The Boston Celtics’ surprise slide continued on Tuesday as the defending NBA champions were beaten 91-86 by an undermanned Portland Trail Blazers.
Steve Blake had 21 points and LaMarcus Aldridge added 20 for Portland, which was without All-Star guard Brandon Roy and was coming off a seven-game losing streak. The win move the Blazers equal top of the Northwest Division.
Boston has lost three from four after having broken the franchise record for consecutive wins with 19. Prior to the holiday slump, the Celtics had lost only two games this season.
PHOTO: AP
HEAT 104, CAVALIERS 95
In Miami, Dwyane Wade had 21 points and 12 assists as Miami beat Cleveland and dropped LeBron James’ pro record on his birthdays to 0-3.
Mario Chalmers added 21 points and eight assists for the Heat who put the game away with a 16-3 run in the final quarter.
On the day he turned 24, James scored 24 of his 38 points in the second half, almost enough to rally Cleveland out of its biggest deficit of the season, a 16-point hole at halftime.
BUCKS 100, SPURS 98
In San Antonio, Milwaukee hung on to beat San Antonio when Spurs star Tim Duncan missed a layup with 3.8 seconds to go.
Michael Redd had 25 points and 10 rebounds for the Bucks, who snapped San Antonio’s five-game winning streak.
HAWKS 110, PACERS 104
In Indianapolis, Joe Johnson scored 12 of his 27 points in the fourth quarter to help streaking Atlanta beat Indiana.
The Hawks have won six straight games and nine of 10 to move within three games of Southeast Division leader Orlando.
A Pacers’ 3-pointer cut Atlanta’s lead to one with 1:36 left but Johnson hit his own 3-pointer to make it 108-104 and two free throws to finish the scoring.
It was the Pacers’ fourth consecutive loss.
SUNS 101, GRIZZLIES 89
In Memphis, Tennessee, Shaquille O’Neal moved into eighth place on the NBA career scoring list as Phoenix beat Memphis.
The Suns were without star Steve Nash (back spasms) but Leandro Barbosa filled in admirably with 28 points. He connected on 10 of 18 shots and scored 22 points in the second half.
O’Neal had 24 points, 13 rebounds and three blocks, and his fourth-quarter dunk moved him past Oscar Robertson on the career scoring list with 26,711 points. O’Neal was 8-of-13 from the field and missed only two of his 10 free throws.
HORNETS 97, WIZARDS 85
In New Orleans, Chris Paul had 15 points, 16 assists and 10 rebounds for his third triple-double of the season as New Orleans beat Washington.
The Hornets led most of the way and never trailed by more than a basket in its third straight victory.
KNICKS 93, BOBCATS 89
In Charlotte, North Carolina, New York ended a six-game losing streak in beating Charlotte and improved to 2-0 against its former coach Larry Brown.
Wilson Chandler scored seven of his 19 points in the final 4 minutes to secure the win as the Knicks recovered from blowing a 17-point lead and stayed perfect against Brown, who was fired in the 2005-2006 season and is in his first season with the struggling Bobcats.
KINGS 92, CLIPPERS 90
In Sacramento, California, Sacramento snapped a six-game losing streak by downing Los Angeles.
Returning from three weeks out with an ankle injury, Kevin Martin scored 20 points as the Kings won despite scoring only two points in the final four-and-a-half minutes.
The Clippers were just as bad in the closing stages, failing to score in the last three minutes to lose their fourth straight game.
Sacramento won for the first time this season when trailing in the fourth quarter.
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
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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