Wesley Matthews made a three-pointer to put Portland in front with 26.9 seconds left and the Trail Blazers hung on to beat the Miami Heat 92-90 on Thursday night for their fourth straight win and ninth straight at the Rose Garden.
The Blazers held LeBron James to 15 points, snapping his 54-game streak with at least 20 points that dated back to last season.
Miami led by as many as 13 points, but lost for the fifth time in eight games.
Nicolas Batum led the Blazers with 28 points, and LaMarcus Aldridge had 20 points and 15 rebounds. Matthews finished with 18 points.
Chris Bosh had 29 points for the Eastern Conference-leading Heat.
PACERS 81, KNICKS 76
In Indianapolis, Indiana, Paul George scored seven points in a 13-0 fourth-quarter run and finished with 24, leading Indiana past short-handed New York.
The Pacers have won 12 of 15, including a sweep of the other two Eastern Conference division leaders — Miami and the Knicks — this week.
New York was led by J.R. Smith with 25 points on a night they clearly missed Carmelo Anthony, who was suspended for Monday’s postgame confrontation with Boston’s Kevin Garnett. Without Anthony, the Knicks fell nine points below their previous season-low point total (85).
New York rallied from a 49-38 third-quarter deficit and started the fourth with a 60-58 lead.
MAVERICKS 117, KINGS 112
In Sacramento, California, O.J. Mayo had 24 points and 10 rebounds, Vince Carter scored 23 points off the bench and Dallas rallied from 17 points down to beat Sacramento in overtime.
Shawn Marion added 19 points and 10 rebounds to help the Mavericks snap a four-game losing streak. Dallas, who had lost 10 of 11, finished their short road trip 1-2.
With the franchise’s possible sale and relocation to Seattle on the minds of Kings fans, DeMarcus Cousins had 29 points and nine rebounds, before getting ejected in overtime for elbowing Carter in the face.
Tyreke Evans scored 20 points and Isaiah Thomas had 18 points for the Kings, who lost their third straight game.
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