Leon Powe made a layup at the buzzer to lift the NBA-leading Boston Celtics to an 88-86 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday.
Injured Celtic Kevin Garnett could only watch upon his return to Minnesota, as his new team stole the game on the final play.
The Timberwolves had the ball with the scored tied 86-86 with 28 seconds left. Marko Jaric missed a 3-pointer and teammate Craig Smith rebounded the ball and tried to kick it back out.
But Ray Allen stole the pass and raced the other way with the clock ticking down. A frantic scramble under the basket ended with Powe putting back a miss, with a review showing he released the ball with just two tenths of a second to play.
NUGGETS 111, WIZARDS 100
In Denver, Carmelo Anthony scored a career-high 49 points to lead Denver over Washington and to their ninth win in their past 10 home games.
Anthony made 19 of 25 shots from the floor and made all eight of his free throws in the third-highest individual scoring game in the NBA this season.
The win moved Denver within a game of Northwest Division leader Utah.
In other games, it was: Kings 117, Jazz 104; Lakers 117, Magic 113; Spurs 99, Knicks 93, OT; Suns 103, SuperSonics 99; Pistons 91, Trail Blazers 82; Cavaliers 100, Hawks 95; Mavericks 92, Grizzlies 81; Clippers 102, Raptors 98; Nets 104, Bobcats 90.
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