Andrew Bogut scored 25 points and had 17 rebounds as the Milwaukee Bucks beat another Eastern Conference heavyweight, making a fourth-quarter comeback to beat the Boston Celtics 86-84 on Tuesday night.
Carlos Delfino added 19 points for Milwaukee in a game that featured a heated on-court confrontation between Bucks rookie Brandon Jennings and the Celtics’ Glen Davis midway through the fourth quarter.
The Bucks went on an 18-9 run from there, grabbing an 86-79 lead on Jennings’ floating jumper in the lane with 2:42 left.
Rajon Rondo converted a three-point play, then Kevin Garnett hit a jumper to cut the lead to two with 53 seconds left. Paul Pierce missed a potential game-tying shot just before the final horn. Rondo had 20 points for Boston.
LAKERS 109, RAPTORS 107
At Los Angeles, Kobe Bryant hit a 17-foot (5.2m) fallaway jump shot with 1.9 seconds left as Los Angeles rallied in the fourth quarter to snap its three-game losing streak.
Chris Bosh hit a 3-pointer with 9.5 seconds left to level it for the Raptors, who outplayed the defending champions for most of the first three quarters before losing on another big shot by Bryant, who scored 14 of his 32 points in the fourth quarter.
Andrew Bynum scored 22 points and Pau Gasol had 17 points and nine rebounds for the Lakers, who returned from a winless road trip to beat Toronto for the eighth straight time at Staples Center.
Bosh scored 22 points in his second game back from a seven-game injury absence, and Andrea Bargnani had 21.
BOBCATS 83, HEAT 78
At Charlotte, North Carolina, Stephen Jackson scored 17 points, Raymond Felton added 15 points and 11 assists as Charlotte used a fourth-quarter comeback to beat Miami in a key game for playoff positioning in the Eastern Conference.
The Bobcats (31-31) reached .500 to move level with Miami (32-32) as they both tussle with Chicago for the last two playoff spots.
Charlotte moved to 3-0 against Miami and clinched the tiebreaker by rallying from nine points down with 9 minutes left.
Dwyane Wade scored 27 points, but passed up a tying shot in the final minute, then clanged a tying 3-point attempt in the final seconds for the Heat, who had their three-game winning streak snapped.
PACERS 107, 76ERS 96
At Indianapolis, Dahntay Jones scored 25 points to help Indiana end a four-game losing streak.
Brandon Rush had 24 points and nine rebounds, and Troy Murphy added 19 points for the Pacers (21-43), who won for just the second time in nine games. Indiana played without leading scorer Danny Granger, suspended one game by the NBA for his part in an altercation in Phoenix on Saturday.
Jrue Holiday scored 21 points and Samuel Dalembert added 16 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks for the 76ers (23-40).
In other games it was:
• Jazz 132, Bulls 108
• Magic 113, Clippers 87
• Trail Blazers 88, Kings 81
• Rockets 96, Wizards 88
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Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
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