Joakim Noah had 23 points, 21 rebounds and a career-high 11 blocks for his third career triple-double as the Chicago Bulls ended a two-game losing streak with a 93-82 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday.
Carlos Boozer added 21 points and 12 rebounds, while Kirk Hinrich and Luol Deng had 15 and 12 points respectively, as the Bulls completed a three-game regular-season series sweep.
Noah tied the Bulls record for blocks in a regulation game, previously set by Artis Gilmore in 1977.
Photo: AFP
Jrue Holiday paced the Sixers with 22 points, while Spencer Hawes added 20 points and 15 rebounds.
The loss was Philadelphia’s season-high seventh in a row.
CLIPPERS 99, PACERS 91
In Indianapolis, Indiana, Chris Paul scored 29 points, while Blake Griffin finished with 18 points and 14 rebounds to help Los Angeles hold off Indiana’s late charge.
The Clippers have won three straight and seven of their past eight.
David West led the Pacers with 22 points, while All-Star Paul George had 20 points and five assists. Danny Granger finished with a season-high 12 points.
However, without the suspended Roy Hibbert, the Pacers barely resembled the team that had won five straight by an average margin of 23.8 points.
LAKERS 116, TIMBERWOLVES 94
In Los Angeles, Kobe Bryant scored 33 points and Antawn Jamison added 17 in Los Angeles’ 21st consecutive victory over Minnesota.
Bryant and Jodie Meeks each hit four of Los Angeles’ 16 three-pointers, while Meeks finished with 16 points. The Lakers (29-30) have won 12 of 17 and five of seven while moving within two games of Houston for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference with their longest stretch of solid play in this tumultuous season.
J.J. Barea scored 20 points and Luke Ridnour added 19 for the short-handed Timberwolves, who have lost four straight and 20 of 24.
Los Angeles’ mastery of Minnesota is the NBA’s longest active winning streak in any matchup.
Ricky Rubio had 13 points, 13 assists and eight rebounds, but Minnesota never threatened to get their first win over the Lakers since March 6, 2007.
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