Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant scored 33 points to lead the Thunder to a 100-85 win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday and a share of the NBA lead heading into the All-Star break.
Russell Westbrook added 19 for the Thunder, who won their 12th straight home game and denied Los Angeles the chance to head into the midseason break with back-to-back statement wins on the road. The Lakers had won at defending NBA champions Dallas a night earlier and were trying to follow it by knocking off the other half of last year’s West finals.
Kobe Bryant scored 24 points, but went seven-for-24 from the field for Los Angeles.
Photo: Reuters
Oklahoma City and Miami both have NBA-leading 27-7 records at the break.
HAWKS 83, MAGIC 78
In Atlanta, Josh Smith scored 22 points and pulled down 12 rebounds to help Atlanta snap a three-game skid with a win over Orlando.
Jannero Pargo added 15 points for the Hawks, who led by only a point with 4:42 left, but finished the stronger.
J.J. Redick finished with 13 points for the Magic, who had won six of seven going in.
SPURS 114, NUGGETS 99
In Denver, DeJuan Blair tied a career high with 28 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, helping San Antonio beat Denver to wrap up a nine-game road swing.
Buoyed by a 19-1 run midway through the first quarter, the Spurs jumped out to a big lead and then held on at the end. They’ve won 12 of their past 13 heading into the All-Star break and lead the Southwest Division by three games over defending champions Dallas.
All five starters for the Spurs scored in double figures. Tony Parker had 16 points and 12 assists.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with