Dirk Nowitzki hit a long jumper with 1.3 seconds left and the Dallas Mavericks rallied to beat the Phoenix Suns 101-99 on Thurs-day night for their eighth straight victory.
Nowitzki took a pass on the right wing from Jason Terry and made the game-winning shot over Shawn Marion. The Suns had one more chance after a timeout and the inbound pass, but Amare Stoudemire's shot bounded off the front of the rim as time expired.
The loss ended Phoenix's eight-game road winning streak.
Terry had 35 points and eight assists, setting up the final two Dallas baskets in the last 23 seconds. Steve Nash, the two-time NBA MVP since leaving Dallas, had an ally-oop pass to Stoudemire with about a minute left to tie the game at 97.
Nowitzki had 27 points and 10 rebounds, while Howard finished with 16 points and 12 rebounds. Stoudemire scored 25 points, and Nash finished with 24 points -- on 10-of-14 shooting -- and 13 assists for the Suns.
Spurs 106, Jazz 83
At San Antonio, Tony Parker scored 22 points, Tim Duncan added 20 and San Antonio cruised to its 15th consecutive home victory over Utah.
Parker hit all five of his shots from the floor and scored 12 points in the second quarter as the Spurs turned a one-point lead into a 15-point advantage at halftime.
Manu Ginobili returned from a one-game absence because of stomach flu. He scored 12 points, had four rebounds and three assists in 19 minutes.
Deron Williams led Utah with 11 points.
Kidd hit with fine
Jason Kidd's outspoken criticism of the officiating in the New Jersey Nets' 92-91 loss to the Detroit Pistons prompted the NBA to fine him US$20,000 on Wednesday.
NBA executive vice president of basketball operations Stu Jackson handed down the fine, a day after Kidd blasted official Tom Washington over a call in the final moments of Tuesday night's game.
New Jersey's Vince Carter had collided with Detroit's Rasheed Wallace as he attempted a game-winning shot from just inside the foul line with 1.5 seconds to play.
No call was made as Carter's shot caromed over the backboard, and Nets coach Lawrence Frank screamed at Washington as the teams left the floor.
Later, Kidd was still irate.
"For Tom to miss that call or say that he didn't see it, or for any of those guys," Kidd said.
"You go with the Three Blind Mice and it's just sad that Tom just [messed] up that game for us," he said.
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