HOUSTON -- The Houston Texans couldn't script a better start to their "Sunday Night Football" matchup vs. the Detroit Lions.

On the sixth play of the Lions' opening drive, Texans safety Jalen Pitre deflected a pass from Lions quarterback Jared Goff, and safety Jimmie Ward intercepted it.

The Texans wasted little time and marched into the end zone on an eight-play, 33-yard drive capped by an 8-yard Joe Mixon rushing touchdown. The score put them up 7-0 in the first quarter.

Joe Mixon getting the scoring started!

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Quarterback C.J. Stroud kept the scoring drive alive by converting a third-and-10 and a third-and-16 with passes to wideouts Tank Dell and John Metchie III, respectively.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler was held out of Sunday night's game against the Minnesota Timberwolves because of a sprained right ankle, yet another matchup he's missed against one of his former teams.

Butler was hurt during a drive to the basket just seven minutes into Miami's game at Denver on Friday night and did not return.

Without the six-time All-Star available, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was forced to make his first starting lineup change in nine games this season, inserting Kevin Love and Haywood Highsmith for Butler and a healthy Nikola Jovic. The Heat set a franchise record last season with 35 different starting lineups.

Butler forced his way out of Minnesota six years ago with a trade to Philadelphia. The 76ers won both games against the Timberwolves in 2018-19 with Butler healthy, but since being traded to Miami for the following season he has been frequently missing.

This was the sixth absence for Butler with the Heat in 11 games against the Timberwolves. He has played in only two of six games in Minnesota. The Heat went 2-8 against the Timberwolves over the last five seasons and 1-4 with Butler on the floor.

MILWAUKEE -- Celtics guard Jaylen Brown took exception to a fake handshake offered by Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo in the second quarter of Boston's 113-107 victory Sunday.

Antetokounmpo offered his hand to Brown after being whistled for an offensive foul, but he pulled it back and ran his hand through his hair as Brown reached out to accept. Antetokounmpo laughed and smiled at the gesture, before reaching his hand back out again.

Brown did not accept this time, shaking his head on the court.

"Giannis is a child," Brown said after the game. "I'm just focused on helping my team get a win. And that's what we did tonight."

"We always joke around with the flow of the game. It's something that I do to my kids, I play around. This is who I am. I play the game with fun, joy." Giannis Antetokounmpo, on his fake handshake to the Celtics' Jaylen Brown

Antetokounmpo was surprised to hear Brown's reaction after the game, emphasizing that he was just poking fun and has joked with Brown on the court in the past.

"We always joke around with the flow of the game," Antetokounmpo said. "It's something that I do to my kids, I play around.

"This is who I am. I play the game with fun, joy."

Later, in the fourth quarter, Brown was called for a flagrant foul against Antetokounmpo after challenging him in the air while Antetokounmpo was driving to the basket. The game official deemed the contact was excessive and unnecessary, which led to it being ruled as flagrant, but Brown said the play was not intentional or a response to the fake handshake earlier in the game.

Brown returned Sunday after a four-game absence for a strained left hip flexor.

The Celtics and Bucks have been competing at the top of the Eastern Conference in recent years, with Brown and Antetokounmpo starring for their respective teams. They've met in the playoffs in 2018, 2019 and 2022.

Antetokounmpo remained complimentary about Brown after the game.

"I think he's an incredible player," said Antetokounmpo, who finished with 42 points and 13 rebounds. "I'm just going to continue to be me. And at the end of the day. If I'm called a child, so be it.

"I just try to go out there and have fun. But again, [he is a] great player, great competitor. If I have another opportunity, I'll do it again."

The Bucks jumped out to a 17-point lead in the first half behind 19 points in the first quarter from Antetokounmpo, his highest scoring quarter this season. Milwaukee, however, could not hold onto that lead as the Bucks fell to 2-8 on the season, their worst start through 10 games since Antetokounmpo's rookie season.

