The Miami Heat, resting LeBron James and most of their top players for the playoffs, earned a 96-95 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday.
Norris Cole stripped Kyrie Irving of the ball with 2.2 seconds left to give to give the Heat the win, finishing with 18 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists.
James was disappointed to not play in another homecoming game against his former team, but he appreciated coach Erik Spoelstra’s desire to get the NBA champions as healthy and refreshed as possible heading into the postseason.
The Oklahoma City Thunder clinched the top seed in the Western Conference playoffs by beating the Sacramento Kings 104-95 with 29 points from Kevin Durant.
Russell Westbrook had 21 before being ejected in the final three minutes.
Tyreke Evans, the Kings’ second-leading scorer, did not return after grabbing at his troublesome left knee following a drive to the basket late in the first quarter.
Denver’s Ty Lawson scored 26 points, including a jump shot in the lane with 9.3 seconds left as the Nuggets clinched home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs with a 112-111 win over the Milwaukee Bucks.
Wilson Chandler added 21 points for the Nuggets, who can secure the No. 3 seed in the West with one more victory or two losses by the Los Angeles Clippers.
Greg Monroe had 27 points and 16 rebounds as the Detroit Pistons made the most of their home finale by beating the Philadelphia 76ers 109-101.
For both teams, the game was overshadowed by uncertainty off the court. Doug Collins is on his way out as Philadelphia’s coach, and Pistons owner Tom Gores remained noncommittal before the game on the status of team president Joe Dumars and coach Lawrence Frank.
At Minneapolis, Al Jefferson had 22 points and eight rebounds to help the Utah Jazz keep their playoff hopes alive with a 96-80 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Mo Williams had 15 points and seven assists for the Jazz, who needed a win to avoid being eliminated in the Western Conference playoff race.
The Jazz need to win at Memphis today and for the Los Angeles Lakers to lose at home against Houston to get into the playoffs.
The Memphis Grizzlies rallied to a 103-97 win over the Dallas Mavericks to keep their chance of hosting a first-round playoff series alive, while Carlos Boozer scored 22 points and Luol Deng added 18 as the Chicago Bulls ended a two-game losing streak with a 102-84 victory over the Orlando Magic.
In other games, the Charlotte Bobcats downed the New York Knicks 106-95, the Brooklyn Nets beat the Washington Wizards 106-101, the Phoenix Suns defeated the Houston Rockets 119-112 and the Golden State Warriors were 116-106 winners over the San Antonio Spurs.
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