The Atlanta Hawks clinched a playoff spot by beating the New Jersey Nets 98-87 on Saturday night.
Al Horford had 23 points and 12 rebounds for Atlanta, including six straight points late in the game to fend off a comeback attempt by New Jersey. Josh Smith added 22 points for the Hawks, who are in the playoffs for the fourth straight season.
Atlanta lost five-time All-Star guard Joe Johnson with a strained right thumb in the third quarter. He returned to the bench after having X-rays, but did not return to the game. He didn’t leave with the team on Saturday night for yesterday’s game in Cleveland, Ohio.
Anthony Morrow had 25 points for the Nets, who have lost six of seven.
PISTONS 100, PACERS 88
In Auburn Hills, Michigan, Richard Hamilton scored 23 points, as the Detroit held off Indiana.
The Pistons went on a 21-3 run during the third quarter to take an 18-point lead. However, the Pacers, who are fighting for a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, cut the lead to six in the fourth quarter, but is was too little too late.
MAVERICKS 94, JAZZ 77
In Salt Lake City, reserve Jason Terry scored 22 points to lead the Dallas Mavericks to a 94-77 victory on Saturday night over Utah and hand the slumping Jazz their fifth straight loss.
The win gave the Mavs their first series sweep of the Jazz since the 2004-2005 season.
Dirk Nowitzki added 19 points and extended his consecutive free-throw mark to 72.
BULLS 95, BUCKS 87
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Derrick Rose led a Bulls rally to clinch victory over the Milwaukee Bucks.
Rose scored 30 points and had 17 assists, and he nearly single-handedly brought the Bulls from behind with the clock winding down.
With Chicago trailing 87-83, Rose hit a pair of free throws, then fed Joakim Noah for a fast-break dunk to tie it. Rose then hit three straight shots for the Bulls to seal the win.
John Salmons scored 25 and Carlos Delfino added 23 for the Bucks, who are scrambling to make the playoffs.
CLIPPERS 94, RAPTORS 90
In Los Angeles, Blake Griffin had 22 points and 16 rebounds to lead the Los Angeles Clippers over Toronto.
It was the Raptors fourth straight loss.
Eric Gordon, who missed his first 11 shots in Friday’s 112-104 loss to the Lakers, had 17 points after getting into early foul trouble and Mo Williams finished with just nine points after scoring a season-high 30 against the two-time defending champions.
Ed Davis had 21 points and 11 rebounds for the Raptors.
BOBCATS 114, KNICKS 106
In Charlotte, North Carolina, Boris Diaw scored 20 points and Stephen Jackson added 19, as the Charlotte Bobcats provided more misery for the slumping New York Knicks.
A night after a stunning -comeback win in Boston, the Bobcats sent the Knicks to their sixth straight loss, despite 36 points from Carmelo Anthony, to remain in contention for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
The Bobcats built a 20-point third-quarter lead and withstood an Anthony-fueled rally that got New York within four points with 1 minute, 34 seconds left. The Knicks didn’t score again to fall to 7-12 since acquiring Anthony and Chauncey Billups last month.
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