LeBron James showed he had no intention of slowing down after reaching the 20,000-point milestone, scoring 39 points on Thursday to lead NBA champions the Miami Heat to a 99-90 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers.
The victory came one day after James scored 25 points in a win over Golden State in Oakland, California, becoming the youngest player in NBA history, at 28, to record 20,000 career points. He also reached 5,000 career assists.
Dwyane Wade, who celebrated his 31st birthday on Thursday, added 27 points, five assists and four rebounds for Miami.
Kobe Bryant paced the Lakers with 22 points, but he connected on just eight-of-25 from the field, missing 14 of his first 17 shots, as the Heat defense stifled Los Angeles and forced 20 Lakers turnovers.
Metta World Peace followed with 16 points, while Dwight Howard contributed a double-double of 13 points and 16 rebounds, but Los Angeles could not stretch their two-game winning streak.
There was some good news for the lackluster Lakers, who had Pau Gasol return from a five-game absence because of a concussion to score 12 points with four rebounds and four assists off the bench.
The Lakers made it interesting at the end, with Bryant’s three-pointer knotting the score at 90-90 with 2 minutes, 33 seconds remaining. Wade answered with a jump shot, Lakers center Dwight Howard missed two free throws and Ray Allen made a jump shot to give the Heat a 94-90 lead.
After Lakers point guard Steve Nash missed a layup, James gave Miami breathing room with a jump shot that made it 96-90 with 49 seconds to play. He added one more basket and a free throw to close it out.
“I thought we played well enough to beat them,” Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni said. “At the end of the day, turnovers killed us.”
KNICKS 102, PISTONS 87
In London, England, Carmelo Anthony returned to the site of his Olympic triumph and scored 26 points on Thursday to lead the New York Knicks to a comfortable victory over the Detroit Pistons.
Anthony had 18 in the first half as the Knicks (25-13) jumped out to a 16-2 lead, before holding a double-digit lead for most of the game.
Amare Stoudemire added 17 points for the Knicks and J.R. Smith scored 16. Will Bynum led the Pistons with 22 points.
The Pistons (14-25) were the home team at the O2 Arena in London, the site of the Olympic gold-medal game during last year’s London Games. It was the third regular-season NBA game played at the venue, where the then-New Jersey Nets swept the Toronto Raptors in a pair of games two years ago.
Anthony and Knicks teammate Tyson Chandler were on the team that celebrated a gold medal for the US with a win over Spain in August. Chandler scored 10 points on Thursday and pulled down 14 rebounds.
Anthony has at least 20 points in 25 straight games, extending the longest streak of his career.
CLIPPERS 90, TIMBERWOLVES 77
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, Jamal Crawford scored 22 points and Blake Griffin added 20 as Los Angeles hardly broke a sweat in cruising past free-falling Minnesota.
Lamar Odom grabbed 12 rebounds and dished out six assists as the Clippers outscored Minnesota’s bench 45-23 to overcome Chris Paul’s third straight missed game because of a knee injury.
Luke Ridnour scored 21 points, while Ricky Rubio had four points and six assists in his first start of the season for the Timberwolves, who lost leading scorer and rebounder Nikola Pekovic to bruised right quadriceps in the third quarter.
The Timberwolves shot just 35.7 percent and missed 15 of their 19 three-pointers in losing their fifth straight game.
BUCKS 98, SUNS 94
In Phoenix, Arizona, Mike Dunleavy hit a three-pointer with 57.4 seconds left to cap a 10-0 run as Milwaukee pulled away to snap a 24-game losing streak.
Monta Ellis scored 24 points and Larry Sanders added 19, while Dunleavy and Brandon Jennings had 16 apiece for the Bucks, who had not won in the Valley since Feb. 21, 1987, at the old Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
Milwaukee have won four of six since interim coach Jim Boylan replaced Scott Skiles on Jan. 8.
Shannon Brown scored 20 points off the bench for the Suns, who have lost four straight at home for the first time since 2004 and have dropped 13 of 15 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
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