Just as they did a year ago, the Detroit Pistons delivered on Rasheed Wallace's prediction of beating the Indiana Pacers -- this time tying their NBA second-round playoff series with an 89-76 win in Game 4 on Sunday.
Chauncey Billups scored 29 points, and Wallace had 17 points, 12 rebounds and a playoff career-high five blocks.
Last year, Wallace guaranteed a Game 2 win by the Pistons after they lost to Indiana in the opener of the Eastern Conference finals. Detroit won that game -- and the series -- and beat the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals.
Wallace was at it again on Friday, saying, "We're definitely going back to Detroit with this thing 2-2, no question about it," after Indiana took a 2-1 series lead.
Now, the series went back to Detroit tied 2-2 for Game 5 yesterday.
In other playoff games on Sunday, Dallas defeated Phoenix 119-109; and Seattle beat San Antonio 101-89. Both series are tied at 2.
Nineteen Indiana turnovers led to 25 points for the Pistons.
Mavericks 119, Suns 109
At Dallas, Dirk Nowitzki finally snapped out of his postseason shooting slump with 25 points on 9-of-15 shooting for the Mavericks. Josh Howard finished with a playoff career-high 29 points and 10 rebounds -- six on the offensive end.
Steve Nash scored a playoff career-high 48 points.
Amare Stoudemire, who had scored at least 30 points in three straight games, had more fouls (five) than goals (three) and scored 9 of his 15 points on free throws.
SuperSonics 101, Spurs 89
At Seattle, Ray Allen scored 32 points and Luke Ridnour had 15 of his 20 points in the third quarter, hitting all seven of his field goals in the period.
Tim Duncan led the Spurs with 35 points.
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
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