Kobe Bryant banked in a running 12-foot jump shot over Caron Butler with 25 seconds left, then went 1-for-2 on foul shots 10 seconds later in the Los Angeles Lakers’ 106-104 victory over the Washington Wizards on Friday.
After Bryant’s miss at the line — he made all of the 13 other free throws he took — Butler had a chance to win it for Washington, but missed a 3-point attempt at the buzzer.
Bryant was 5-for-17 from the field and finished with 23 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. Andrew Bynum had a season-high 19 points, along with 10 rebounds.
PHOTO: AP
Butler led Washington, down by 20 in the fourth quarter, with 26 points.
CELTICS 93, TRAIL BLAZERS 78
At Boston, Ray Allen scored 19 points and Rajon Rondo followed his first career triple-double with 16 points, eight rebounds and seven assists as Boston downed Portland.
Boston’s 11th straight win — its longest streak since its championship-winning season of 1985-1986 — snapped Portland’s six-game winning streak. It was the first time the Trail Blazers lost with Greg Oden in the starting lineup since the season opener, when he left scoreless with a sprained right foot after less than 13 minutes.
ROCKETS 131, WARRIORS 112
At Houston, Yao Ming scored 19 of his season-high 33 points in the fourth quarter and had 14 rebounds and five assists to Houston past Golden State.
Ron Artest added 28 points. Stephen Jackson scored 26 points for Golden State.
CAVALIERS 97, PACERS 73
At Cleveland, Anderson Varejao, with thousands of fans wearing curly, red-headed hair pieces in his honor, didn’t miss a shot and scored 17 points in the first half in Cleveland’s seventh straight victory.
In other games, it was:
• Magic 98, Thunder 89
• Jazz 114, Raptors 87
• 76ers 96, Pistons 91
• Nets 113, Timberwolves 84
• Grizzlies 93, Clippers 81
• Hawks 98, Knicks 95
• Bucks 101, Bobcats 96
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