Sunday marked the second time this season that the Bucks have blown a 15-point lead, joining the Miami Heat as the only two teams to do so multiple times this season.

"We can't sustain," Bucks coach Doc Rivers said. "The Cleveland game [also], we came out like gangbusters and as the game goes on, we just don't sustain our play."

The Bucks have an important stretch coming up, with seven of their next nine games at home. Of those nine games, only two teams -- Indiana and MIami -- made the playoffs last season.

"It is frustrating," Bucks center Brook Lopez said. "We feel like we should have a better record, but there are a lot of positives as well. We got to keep going, got to keep working it. I think the most important thing is we know we don't have guys that have quit in them. No one here is going to quit."

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Thunder star Chet Holmgren was ruled out with a right hip injury for the remainder of the second half Sunday against the Golden State Warriors.

Holmgren took a scary fall when he went to challenge an Andrew Wiggins drive inside midway through the first quarter. After a midair collision, Holmgren fell hard on his right side.

The Thunder big man remained on the floor in apparent pain for a moment before needing help off the court and into the locker room. He didn't put any weight on his right leg as he left with 6:50 to go in the first quarter.

Holmgren exited with four rebounds and no points.

Through his first nine games, Holmgren was averaging 18.2 points, 9.2 rebounds and 2.9 blocks. The Thunder were off to an 8-1 start with Holmgren entering Sunday's game.

Without the No. 2 pick of the 2022 draft, the Thunder had to utilize small lineups against the Warriors. Backup center Isaiah Hartenstein has been sidelined to start the season with a small nondisplaced fracture in his left hand.

The Thunder face the LA Clippers on Monday in Oklahoma City.

Pep Guardiola is discovering the meaning of "crisis" at Manchester City. It is a new sensation for the 53-year-old manager, who has transformed the fortunes of every club he has coached and influenced football like no other in the modern game. But cracks are beginning to appear in his empire at the Etihad.

Saturday's 2-1 Premier League loss at Brighton saw Guardiola suffer a fourth-consecutive defeat for the first time in his senior managerial career -- a run dating back to 2008 when he started at Barcelona. Brighton's win also marked City's first four-game losing streak since 2006, two years before the club were taken over by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan and his Abu Dhabi-backed billions.

Tottenham, Bournemouth, Sporting CP and Brighton have all beaten City in the space of 10 days, albeit in three different competitions -- not quite the "four-in-a-row" that their fans have boasted about since winning a fourth-successive Premier League title last season.

It is always dangerous to write off a great champion and herald the start of their decline, but it comes to everyone, no matter the sport. The problem with an end of an era is that it is almost impossible to predict. The signs only become clear when you look back with hindsight and everything seems obvious. But if Guardiola was to take a glimpse over his shoulder at recent months, the signposts will be there.

"Today in the press conference I was asked if it was the end of the era," Guardiola told reporters after the defeat at Brighton. "I know people want that. I smell it for many, many years. What we have done in these years, people have said it's so difficult, but if somebody would like to beat us it is going to happen because in the next 50 years, we're not going to win all the Premier Leagues. It's impossible."

In isolation, the pitfalls that have befallen City would not be enough to destabilise the team and raise questions over their ability to bounce back. But once you start to stack them up, the pressures and distractions of each one suddenly seem overwhelming.

The off-field battle against the Premier League's 115 charges for breaching financial regulations -- City vehemently deny all of them -- has been a cloud over the club for months; one which has impacted on their ability to attract new players to the Etihad. Why? Because no top player would risk signing for a club facing potentially unprecedented financial penalties, a massive points deduction, or even expulsion from the Premier League.

The announcement in October that Txiki Begiristain will leave his post as director of football next summer after 13 years at the club was also a significant blow to Guardiola, who has worked in tandem with his close friend and former Barcelona teammate throughout his time as City manager. City announced that Begiristain will be replaced by Sporting CP's Hugo Viana, but his exit has raised further questions over Guardiola's future beyond the end of his contract which expires next June.

