Cleveland’s LeBron James, complemented by a sharp-shooting J.R. Smith, led the Cavaliers to a valuable road victory in the opening game of the NHL Eastern Conference finals on Wednesday, beating Atlanta 97-89.
While James led Cleveland with 31 points, it was Smith who ignited the Cavaliers, making eight three-pointers and scoring 28 points.
“When he gets hot, he gets smoking hot,” Cleveland coach David Blatt said.
Photo: AP
Intent on bringing Cleveland its first NBA title, James sealed the victory with a soaring dunk in the final minute.
For the Hawks, it was the second straight series in which they have lost the opening game at home. Cleveland will look to take command of the series in Game 2 today.
Making matters worse for Atlanta, DeMarre Carroll went down with a knee injury with 4 minutes, 59 seconds remaining. He was to undergo an MRI scan yesterday to determine the seriousness.
Besides being the main defender on James, Carroll had been the Hawks’ leading scorer in the playoffs.
He was averaging more than 17 points coming into Atlanta’s first conference final.
“DeMarre is a complete player,” Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “He has a big impact at both ends of the court.”
Jeff Teague led Atlanta with 27 points, but Atlanta did not produce their usual balanced scoring, as two starters — Kyle Korver and Carroll — failed to reach double figures.
With Smith doing most of the damage, Cleveland outscored the Hawks 22-4 over the final five minutes of the third quarter and the first two minutes of the fourth. During that span, he made five three-pointers and another jumper from just inside the arc, as well as throwing up a lob that Tristan Thompson dunked.
“Once I start shooting, everybody keeps telling me to keep shooting,” Smith said.
Cleveland scored the first 11 points of the final period — all but two on threes by Smith — for their biggest lead, 85-67.
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