Andre Iguodala scored 25 points, and the Philadelphia 76ers won their seventh straight on Saturday night with a 100-96 victory over the Indiana Pacers, who have lost eight in a row.
Danny Granger and Troy Murphy each scored 18 points, while Mike Dunleavy and Ike Diogu added 17 apiece for the undermanned Pacers, who have their longest losing streak since the 1988-1989 season.
Point guard Jamaal Tinsley was suspended for the game for conduct detrimental to the team. Jermaine O'Neal, Indiana's leading scorer, rebounder and shot blocker, sat out with a sprained left knee and Marquis Daniels, a key reserve, sat out with a sore left knee.
Spurs 93, Nets 77
At San Antonio, Tony Parker scored 19 points to lead a balanced effort, and San Antonio beat slumping New Jersey for its 12th straight victory.
Tim Duncan added 17 points and 13 rebounds, while Manu Ginobili had 12 points.
Vince Carter had 17 for the Nets, who have lost five straight. Mikki Moore added 14 points and Josh Boone scored 11, but Jason Kidd had only seven before he was ejected in the third quarter after picking up a pair of technical fouls.
Nets coach Lawrence Frank was also ejected.
Knicks 90, Wizards 89
At Washington, Steve Francis swished a 3-pointer at the buzzer to complete a late comeback and lift New York over Washington, moving the Knicks into a tie for eighth place in the Eastern Conference.
Francis, who finished with 26 points and seven rebounds, dribbled behind his back to get space away from defender Antonio Daniels and released the ball with about a second on the clock.
Cavaliers 94, Bucks 92
At Milwaukee, LeBron James had 32 points and nine assists, the last one to Anderson Varejao for the winning layup, and Cleveland rallied to beat Milwaukee.
Michael Redd scored 29 points, but failed to force overtime when his short jumper missed. The Bucks lost their 12th straight game against Central Division teams since beating the Detroit Pistons in the season opener for both teams on Nov. 1.
The Cavaliers (37-25) won their fourth straight, pulling within two games of Detroit for first place in the Central Division and Eastern Conference. It was James' sixth consecutive game with 32 or more points.
In other games on Saturday it was: Jazz 96, Hornets 86; Hawks 99, Timberwolves 93; Grizzlies 115, Bobcats 107.
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