These issues are the slow, ominous drumbeat heard in the background, but events on the pitch are now turning up the volume to an uncomfortable level.

It is too simplistic to attribute all of City's problems to the loss of defensive midfielder Rodri, after he suffered season-ending cruciate ligament injury against Arsenal in September. But the 28-year-old, who was recently crowned the 2024 Ballon d'Or winner, is a hugely important figure for City and the stats back that up.

Since the start of the 2023-24 season, and up to the Arsenal game, Rodri played in 53 games for City in all competitions and lost just one: the FA Cup final against Manchester United. When Rodri plays, their win percentage is 73.6%; without him, it drops to 58.3%.

However, City won six and drew one of the seven games that immediately followed Rodri's injury, so they had found a way to play without the Spain international. But injuries to other key players like Kevin De Bruyne, John Stones, Manuel Akanji, Rúben Dias, Jack Grealish and Jérémy Doku have hit them hard through this season too.

City are arguably paying the price for offloading forward Julián Álvarez to Atletico Madrid in the summer without replacing him. Having only signed winger Savinho, from partner club Girona, and former midfield captain Ilkay Gündogan this summer, City failed to replenish their squad sufficiently, leaving them with a smaller number of first-team players than others in the Premier League.

Added to this is the fact that a number of key figures in Guardiola's side are reaching the end of their careers: De Bruyne (33), Kyle Walker (34), Mateo Kovacic (30), Gündogan (34), Bernardo Silva (30), and Éderson (31) will all need to be replaced sooner rather than later.

One of the factors in Manchester United's alarming decline following Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement in 2013 -- after 13 Premier League titles in 20 years -- was the age of his squad and the club's failure to plan ahead with replacements for Patrice Evra, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Michael Carrick and Paul Scholes.

The United team selected by Ferguson for his final home game as manager had an average age of 27.54; the XI who started City's defeat at Brighton this weekend had an average age of 25.72. Though figure is skewed by the presence of two 19-year-olds in Rico Lewis and Premier League debutant Jahmai Simpson-Pusey.

Man City and Guardiola are fighting fires on several fronts, on and off the pitch, and the impact is being shown in their recent results. But they have too much quality to be written off. They are only five points behind leaders Liverpool and are due to travel to Anfield on Dec. 1, so City can still rescue their season.

"When the players come back, I don't have any doubt that we will be back to our best," Guardiola said after the Brighton defeat. But for the first time since arriving at City, and maybe for the first time in his managerial career, Guardiola might be trying to convince himself and his players of that message as much as he is attempting to prove it to everybody else.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Patrick Mahomes wasn't optimistic the Kansas City Chiefs would block the field goal attempt with one second remaining that would have given the Denver Broncos a victory on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium.

But Mahomes was comforted by one fact: The Chiefs this season had won three different games on the last play, so he didn't close his mind to the possibility.

"If anyone's going to do it, this team's going to have a designed rush or designed way to get a hand on it,'' Mahomes said. "You're obviously worried. It's out of your control, but at the same time, I've trusted my teammates that they're going to go out there and make a play.''

Sure enough, linebacker Leo Chenal got a hand on Wil Lutz's 35-yard try, blocking it to give the Chiefs a 16-14 win and preserve their undefeated season. The Chiefs will take their 9-0 record to Buffalo for a game against the Bills on Nov. 17.

The Chiefs weren't surprised it was Chenal who came up with the big play. He blocked a point-after-touchdown try in Super Bowl LVIII, a game the Chiefs went on to win in overtime.

In some ways, Chenal said, Sunday's block was bigger with the result of the game depending on it.

"The moment is heavy,'' he said. "You feel the weight of the moment.''

He said the Chiefs crashed the middle of Denver's line thinking the Broncos would give a lot of attention to teammate Justin Reid, who was rushing from the edge. Chenal was one of a gang of Chiefs who broke through up the middle to get a hand on the ball.

"A lot of times they'll go out there and leave openings down the middle,'' Chenal said. "We've been talking about it for awhile and we did it in a big moment.''

