Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns made Gilbert Arenas and the Washington Wizards look more like NBA pretenders than contenders, putting the so-called "Phoenix Suns of the East" in their place with a 127-105 thumping on Tuesday.
Nash scored 27 points on 11-for-13 shooting and added 14 assists in the Suns' 14th straight win. Phoenix led by 21 after the first quarter and won for the 30th time in 32 games in a matchup between the NBA's two highest-scoring teams.
Arenas, who has compared his team's high-octane offense to the Suns', scored 31 points, but he started 1-for-6 and the game was essentially over before he got going. When he finally made his second field goal, it only served to cut the Suns' lead to 24.
Shawn Marion finished with 21 points on 9-for-11 shooting, and Raja Bell also had 21 points for the Suns, who were opening a five-game road trip.
Caron Butler scored 24 points for the Wizards, who had won a Verizon Center-record 10 straight at home to move atop the Eastern Conference standings.
Mavericks 111, Magic 95
At Orlando, Florida, Dirk Nowitzki had 33 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists, and Josh Howard added 25 points to help Dallas beat Orlando for its eighth straight victory.
For the second consecutive night, the Mavericks led from beginning to end. They pushed the margin to 25 points in the second quarter with a 15-5 run capped by Nowitzki's three-point play, and kept it around 20 for most of the second and third periods.
Jameer Nelson scored 23 points for the Magic and keyed the third-quarter run that brought Orlando back into the game. Hedo Turkoglu scored 17, Grant Hill had 15 and Dwight Howard finished with 15 points and 14 rebounds.
76ers 102, Hornets 96
At Philadelphia, Kyle Korver scored 25 points, Andre Iguodala added 20 and Philadelphia held on to beat New Orleans.
The 76ers got double-figure scoring from five players and opened the second half of their season with a victory after going 11-30 over the first 41 games.
Andre Miller had 17 points and 11 assists. Rodney Carney added 13 points, and Samuel Dalembert had 10 points and seven rebounds for the Sixers.
Devin Brown led the Hornets with 24 points and David West added 23 in his third game back after missing 30 following shoulder surgery.
Bulls 94, Hawks 86
At Chicago, Luol Deng scored 18 points and Kirk Hinrich added 12 points and 12 assists to lead Chicago.
P.J. Brown scored a season-high 15 points and had nine rebounds for Chicago, which has won nine straight over Atlanta.
Chicago took control in the third quarter, scoring nine consecutive points to open an 18-point cushion.
Joe Johnson led Atlanta with 29 points and Marvin Williams added 22. The Hawks have lost three straight after winning three in a row.
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