The Houston Rockets shrugged off the loss of Yao Ming to stun the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers 99-87 on Sunday and level their Western Conference semi-final series at 2-2.
The Eastern Conference semi-final series between Boston and Orlando is also tied at 2-2 after the Celtics’ Glen Davis hit a jump shot at the buzzer for a 95-94 victory over the Magic.
Houston guard Aaron Brooks scored a career-high 34 points in the shock home-court win over the Lakers as the Rockets coped admirably without Yao, who broke his left foot in Friday’s loss.
PHOTO: AFP
“We will never count ourselves out,” Brooks told reporters. “If anybody is ready for this it would be us.”
“We’ve been through a lot this year. Mac [Tracy McGrady] being out, Deke [Dikembe Mutombo] being out, Shane [Battier] being out at the beginning of the year. Now we have Yao out. It seems like we keep going. We’re used to it,” he said.
Houston scored the game’s first nine points and built a 29-point lead by the end of the third quarter.
Battier added 23 points, including five three-pointers, and Luis Scola had 14 rebounds and 11 points.
Los Angeles scored 33 points in the fourth quarter but could not overhaul the Rockets.
Pau Gasol scored 30 points for the Lakers, who host Game Five today, while Bryant had only 15, making just seven of 17 shots.
In Orlando, Paul Pierce had 27 points with Davis and Rajon Rondo scoring 21 each as the defending NBA champions squeezed out the win.
The Magic wiped out an eight-point Celtics’ lead to go ahead twice — first on two free throws by Dwight Howard with 49.6 seconds to play and again on a pair by Rashard Lewis with 11.3 seconds remaining.
Davis then beat the buzzer for the win.
“Ever since I’ve been with the Celtics, I’ve just been trying to find my niche in our system,” the second-year forward said.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB