Kevin Durant scored 36 points and Reggie Jackson added 23 to lift the Oklahoma City Thunder to a 104-92 win over the Houston Rockets on Thursday.
The Thunder used a big third quarter to erase a 12 point deficit and tie the score entering the fourth. The teams stayed within a basket after that until Jackson scored five points in a 7-0 run which gave the Thunder a 97-89 lead with about four minutes left.
Oklahoma City scored four quick points capped by a fast break dunk by Jackson a couple minutes later to stretch the lead to 103-92.
James Harden and Terrence Jones scored 16 points each for Houston, who scored just 19 second-half points after posting a season-high 73 points in the first half — setting an NBA record for the largest scoring differential between two halves.
NETS 127, HAWKS 110
Joe Johnson scored 26 of his 29 points in the first half and Andray Blatche added 20 points and 14 rebounds to lead Brooklyn past Atlanta in the fourth regular-season NBA game to be played in London.
Johnson had 15 points in the first quarter for the Nets (16-22).
Mike Scott and Shelvin Mack led the Hawks with 17 points each.
The teams finished with five players scoring in double digits.
The Nets were playing a regular-season game at the O2 Arena in London for the third time. They played two against the Toronto Raptors in 2011, winning both.
PACERS 117, KNICKS 89
Lance Stephenson scored 28 points — a career high — Paul George added 25, and Indiana won their ninth-straight at home.
The Pacers still have the NBA’s best record and the league’s top home record (20-1). Indiana lead idle Miami by four games in the chase for the Eastern Conference’s top seed.
Carmelo Anthony had 18 of his 28 points in the first quarter to lead New York. J.R. Smith, who was benched in two of the previous four games, played 28 minutes and scored 12 points. The Knicks have lost two straight after winning five in a row.
Indiana took control with an 11-1 run midway through the second quarter, then closed the first half on a 16-7 run to make it 63-48.
New York were never in a position to challenge for the lead again.
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