LeBron James scored 43 points — 25 in a bewildering first-quarter shooting display — and Chris Bosh added 21, leading the Miami Heat to a 100-96 win on Tuesday over the Cleveland Cavaliers, who played their first game without injured All-Star guard Kyrie Irving.
James added two crucial blocks and made six free throws in the final two minutes, while Bosh added a key rejection to lead the Heat to just their third win in eight games.
Miami’s Dwyane Wade sat out resting his knees, but the Heat’s two other megastars put away the Cavs.
Jarrett Jack scored 22 and Dion Waiters added 17 and 11 assists for Cleveland, who were also without forward Luol Deng (sprained ankle). Irving is expected to miss two weeks with a strained biceps tendon, an injury that further damages the Cavs’ fading playoff hopes.
WARRIORS 103, MAGIC 89
In Oakland, California, Stephen Curry had 23 points and five assists, while Klay Thompson scored 20 points as the undermanned Warriors overwhelmed the Magic.
The backcourt duo sparked an 18-4 run at the start of the second half that put the Warriors ahead by 24 points. They became the first pair of teammates in NBA history to combine for at least 400 three-pointers in consecutive seasons.
David Lee added 20 points and 10 rebounds to help the Warriors offset the absences of Andre Iguodala (right knee tendinitis), Andrew Bogut (left ankle inflammation) and Jermaine O’Neal (undisclosed reasons).
Nikola Vucevic scored 15 points and Tobias Harris added 14 points and six rebounds for the overmatched Magic, who lost their sixth straight game.
HAWKS 118, RAPTORS 113, OT
In Atlanta, Jeff Teague equaled his career best with 34 points and Paul Millsap had the first triple-double of his career as the Hawks extended their longest winning streak of the season to five in a row, beating the Raptors.
Millsap had 19 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists to lead the Hawks, who have bounced back after losing 14 of 15 to strengthen their hold on the final playoff spot in the East.
The Hawks overcame an early 13-point deficit in a game that went back and forth in the final quarter. Millsap missed a chance to win it at the end of regulation, but Teague knocked down four free throws in the closing seconds to clinch it for Atlanta.
TRAIL BLAZERS 120, BUCKS 115, OT
In Portland, Oregon, Wesley Matthews had 26 points, including a key three-pointer in overtime, as the Trail Blazers overcame the tenacious Bucks.
Robin Lopez added 15 points and 14 rebounds for the Blazers, who had been in a funk with losses in five of their past six games. Portland (44-24) has also struggled with the absence of injured forward LaMarcus Aldridge.
Brandon Knight had 24 points and Ramon Sessions added a season-high 23 for Milwaukee, who lost their fifth straight. The Bucks (13-55) are just 2-24 against the Western Conference.
Despite the worst record in the NBA, the Bucks gave the Blazers trouble for most of the game. There were 23 lead changes in regulation, and neither team was able to pull ahead by double digits.
KINGS 117, WIZARDS 111, OT
In Sacramento, California, Isaiah Thomas had his first career triple double with 24 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists to help the Kings beat the Wizards.
DeMarcus Cousins and Rudy Gay each added 24 points for the Kings, who rallied in the fourth to send the game into overtime and snapped a two-game losing streak.
It was a rare loss for the Wizards, who had won 10 of 13 games before falling to the Kings for the fourth straight time at Sleep Train Arena.
Bradley Beal had 19 points and Marcin Gortat had 19 points and 14 rebounds for the Wizards. They had won six of their previous seven road games. Drew Gooden scored 18 points and John Wall had 14 before fouling out in overtime.
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