Arron Afflalo scored 30 points, while Glen Davis added 23 points and 12 rebounds as the Orlando Magic beat Dwight Howard in their first game against their longtime center, stunning the Los Angeles Lakers 113-103 on Sunday.
Howard had 21 points and 15 rebounds against his former team, but the rebuilding Magic rallied impressively for a 40-point fourth quarter for just their fourth win in 14 games, snapping a three-game skid.
Orlando did it partly by intentionally fouling Howard, who went nine for 21 at the line — including seven for 14 in the fourth quarter.
Kobe Bryant scored 34 points for the Lakers, who dropped to 3-4 under new coach Mike D’Antoni with another inconsistent performance with deficient defense. Metta World Peace scored 15 points and Pau Gasol added 11.
Jameer Nelson had 19 points and 13 assists after nearly sitting out with tendinitis during the Magic’s most impressive win under new coach Jacque Vaughn.
Orlando also started a stretch of five road games in eight days with just their second road win all season.
New York’s Carmelo Anthony scored 34 points, helping the Knicks beat the Phoenix Suns 106-99 for their third consecutive win to remain unbeaten at home.
Raymond Felton had 23 points, seven assists and no turnovers for the Knicks, who are 7-0 at Madison Square Garden and 12-4 overall, a half-game behind Miami for the best record in the Eastern Conference.
The point guard was hurting after the game. He went for an MRI exam that revealed a bone bruise in his swollen left hand.
Tyson Chandler finished with 15 points and 13 rebounds.
The Knicks also shook off the first ejection of Rasheed Wallace’s comeback — after a mere 1:25 of playing time — that left them short-handed.
Jason Kidd missed a fourth straight game with lower back spasms.
Marcin Gortat had 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Suns, who dropped their third straight and fell to 1-4 on their season-high, six-game road trip that ends today in Memphis.
Shannon Brown scored 17 points.
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