San Antonio stretched their streak of double-digit victories to nine with a 110-98 win against Houston on Wednesday, leaving the top three teams in the NBA’s Southwest Division separated by just half a game as the regular season enters its last week.
Defending champions the Spurs moved onto the tail of Houston and also Memphis, who drew level with the Rockets atop the division by inflicting New Orleans’ heaviest defeat of the season.
In the Eastern Conference, No. 1 playoff seeds Atlanta had a narrow win over a Brooklyn team whose post-season hopes are in the balance, while Cleveland secured both the Central Division title and No. 2 seed in the conference by defeating Milwaukee.
San Antonio’s Tony Parker scored 27 points and Kawhi Leonard added 20 for the Spurs, who overcame a slow start to lead by as much as 22 points before easing up.
Jason Terry led Houston with 22 points, while the Rockets got only three points from James Harden over the final three quarters.
The Rockets and the Spurs meet again today in a game that will be key to determining the Southwest title.
Memphis pulled even with Houston by routing New Orleans 110-74.
Zach Randolph had 15 points and 13 rebounds, while Jeff Green and Marc Gasol also had 15 points each for the Grizzlies, who rediscovered their best form after a rocky patch.
Anthony Davis scored 12 points for the Pelicans, who dropped back into a tie with Oklahoma City for the Western Conference’s final playoff spot.
Atlanta completed a season sweep of Brooklyn by winning 114-111 at the Nets, with Al Horford making the go-ahead basket on a dunk with 19 seconds remaining.
Playing without injured All-Star Paul Millsap and further undermanned after Pero Antic and Thabo Sefolosha were arrested early Wednesday at the scene of a nightclub stabbing and did not play, the Hawks recovered after blowing a 12-point fourth-quarter lead.
Horford scored 24 points and Mike Scott added 20 points for Atlanta, who won their third straight.
Brook Lopez had 26 points and 10 rebounds for the Nets, who are level with Boston in seventh and eighth in the East.
Cleveland’s Kyrie Irving scored 27 points to lead the Cavaliers to a 104-99 victory over Milwaukee to clinch the Central title.
LeBron James scored 21 points with nine rebounds and eight assists for the Cavs, including 10 points in the fourth quarter.
Michael Carter-Williams scored 30 points for the Bucks, who are sixth in the East standings, but yet to clinch a playoff berth.
Dallas eliminated Phoenix for playoff contention by beating the Suns 107-104, with Dirk Nowitzki scoring 19 points, including the go-ahead basket and a key three-pointer in the fourth quarter.
Phoenix are to miss the postseason for the fifth straight season, while the Mavericks were locked into the seventh seed in the West when New Orleans lost at Memphis.
Tyson Chandler had 12 points and 23 rebounds, two off his season high, for Dallas, while Gerald Green had a season-high 30 points to lead the Suns.
Toronto ended a run of six straight losses against Charlotte by beating the Hornets 92-74.
DeMar DeRozan scored 18 points, while Lou Williams and Greivis Vasquez each scored 16 points for the Atlantic Division-leading Raptors.
Kemba Walker scored 15 points for Charlotte, who are three games off eighth place in the East.
Orlando’s Victor Oladipo scored on a layup with 1.5 seconds left to give the Magic a 105-103 victory over Chicago, spoiling Derrick Rose’s return to the Bulls.
Oladipo scored 23 points and Nik Vucevic added 22 in the Magic’s third straight win.
Rose started and played for the first time in more than a month since undergoing knee surgery. The point guard was three of nine from the field and finished with nine points in 19 minutes.
Jimmy Butler scored 19 points for the Bulls, who had a last chance after Oladipo’s basket, but an inbounds pass from Mike Dunleavy to Pau Gasol sailed out of bounds.
Portland boosted their chances of home advantage in the playoffs by beating lowly Minnesota 116-91, with LaMarcus Aldridge contributing 24 points and 13 rebounds before sitting out the fourth quarter.
Boston moved into a tie for seventh in the East and eliminated Detroit from playoff contention by winning 113-103 at the Pistons, thanks chiefly to Isaiah Thomas’ season-high 34 points.
Washington shot a franchise-record 65.3 percent from the field in beating Philadelphia 119-90, despite resting All-Star guard John Wall and ending his consecutive games streak at 208.
Utah’s Derrick Favors scored 18 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and blocked three shots as the Jazz defeated Sacramento 103-91 in a matchup of non-playoff teams.
Indiana moved within one game of the final playoff-yielding spot in the East by beating lowly New York 102-86.
Denver’s Kenneth Faried scored a season-high 29 points and had 11 rebounds to lead the Nuggets past the Los Angeles Lakers 119-101.
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