Dwayne Wade overcame a tough start to score 20 points and Shaquille O'Neal added 19 to lead five Miami players in double figures, and the Heat defeated Washington 105-86 Sunday in Game 1 of their National Basketball Association quarterfinal playoff series.
Keyon Dooling added 15 points, Eddie Jones had 12 and Damon Jones 10 for the Heat, who've won five straight playoff games for the first time in franchise history and are 5-0 against Washington this season.
Miami has also won 22 of 23 at home.
Gilbert Arena had 25 points -- on 8-for-21 shooting -- for Washington, which has lost 12 of its last 14 in Miami. Larry Hughes added 23 for the Wizards, Antawn Jamison had 13 and Jared Jeffries and Brendan Haywood added 10 apiece.
Game 2 is Tuesday night.
Spurs 103, SuperSonics 81
In San Antonio, the took a big first-half lead and held it the rest of the way, easily beating Seattle night in the opener of their second-round series.
In the span of less than a minute during the second quarter, the Sonics lost Ray Allen and Vladimir Radmanovic to ankle sprains. The Spurs then went on a 17-2 run to make it 58-28 with about two minutes remaining in the half.
Allen, an All-Star who averaged 32.4 points in the SuperSonics' first-round series win over Sacramento, sprained his right ankle while driving to the basket with about eight minutes left in the first half. Radmanovic rolled his right ankle while defending Brent Barry and had to be carried from the court by teammates. He was later seen being pushed in a wheelchair.
It was not immediately known if either would be able to play in Game 2 on Tuesday night.
Tony Parker matched his career playoff high with 29 points for the Spurs.
Tim Duncan added 22 points and nine rebounds for the Spurs, who shot 51 percent. Glenn Robinson added 16 points.
Sarunas Jasikevicius scored 22 points and added six rebounds Sunday to help Maccabi Tel Aviv win its second straight Euroleague title after beating Tau Ceramica 90-78.
Tau Ceramica, which was playing in the Final Four for the first time, trailed by as many as 11 points through the first three quarters.
The Spanish champions narrowed the gap to 65-62 with 10 minutes left, but Maccabi scored eight straight points to take control.
Maceo Baston added 18 points for Maccabi, while Luis Scola scored 21 points and had nine assists for Tau Ceramica.
After the game, Maccabi coach Pini Gershon was so emotional he was unable to talk to an Israel TV interviewer for almost a minute.
"This is fantastic," he managed to say before leaping into an embrace from Israeli President Moshe Katsav.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called Gershon to congratulate him, and the conversation was broadcast on Israel TV.
In Israel, fans celebrated in bars and on the streets, streaming into Tel Aviv's main square carrying Maccabi and Israeli flags. The Azrieli towers, which dominate the city's skyline, were lit up with the words "Maccabi -- the championship."
In the third-place game, forward Michael Batiste scored 28 points and had 10 rebounds to lead Panathinaikos to a 94-91 double-overtime win over CSKA Moscow.
Panathinaikos led by five points with 38 seconds left in regulation, but guard Marcus Brown sank a 3-pointer and Theodoros Papaloukas evened the score at 78 with 10.8 seconds left, forcing overtime.
After the five-minute first overtime period, the two teams were tied 84-84.
CSKA led 42-23 at halftime, but the Greek team gradually narrowed the margin throughout the second half. Panathinaikos forward Ibrahim Kutluay tied the score at 61-61 midway through the final quarter.
Canadian guard Steve Nash edged Shaquille O'Neal by 34 points to win the National Basketball Association's most valuable player award, the fourth-closest margin since the media began determining the winner in 1980-1981.
The decision was first reported Friday, but the official announcement Sunday detailed the balloting by a panel of 127 sports writers and broadcasters in the United States and Canada.
Nash, the South African-born nine-year NBA veteran who led Phoenix to a season-best 62 victories in his first year with the Suns, received 1,066 points. O'Neal, who left the Los Angeles Lakers for Miami and helped the Heat to the best record in the Eastern Conference, received 1,032.
Players received 10 points for a first-place vote, seven for second, five for third, three for fourth and one for fifth.
Nash received 65 first-place votes to O'Neal's 58. The NBA assist leader at 11.5 a game, Nash is the sixth guard to win the award, joining Bob Cousy, Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Allen Iverson.
Nash's close friend, German center Dirk Nowitski of Dallas, was a distant third in the balloting with 349 points, followed by Tim Duncan (328) of San Antonio and Allen Iverson (240) of Philadelphia.
Nash is the first player to lead the league in assists and be named MVP since Johnson in 1987.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier