Jeff Green scored 23 points, while Mike Conley added 21 with nine assists to lead the Memphis Grizzlies to a 97-86 victory over the struggling Portland Trail Blazers on Saturday night.
Zach Randolph added 17 points for Memphis, who won their second straight. Marc Gasol scored 13 points, while Tony Allen finished with 10 points and 11 rebounds.
Damian Lillard led the Trail Blazers with 27 points and seven assists. LaMarcus Aldridge scored 16 points, but did not play in the second half because of an injury to his left hand. C.J. McCollum finished with 13 points and Dorell Wright scored 10.
The Trail Blazers also played the second half without starting forward Nicolas Batum, who was sidelined with lower back pain. The team said X-rays on Aldridge’s hand were negative.
The loss was the season-worst fourth straight for Portland, who were creeping up the Western Conference standings a week ago.
The defeat dropped the Trail Blazers four games behind the Grizzlies for the second playoff seed in the West.
SUNS 117, ROCKETS 102
Eric Bledsoe scored a career-high 34 points as Phoenix withstood a fourth-quarter charge by Houston.
Bledsoe scored 23 by half-time and surpassed his previous career best of 33 points, set earlier this season, on a free-throw with about 1 minute remaining.
Phoenix led by 15 early in the fourth quarter when Houston used a 14-4 run to cut it to 105-100 with 5 minutes left.
Neither team had scored for about two-and-a-half minutes when P.J. Tucker made a three-pointer that started a 12-0 spurt by the Suns that secured the victory.
Donatas Motiejunas scored 18 points for the Rockets and James Harden added 16 after his career-high 50 in Thursday’s win over Denver.
Phoenix’s victory snapped a three-game winning streak for Houston and allowed the Suns to avoid a season sweep by the Rockets.
NETS 123, PACERS 111
Brook Lopez had 26 points and four blocked shots to lead Brooklyn over slumping Indiana.
Bojan Bogdanovic added 21 points and five rebounds off the bench, while Deron Williams scored 17 for the Nets, who have won four of five.
George Hill had 18 points and nine assists for the Pacers (30-39), who lost their fifth straight.
Brooklyn pulled away for good when Joe Johnson converted a three-point play and Bogdanovic made a three-pointer to put the Nets ahead 109-100 with 4 minutes remaining.
A win for the Pacers would have put them in sole possession of eighth place in the Eastern Conference. Instead, the Nets (29-39) closed the gap in a crowded race for the final playoff spot.
In other results, it was:
‧ Pistons 107, Bulls 91
‧ Warriors 106, Jazz 91
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
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