LeBron James had 16 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds for his 35th career triple-double as the Miami Heat cruised to their 10th straight win, 114-90 over the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday night.
Dwyane Wade had 33 points, Mario Chalmers scored 14 and Chris Bosh added 13 to help the defending NBA champions improve to 39-14.
The Heat have a comfortable 5.5-game lead over Indiana in the Eastern Conference. They have won four in a row on the road, including impressive wins over Oklahoma City before the All-Star break and at Chicago on Thursday.
CLIPPERS 107, JAZZ 94
In Los Angeles, Caron Butler scored 21 points and Los Angeles rode a big third quarter to a victory over Utah, completing their first season sweep of the Jazz since 1978-79.
Blake Griffin and Lamar Odom added 18 points each, and DeAndre Jordan had 12 rebounds for the Pacific Division-leading Clippers, who have won six straight over Utah dating to last year.
Reserve Gordon Hayward led the Jazz with 23 points, Paul Millsap added 19 and Al Jefferson 16 as their three-game winning streak ended. They also dropped to 10-19 on the road.
Los Angeles shot 51 percent two nights after losing to San Antonio by 26 points in their worst defeat of the season.
PACERS 90, PISTONS 72
In Auburn Hills, Michigan, David West scored 16 points and Paul George added a double-double to help Indiana Pacers easily beat Detroit for the second time in as many nights.
The Pacers won 114-82 on Friday night in Indianapolis, and led by as many as 21 in the return leg. George finished with 12 points and 12 rebounds for Indiana, which had five players in double figures and got Danny Granger on the floor for the first time this season.
After trailing by as many as 43 in Indiana on Friday, the Pistons started the second game of the home-and-home set by missing 16 of their first 17 shots. Will Bynum led Detroit with 15 points before getting ejected for striking Tyler Hansbrough in the groin in the fourth quarter.
In other NBA play, it was:
‧ Nuggets 113, Bobcats 99
‧ Hawks 103, Bucks 102
‧ Cavaliers 118, Magic 94
‧ Wizards 105, Rockets 103
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