Manu Ginobili scored 19 points to lead San Antonio to a 93-80 victory on Saturday over the Washington Wizards, who lost coach Eddie Jordan to an ejection.
Tim Duncan had 18 points and 11 rebounds, while Tony Parker had 13 points and 10 boards. Fabricio Oberto had five points and grabbed 10 rebounds in the Spurs' impressive defensive effort.
Gilbert Arenas led the Wizards with 17 points, well below his average of 30 per game. Antonio Daniels had 12 points, Antawn Jamison added 11 and Caron Butler and Andray Blatche had 10 apiece. Butler also had 12 boards.
The Wizards shot just 27-of-87 (31 percent) from the field and had only eight assists while tying their season low in points.
Heat 119, Jazz 110
At Salt Lake City, Dwyane Wade had 32 points and 10 assists and Miami defeated Utah to extend its longest winning streak of the season to four.
Wade made 21 of 23 free throws and Miami improved to 4-1 on a six-game road trip, which concludes today against the Los Angeles Lakers. The Heat are also 4-2 since Ron Rothstein took over as interim coach for Pat Riley.
Suns 107, Magic 101
At Phoenix, Boris Diaw fell a rebound shy of a triple-double and Phoenix held off a late Orlando rally for its ninth victory in a row.
Diaw had 19 points and 11 assists to help the Suns improve to 17-1 against Eastern Conference foes this season. Steve Nash scored 17 of his 23 points in the first half for Phoenix and had eight assists.
Timberwolves 109, Nets 98
At Minneapolis, Kevin Garnett scored 32 points and surpassed 10,000 rebounds for his career as Minnesota beat New Jersey to win a game by more than six points for the first time this season.
Garnett pulled down 14 rebounds to become the 32nd player in league history to reach the milestone. Mark Blount added 15 points and seven rebounds for the Timberwolves, who used a 12-1 run midway through the fourth quarter to win for the ninth time in 12 games.
For the first time this season, the Wolves won a game by more than six points and improved to 6-1 this year.
Bulls 111, Grizzlies 66
At Chicago, Ben Gordon scored 24 points and Luol Deng added 18 as Chicago downed Memphis for its easiest victory of the season despite missing starters Andres Nocioni and Ben Wallace.
Nocioni was suspended for one game by the NBA for elbowing New Jersey's center Mikki Moore on Thursday and Wallace missed the game with a sore back.
Bobcats 89, 76ers 83
At Charlotte, North Carolina, Adam Morrison scored 17 points and Charlotte overcame a pregame blunder that left it a man short and two more costly technical fouls.
Derek Anderson added 15 points and Raymond Felton had 14 points and nine assists for the Bobcats, who won their season-high third straight game despite losing backup point guard Jeff McInnis late in the first quarter thanks to a bizarre scoring mistake.
Pistons 81, Celtics 73
At Auburn Hills, Michigan, Richard Hamilton scored 22 points and Flip Murray added 21 as Detroit ended an embarrassing two-game losing streak with a win over Boston.
The Pistons were coming off consecutive losses to Charlotte and Atlanta -- a combined 22-46 this season -- but bounced back to hand Boston its fourth loss in a row.
Rockets 115, Kings 111, OT
At Sacramento, California, Tracy McGrady had 37 points and nine assists as Houston handed Sacra-mento its fifth straight loss.
Rafer Alston had 22 points and eight assists for Houston, which has won four straight and nine of 10. Juwan Howard made his first five shots and scored 17 points, Luther Head contributed 14 points, and Dikembe Mutombo added 11 points and 18 rebounds.
Cavaliers 104, Clippers 92
At Los Angeles, LeBron James scored 28 points and Zydrunas Ilgauskas had 20 as Cleveland beat the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Cavaliers, making the third stop on their seven-game road trip and coming off their most lopsided loss of the season in Phoenix, won for the ninth time in their last 11 games. Eric Snow finished with 18 points for Cleveland, which leads the Eastern Conference with a 23-13 record.
The Clippers, coming off a six-game road trip, got 22 points from reserve forward Corey Maggette while Chris Kaman had 20 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
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