The San Antonio Spurs extended the best start in franchise history by beating the Dallas Mavericks 99-92 on Thursday in a showdown between the top two teams in the Western Conference.
Tim Duncan bounced back from one of the least productive games of his career to score 17 points, while reserve Gary Neal had 21, for the Spurs, who improved to 28-4.
Coming off a thorough victory over the Lakers, the Spurs got behind in the opening minutes then used a 21-2 run that started late in the first quarter to go ahead for good.
Dallas missed Dirk Nowitzki, out for the second straight game because of a sprained knee ligament. The Mavericks have lost both games without their leading scorer, while winning 17 of 18 when he does play.
Dallas’ Caron Butler had a season-high 30 points.
MAGIC 112, KNICKS 103
In Orlando, Florida, the hosts notched their fifth straight win by downing New York.
Orlando’s Dwight Howard had 24 points and 18 rebounds in a bruising battle with Amare Stoudemire, who finished with 30 points, four rebounds and four assists but got into foul trouble early in a matchup of two of the NBA’s best big men.
Both were called for technical fouls but never shied away from contact and showed more offensive prowess than defensive pressure.
J.J. Redick and Ryan Anderson had 14 points apiece, helping the Magic build a 20-point lead before halftime and hold on late. New York trimmed the deficit to two in the fourth quarter before the Magic pulled away.
Wilson Chandler had 29 points for the Knicks.
TRAIL BLAZERS 100, JAZZ 89
In Portland, Oregon, the home team beat Utah hours after learning star guard Brandon Roy will be out long term.
The Blazers said before the game that Roy would be shut down indefinitely because of sore knees that have plagued him throughout the season. The All-Star has missed 10 games this season, including the past seven.
The Blazers didn’t put a timeline on Roy’s absence, but general manager Rich Cho suggested it could be lengthy.
Wesley Matthews tied a career high with 30 points, while Marcus Camby returned from injury to lead Portland with a season-high 20 rebounds.
Deron Williams had 19 points and eight assists for Utah.
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