Jameer Nelson scored nine of his 16 points in the final 9:52 and Dwight Howard blocked Mark Blount's potential tying shot with 12 seconds left on Monday night, helping the Orlando Magic beat Boston 87-83 for their fourth consecutive win.
Steve Francis led the Magic with 19 points and DeShawn Stevenson had 11. Ricky Davis led the Celtics with 22 points, and Paul Pierce had 16 points and 13 rebounds.
Orlando led 83-81 when Blount took a pass in the lane, but Howard got a piece of it before the shot could be released. Hedo Turkoglu hit two free throws with 9.3 seconds left, stretching Orlando's lead to 85-81. After Davis hit a jumper, Turkoglu hit two more from the line with 4.8 seconds left to seal it.
Mavericks 93, Raptors 91
At Toronto, Jason Terry hit a running layup at the buzzer for Dallas.
With 2 seconds left, Marquis Daniels inbounded to Terry, who ran into the lane and tossed a light shot over the arms of Chris Bosh as time expired.
Terry finished with 26 points, and Dirk Nowitzki had 29 points -- 13 in the fourth quarter -- and 11 rebounds to help Dallas win its fourth consecutive road game.
Bosh had 26 points and 10 rebounds to lead league-worst Toronto, which lost its fifth in a row and dropped to 1-14.
Heat 107, Knicks 94
At Miami, Dwyane Wade scored 33 points, James Posey had 19 -- including five 3-pointers -- and Jason Williams added 18 to help Miami snap its two-game losing streak and beat New York for the fifth consecutive time.
Alonzo Mourning tied a franchise record with nine blocks, matching the mark he achieved five previous times. Stephon Marbury scored 19 points to lead the Knicks, who have lost four of their last six.
Nets 101, Nuggets 92
At Denver, Vince Carter scored 25 points and Richard Jefferson had 24 for New Jersey against the short-handed Nuggets, who added star Carmelo Anthony to their ever-growing list of injuries.
Anthony sprained his left ankle just 1:09 into the game. Denver's Kenyon Martin scored 26 points against his former team before being ejected with 65 seconds left.
Warriors 99, Hornets 83
At Oakland, California, Baron Davis had 17 points and nine assists in his first game against his former team, and the Golden State beat New Orleans for its third consecutive win.
Derek Fisher scored 17 points off the bench for the Warriors, making three 3-pointers including back-to-back 3s during a 14-3 run late in the third quarter that gave Golden State a 15-point cushion heading into the final period.
Troy Murphy recorded his seventh double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds and Jason Richardson added 17 points, eight rebounds and five assists.
Chris Paul had 15 points and five assists and David West added 14 points and 11 boards for New Orleans.
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