Oklahoma City made it 12 wins from 13 games with a 116-100 win at Memphis on Wednesday, with Russell Westbrook scoring 27 points for the Thunder.
Among other games, Golden State rallied from a big deficit and came up with a last-gasp winner to sink Dallas, former Celtics coach and now LA Clippers boss Doc Rivers won his first game back in Boston, and San Antonio’s experienced core led the Spurs to a rout of Milwaukee.
Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant added 18 points and the Thunder had enough in hand to rest him in the fourth quarter, while maintaining a double-digit lead.
Mike Conley had 20 points for the Grizzlies, who were playing the last of a season-long six-game home stand.
Golden State’s Stephen Curry made a pull-up jump shot with 3 seconds remaining to cap a sensational fourth quarter rally by the Warriors, who came from 18 points down to pip Dallas 95-93.
Curry scored 16 of his 33 points in the final period and finished with nine assists, four rebounds and another big shot in a young career already full of them.
With the clock winding down, Curry dribbled on the perimeter, came off a screen, faked a shot to send an opponent jumping past him, then made a 19-footer to give Golden State the lead for good.
Dallas’ Jose Calderon heaved a desperation shot at the buzzer that was never close.
Harrison Barnes scored 17 points for the Warriors, who overcame 18 turnovers and a sloppy start.
Monta Ellis and Dirk Nowitzki each scored 21 points for the Mavericks.
Boston’s Jamal Crawford hit a pair of three-pointers 23 seconds apart to help the Clippers pull away in the last three minutes and beat Boston 96-88.
Crawford came off the bench to score 21 points, while Chris Paul had 22 points, nine assists and seven rebounds for the Clippers.
Jeff Green scored 29 points for the Celtics up against his old coach Rivers.
Boston lost to the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday night, kicking off a reunion week of sorts by facing former Celtics Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce. One night later, Rivers returned to the TD Garden.
San Antonio’s Tim Duncan had 21 points and 16 rebounds, while playing just 24 minutes, and Tony Parker added 15 points to lead the Spurs to a 109-77 thumping of Milwaukee.
San Antonio shook off some mediocre recent form and dominated from the opening tip, scoring the first nine points and built that to a yawning 38-point lead after three quarters. It could have been worse for Milwaukee, as the Spurs made only four of 17 three-point attempts.
Rookie guard Nate Wolters led the Bucks with a season-high 18 points.
New Orleans’ Ryan Anderson shook off an unusually poor shooting night from long range, hitting two clutch three-pointers in overtime that carried the Pelicans to a 111-106 victory over Detroit.
Jason Smith scored 22 points and grabbed a career-high 16 rebounds for the Pelicans, while Anderson finished with 22 points on 6-of-18 shooting.
New Orleans native Greg Monroe had 28 points and 10 rebounds for Detroit, which led by three points early in overtime, but lost their third in a row.
Minnesota’s Kevin Love had 26 points, 15 rebounds and five assists as the Timberwolves rallied from a 19-point deficit to beat slumping Philadelphia 106-99.
Orlando snapped a six-game skid by beating Charlotte 92-83, with Jameer Nelson scoring 12 of his 17 points in the fourth quarter to guide the Magic home.
New York blew a 23-point lead before recovering to beat Chicago 83-78, with Carmelo Anthony scoring 30 points and getting 10 rebounds.
Utah halted a four-game losing run by defeating Sacramento 122-101, as Richard Jefferson scored 20 points.
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