Andy Reid, in his 26th season as an NFL head coach, said he has never won a game with a blocked kick on the final play.

"We work on that block like crazy but it doesn't normally work like that,'' Reid said.

Chenal, the Chiefs' third-round draft pick in 2022, has filled a variety of roles in Kansas City. In addition to playing linebacker, he's lined up as a defensive lineman and as a blocker on offense.

Mahomes said Chenal is one of the strongest players on the Chiefs.

"You don't want to be that guy when he's working out,'' Mahomes said. "We call him John Cena.''

Chenal's blocked kick didn't hide the fact that the Broncos for much of the game outplayed the Chiefs. Denver scored a touchdown early in the second quarter to take a 7-0 lead and held an advantage until Harrison Butker's third field goal of the game put the Chiefs ahead 16-14 with six minutes left.

"We outplayed them,'' Broncos coach Sean Payton said.

Mahomes didn't disagree. The Chiefs played two similar, low-scoring games against the Broncos last season in which they scored a total of one touchdown and 28 points.

"They play extremely hard,'' Mahomes said. "They're well coached. They do a good job of mixing coverages and then they make you execute throughout the entire field.

"There are chances, but if you don't hit those, the drives stall out. They continue to play hard and so you've got to execute on those chances in order to beat a good football team. We didn't do that today and we got lucky and found a way to get the win in the end anyway.''

The Chiefs also had walk-off wins this season against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 1, Cincinnati Bengals in Week 2 and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 9. Mahomes said the Chiefs would rather win all of their games in a more comfortable manner, but they'll gladly endure the extra drama to get the W.

"You live for these moments,'' he said. "When you grow up playing football, you live for the walk-off, whatever it is.''

ESPN's Jeff Legwold contributed to this story.

The housecleaning is under way at Florida State, where coach Mike Norvell fired offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Alex Atkins, defensive coordinator Adam Fuller and receivers coach Ron Dugans on Sunday.

The dismissals came a day after the Seminoles lost their sixth straight game, 52-3 at Notre Dame. It was FSU's third straight loss by 20 points or more.

With a 1-9 record, Florida State is on pace for its worst season since finishing 1-10 in 1974, two years before legendary coach Bobby Bowden took over the program.

"I appreciate the work these three men have provided over the last five years with me at Florida State," FSU coach Mike Norvell said in a statement. "They are all great men with families who also have poured into our program. We had many great moments together here, and I have never doubted their passion for our players and for Florida State.

"Unfortunately, we have not upheld the Florida State standard with our results on the field this season. I did not make any of these decisions lightly, but I felt changes needed to be made to elevate our program back to where we all desire it to be."

Norvell said co-defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Randy Shannon would take over defensive playcalling, and other staff members will help replace the departed assistants.

The Seminoles rank last among 134 FBS teams in scoring with 13.3 points per game and are 101st in scoring defense, surrendering 29.8 points per game.

It has been a stunning collapse for an FSU program that went 13-0 and captured an ACC title in 2023. With starting quarterback Jordan Travis injured, the Seminoles were left out of the College Football Playoff. Following myriad player opt-outs, FSU lost 63-3 to Georgia in the Capital One Orange Bowl.

After flirting with Alabama's vacancy once Nick Saban retired in January, Norvell agreed to a 10-year extension at Florida State that will pay him more than $84 million through the 2031 season.

The Seminoles close the season by hosting FCS program Charleston Southern on Nov. 23 and rival Florida the next week.

AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Joey Logano won his third NASCAR championship on Sunday with a relentless drive at Phoenix Raceway that gave Team Penske its third major motorsports title in less than a month.

Logano held off Penske teammate Ryan Blaney over the final 20 laps to beat him to the Cup Series title by 0.330 seconds. Blaney was trying to become the first back-to-back champion since Jimmie Johnson won five straight from 2006 to 2010.

