Nicolas Batum of France had 14 points and a career-high 18 rebounds on Wednesday as the Portland Trail Blazers downed Atlanta 102-78, a loss that marked the end of Hawks guard Kyle Korver’s NBA record streak of 127 games with a three-pointer.
Korver had surpassed Dana Barros’ record of 89 straight, set from 1994 to 1996, earlier this season. He was zero-for-five from three-point range against the Blazers.
Mo Williams added 15 points off the bench for Portland, who had six players in double figures.
Cartier Martin had 16 points off the bench for the Hawks, who have lost four straight and 12 of their past 13 as they fight to stay in the Eastern Conference playoff picture.
Charlotte’s Al Jefferson scored 34 points in a 109-87 victory over the Indiana Pacers that gave the Bobcats their fifth straight home win.
Jefferson was 16-of-25 from the field and had eight rebounds for the Bobcats (28-33), who equaled their combined win total from the previous two seasons.
Jefferson, whose 38-point, 19-rebound effort on Monday night was overshadowed by LeBron James’ career-high 61-point outing, has scored at least 20 points in 21 of his past 24 games.
Evan Turner had 22 points for the Pacers, who lost back-to-back games for only the second time this season.
In Orlando, Florida, James Harden scored 31 points, including 25 in the second half, as the Houston Rockets came back from a double-digit first-half deficit to beat the Magic 101-89.
Dwight Howard added 19 points and 14 rebounds in his second trip to Orlando to face his former team.
Houston trailed in the second quarter by as many as 14 points, but battled back to win for the 13th time in 15 outings.
Arron Afflalo led the Magic with 18 points.
The Golden State Warriors defeated the Boston Celtics 108-88 after Klay Thompson and David Lee scored 18 points each.
Former Celtic Jordan Crawford had 15 points and Stephen Curry added 14 for the Warriors, who won for the seventh time in nine games.
Kelly Olynyk scored 19 points for Boston, who dropped their seventh game in their past eight.
Trevor Ariza scored 26 points for Washington and Bradley Beal added 22, as the Wizards took an early lead and never lost it in a 104-91 win over the Utah Jazz.
Brooklyn’s Joe Johnson scored 21 points and Marcus Thornton came off the bench for 20 points as the Nets powered their way above .500 for the first time this season, beating the Memphis Grizzlies 103-94 in the process.
In other games, the Chicago Bulls beat the Detroit Pistons 105-94, while the New York Knicks defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves 118-106.
The Los Angeles Kings downed the Milwaukee Bucks 116-102 and the Denver Nuggets were 115-110 winners over the Dallas Mavericks.
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