The NBA-leading San Antonio Spurs inflicted Oklahoma City’s heaviest loss of the season, winning 101-74 on Saturday to notch a fourth straight win.
Coming off wins over the Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas, the Spurs again beat one of the West’s top teams to improve to 29-4 — one the 10 best starts in NBA history.
Tim Duncan scored 21 points and George Hill had 16 for San Antonio.
Kevin Durant had 16 points for the Thunder, who started the game 4 for 24 and shot a season-low 32.9 percent.
Jazz 98, Grizzlies 92
In Salt Lake City, Utah, Paul Millsap scored 22 points on 8-of-11 shooting to help the undermanned Utah Jazz beat Memphis.
Deron Williams had 10 points in the fourth quarter as the Jazz made it eight successive home wins over the Grizzlies.
Zach Randolph led Memphis with 27 points and 16 rebounds.
Bulls 100, Cavaliers 91
In Chicago, the Chicago Bulls made it 13 wins from 15 games by defeating Cleveland.
The Bulls trailed by 10 against a team that was missing three of its best players. However, they outscored Cleveland 32-9 in the third quarter and hung on after nearly blowing a 15-point lead in the fourth, sending the Cavaliers to their 16th loss in 17 games.
Derrick Rose had 28 points and 11 assists, while Luol Deng had 23 points for Chicago.
The Cavaliers hung in even though they were without injured trio Anderson Varejao, Mo Williams and Daniel Gibson.
J.J. Hickson led Cleveland with 21 points.
Heat 114, Warriors 107
In Miami, the hosts overcame a 20-point deficit to beat the Golden State Warriors on Saturday for their 17th victory in 18 games.
LeBron James had 25 points and 10 assists, while Dwyane Wade also scored 25 points to help Miami pull into a virtual tie with Boston atop the Eastern Conference. The Celtics lead by .031 percentage points, but the teams are tied in the games-back column.
Former Heat forward Dorell Wright scored 30 points for Golden State in his first trip back to Miami as an opponent.
Golden State had 36 points in each of the first two quarters, then only 35 in the entire second half.
Bucks 99, Mavericks 87
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Earl Boykins returned from suspension to score a season-high 26 points and help the Milwaukee Bucks hand injury-depleted Dallas their third straight loss.
Missing Dirk Nowitzki for the third consecutive game because of a sprained knee and Shawn Marion with a thigh injury, the Mavericks suffered another blow when Caron Butler injured a knee in the first quarter. Jose Barea scored a -career-high 29 points for Dallas.
John Salmons scored 21 points for Milwaukee, while Ersan Ilyasova had 16 points and a season-high 17 rebounds.
Hornets 92, Wizards 81
In Washington, Trevor Ariza scored a season-high 22 points to help New Orleans beat the Washington Wizards.
Emeka Okafor had 17 points and a season-high 15 rebounds for New Orleans.
Wizards rookie point guard John Wall had 12 points, 10 assists and eight turnovers — four in the third quarter. Nick Young led Washington with 24 points. The Wizards have lost 16 of 19.
Nuggets 104, Kings 86
In Denver, Colorado, Carmelo Anthony was rusty in his return to the Denver lineup, but the Nuggets still comfortably beat Sacramento.
Anthony was back from a two-week absence following the death of his sister. He missed 15 of his first 18 shots and finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds in 31 minutes.
Chauncey Billups led Denver with 22 points, while Nene had 16 points and 14 rebounds.
Jason Thompson led the Kings with 17 points.
Timberwolves 103, Nets 88
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, Kevin Love had 23 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Minnesota Timberwolves over New Jersey.
Darko Milicic scored 16 points on 8-for-9 shooting as the usually porous Wolves held the Nets to nine points in the third quarter to win for the third time in four games.
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