Instead, Logano became the 10th driver in NASCAR history to win three or more championships and broke a tie with Kyle Busch as the only active drivers with multiple titles.

"I love the playoffs, I love it man," Logano said. "What a team, what a Penske battle there at the end. Three of them? That's truly special."

It was the first time in Team Penske history the organization finished 1-2 in the championship. And, it came after Roger Penske's sports car team in IMSA won the title last month and his World Endurance Championship team won the title last weekend in Bahrain.

"At least a Penske car won it," said Blaney, who admitted to be "worn out" at the end of the race.

It also gave Penske and Ford three consecutive Cup Series championships. Logano won in 2022 and Blaney won last year.

"1-2 for Team Penske, three championships in a row, can't be more proud of this team," Logano said. "I don't know if I'm the best driver but I've got the best team. And together, we're very well-rounded and can show up when it matters the most."

The finale was winner-take-all to the highest finisher between Logano, Blaney, William Byron in a Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports and Tyler Reddick of the 23XI Racing team owned by NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin.

Byron finished third in the race and Reddick was sixth.

Logano, a 34-year-old Connecticut native, led 107 laps in the dominating win that Blaney made closer than expected in the final laps.

But, his very presence in the final four was controversial as Logano was eliminated from the playoffs after the second round only to be reinstated when Alex Bowman of Hendrick Motorsports failed post-race inspection at Charlotte.

Logano was put back in the field of eight, went to Las Vegas Motor Speedway the next week and won to become the first driver locked into the championship race. It gave his No. 22 team three weeks to prepare for Phoenix.

"Our team is better under pressure," Logano said. "The race started in Vegas for us. The amount of work and effort that went into building this race car right here, the amount of time, I don't think anyone works harder than us. We were up at 6 in the morning this morning going over stuff. The guys just want it bad and I'm glad we delivered."

The Miami Marlins are hiring former Los Angeles Dodgers first-base coach Clayton McCullough as their new manager, a source familiar with the situation told ESPN on Sunday.

McCullough, 44, spent the past four seasons on Dave Roberts' coaching staff in L.A., the last of which ended in a championship. He succeeds Skip Schumaker, who was not brought back at the end of his contract and has since joined the Texas Rangers' front office as a senior adviser to president of baseball operations Chris Young.

A career minor league catcher, McCullough managed in the Toronto Blue Jays' minor league system from 2007 to 2014, finishing six of those seasons with winning records. He was then hired by the Dodgers as their minor league field coordinator, at which point he worked under current Marlins assistant general manager Gabe Kapler.

The Dodgers promoted McCullough to their major league coaching staff in 2021, inserting him as their first-base coach while having him work with outfielders and placing him in charge of their baserunning program. In 2024, McCullough played a big part in helping Shohei Ohtani evolve as a base stealer, paving the way for the first 50/50 season in baseball history.

McCullough was one of three primary candidates for the Marlins' managing job, along with Will Venable and Craig Albernaz. Venable was named manager of the Chicago White Sox and Albernaz pulled out of the race, opting to remain the Cleveland Guardians' bench coach.

The Marlins interviewed McCullough over videoconference while the Dodgers navigated a World Series run in October. He met with staff members at the team's spring training complex in Jupiter, Florida, last week and then again at LoanDepot Park in Miami on Friday.

McCullough is the first managerial hire by president of baseball operations Peter Bendix, who took over baseball operations last offseason. McCullough will inherit a franchise once again in transition.

The Marlins surprisingly made the playoffs in 2023, getting swept in the wild-card round, then lost 100 games in 2024, a season that saw Bendix trade away established veterans including Luis Arraez, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Tanner Scott, A.J. Puk and Trevor Rogers.

Bendix's goal is to build an infrastructure that will lead to sustained winning despite not possessing the revenue streams of some of the bigger-market teams in the National League East, similar to what he helped produce with the Tampa Bay Rays. That process, Bendix has acknowledged, will take time.

McCullough, who has experience developing young players but has also been around a championship culture, will help lead it.