LaMarcus Aldridge had a career-high 40 points along with 11 rebounds to power the Portland Trail Blazers to a 99-89 win over NBA-leading San Antonio on Tuesday.
Gary Neal’s 3-pointer for San Antonio tied it 78-78, but Aldridge’s layup and Wesley Matthew’s scoop gave Portland their biggest lead of the game to that point at 82-78 with 7:03 left.
It was the first game of the Spurs’ “Rodeo Road Trip,” the team’s annual junket while its home stadium hosts the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo.
The next stop on the nine-game trip is the highly anticipated matchup with the defending NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers today.
Wesley Matthews added 21 points for the Blazers.
Manu Ginobili had 14 points for the Spurs, who have lost only eight games this season.
Lakers 114, Rockets 106, OT
In Los Angeles, the hosts only narrowly avoided a rare third-straight home loss, edging Houston in overtime.
Kobe Bryant scored 32 points while Pau Gasol hit the go-ahead layup with 1:04 left in overtime and finished with 26 points and 16 rebounds.
The two-time defending NBA champions finished their first overtime of the season on a 10-2 run, barely holding off injury-depleted Houston.
Luis Scola hit a tying layup with 5.5 seconds left in regulation for the Rockets, who have lost three straight. Houston launched a season-high 38 3-point attempts, but made just 10.
“It’s important in this business to be able to play down the stretch and win close games,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson told reporters.
“We had a six-point ball game [against Boston] on Sunday with four minutes to go, and we didn’t play down the stretch, which is what you have to do,” he said.
Celtics 95, Kings 90
In Sacramento, Ray Allen scored 22 points as Boston overcame a slow start to get past Sacramento.
Rajon Rondo had 17 points and 10 assists as the Celtics pulled away in the fourth quarter.
DeMarcus Cousins and Tyreke Evans finished with 20 points apiece for a Kings team that was coming off wins against two of the Western Conference’s elite — the Los Angeles Lakers and New Orleans Hornets — but again fell short of their first three-game streak this season.
Hornets 97, Wizards 89
In New Orleans, the hosts dropped Washington to a 0-25 record on the road, sliding closer to the worst ever such start in league history.
Jason Smith scored a career-high 20 points in a rare starting role while Chris Paul had 15 points and nine assists for New Orleans.
Smith was starting for center Emeka Okafor, whose oblique muscle strain kept him out for the first time in 306 games.
Nick Young scored 30 points for Washington, who trailed by double digits most of the second half in losing its sixth straight overall.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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