Cup

LAFC: Concacaf Champions Cup, Leagues Cup

Minnesota United FC: Leagues Cup, U.S. Open Cup

Portland Timbers: U.S. Open Cup, Leagues Cup

Real Salt Lake: Concacaf Champions Cup, Leagues Cup

San Jose Earthquakes: U.S. Open Cup San Diego FC: Leagues Cup

Seattle Sounders FC: Concacaf Champions Cup, Leagues Cup

Sporting Kansas City: Concacaf Champions Cup

St. Louis City SC: U.S. Open Cup

Vancouver Whitecaps: Concacaf Champions Cup, Canadian Championship

MLS Next Pro teams participating in the 2025 U.S. Open Cup

Carolina Core FC (Independent), Chattanooga FC (Independent), FC Cincinnati 2 (FC Cincinnati), Columbus Crew 2 (Columbus Crew), Inter Miami CF II (Inter Miami CF), LAFC2 (LAFC), Real Monarchs (Real Salt Lake), Sporting KC II (Sporting Kansas City), Tacoma Defiance (Seattle Sounders FC), Ventura County FC (LA Galaxy).