David West scored 14 of his 24 points in the third quarter and grabbed 12 rebounds, while Paul George had 27 points as the league-leading Indiana Pacers improved their best start in club history to 16-1 with a 105-100 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday.
Roy Hibbert scored 19 points in the Pacers’ seventh-straight win.
Jamal Crawford led the Clippers with 20 points. Chris Paul had 17 points and 10 rebounds, while Blake Griffin scored 16 and pulled down 12 rebounds — equaling teammate DeAndre Jordan’s total.
The defending Pacific Division champion Clippers played their first game since finding out that J.J. Redick will be sidelined for six to eight weeks because of a broken bone in his shooting hand and a ligament tear in his right elbow.
HEAT 99, BOBCATS 98
In Miami, Chris Bosh scored 13-straight points for Miami in the final minutes, including a trio of three-pointers that capped a late rally as the Heat found a way to beat Charlotte to extend their winning streak to 10 games.
Bosh’s three threes came in a 79-second span, the last of them putting Miami up 93-91 with 1 minute, 20 seconds remaining.
LeBron James led the Heat with 26 points, Bosh finished with 22, Dwyane Wade scored 17 and Mario Chalmers added 12 for Miami, who have beaten the Bobcats 14 times in a row.
Kemba Walker scored 27 points for the Bobcats, who had led the entire second half until Bosh’s barrage. Gerald Henderson scored 17, while Al Jefferson finished with 16 points and 13 rebounds for Charlotte.
THUNDER 113, TIMBERWOLVES 103
In Oklahoma City, Kevin Durant recorded his first triple-double of the season with 32 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists as Oklahoma City rallied for yet another fourth-quarter win, beating Minnesota.
Oklahoma City extended their winning streak to seven games, topped the Western Conference and moved to 9-0 for the season at home.
In other NBA action, it was:
‧ Pelicans 103, Knicks 99
‧ Warriors 115, Kings 113
‧ Trail Blazers 114, Lakers 108
‧ Pistons 115, 76ers 100
‧ Nuggets 112, Raptors 98
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