Third-string center Ian Mahinmi had 12 points and a career-high 10 rebounds and fourth-stringer Alexis Ajinca provided quality minutes to help the Dallas Mavericks beat the Golden State Warriors 105-100 on Tuesday for their 10th straight victory.
Dirk Nowitzki scored 25 points, Jason Terry had 20 and Caron Butler 19 — but that’s expected. The surprise was the performance by the backup big men, both from France. They were forced into duty because starter Tyson Chandler was home with a stomach ailment and fill-in starter Brendan Haywood got in early foul trouble.
Stephen Curry scored 21 points, David Lee had 20, Monta Ellis 18 and Dorrell Wright 17 for Golden State.
TRAIL BLAZERS 106, SUNS 99
In Portland, Oregon, Wesley Matthews scored 24 points, Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge had 20 apiece and Portland snapped the Suns’ three-game winning streak.
Phoenix led by as many as nine points early in the fourth quarter but the Trail Blazers, known for late-game meltdowns of late, tied it at 89 on Nicolas Batum’s layup and went in front on Aldridge’s two free throws with 3:38 left. Matthews made two more foul shots to extend Portland’s lead.
Steve Nash had 24 points and 15 assists for Phoenix.
The Blazers made 32 of 33 free-throw attempts while playing without guard Andre Miller, who was serving a one-game suspension imposed by the league for making “excessive and unnecessary contact” with Blake Griffin in the fourth quarter of a 100-91 victory over the Clippers on Sunday.
By missing the game, Miller saw his NBA-leading streak of 632 consecutive games come to an end. The 34-year-old Miller had not missed a game since the 2002-2003 season.
Los Angeles Lakers guard Derek Fisher became the new active consecutive games played leader with 444. The all-time NBA record for most successive games played is 1,192 held by A.C. Green, who went from 1986 to 2001 without missing a contest.
BOBCATS 100, NUGGETS 98
In Charlotte, Stephen Jackson scored 23 points as Charlotte held off Denver to deny Nuggets coach George Karl his 1,000th NBA win.
Returning to North Carolina where he played in college and going up against his longtime friend and fellow former Tar Heel Larry Brown, Karl had hoped to become the seventh coach of the 1,000-win club in Charlotte.
Chauncey Billups scored 25 points and Carmelo Anthony added 22 points and seven rebounds for the Nuggets, who had won seven straight.
Gerald Wallace had 20 points and nine boards for Charlotte. Tyrus Thomas scored 16 before leaving left late in the fourth quarter with a tight left quadriceps.
LAKERS 115, WIZARDS 108
In Los Angeles, Kobe Bryant scored 32 points and Lamar Odom added 24 points and seven rebounds as the Lakers beat Washington for the eighth straight time.
Pau Gasol had 21 points, 14 rebounds and eight assists for the Lakers in their final home game before a seven-game, two-week trip that includes a rematch with Washington on Tuesday next week. Los Angeles struggled to put away the lively Wizards, but never trailed for the fourth time this season.
Nick Young hit a career-best six 3-pointers while scoring 30 points in his hometown for the Wizards, who closed the third quarter on a 16-1 run to make the two-time defending champions uncomfortable. John Wall backed Young with 22 points and 14 assists.
HAWKS 116, NETS 101
In Atlanta, Josh Smith scored a season-high 34 points to lead streaking Atlanta to another victory.
The Hawks are 4-1 since losing top scorer Joe Johnson for four to six weeks to a right elbow injury and have won seven of eight overall.
Jamal Crawford had a season-high 26 points and Al Horford added 24 points, 10 rebounds and six assists for Atlanta.
Brook Lopez led New Jersey with 24 points. Devin Harris had 18 points and 13 assists.
76ERS 117, CAVALIERS 97
In Philadelphia, Thaddeus Young had a season-high 26 points as Philadelphia downed Cleveland to pick up its fourth win in five games.
Lou Williams scored 13 of his 19 points in the fourth quarter for Philadelphia, which placed seven players in double figures in its highest scoring output of the season. Jodie Meeks and Jrue Holiday had 16 points apiece, Andre Iguodala scored 13 and Elton Brand finished with 12.
J.J. Hickson had 18 points for Cleveland, which has lost five consecutive games by an average of 22.2 points. Daniel Gibson scored 16 and Mo Williams added 15.
ROCKETS 97, PISTONS 83
In Houston, Luis Scola had 35 points and 12 rebounds to help the Rockets spoil Tracy McGrady’s return to Houston.
McGrady hit a 3-pointer with about eight minutes left to get the Pistons within one, but Houston scored the next seven points to stretch the lead to 85-77 with six minutes remaining.
McGrady, who spent five-and-a-half seasons with the Rockets, finished with 11 points. Rodney Stuckey had 18 points and five assists for Detroit.
Kyle Lowry added 22 points and 12 assists for Houston, and Kevin Martin had 21 points.
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