Taking advantage of a rare day off for LeBron James, the Washington Wizards got a much-needed victory in their bid to move into playoff position, beating the Cleveland Cavaliers 113-99 on Sunday behind John Wall’s 21 points, 13 assists and seven rebounds.
Attacking from the start, Wall made eight of 11 shots and came out on top in his matchup against opposing point guard Kyrie Irving, who wound up with 28 points and six assists on 9-of-20 shooting.
At one point late in the third quarter, Wall had the same number of assists as the entire Cavs team, 12, and he sat out the fourth quarter.
Photo: AP
It was the second straight loss for Eastern Conference-leading Cleveland, who are in the middle of a stretch of three games in four days.
HAWKS 87, HORNETS 76
Kent Bazemore scored 14 points, while Al Horford had 13 points and tied a season high with 16 rebounds to help Atlanta beat Charlotte.
Marvin Williams finished with 16 points and Jeremy Lin scored 15 for Charlotte, who trailed the entire game. The Hornets were trying to be the first Charlotte team since 1996-1997 to win eight games in February.
They pulled within two with seven minutes left, but could not rally after scoring a season-worst nine points in the first quarter.
The Hawks ended a disappointing five-game home stand with two straight wins to pull two games ahead of third-placed Charlotte in the Southeast Division.
MAVERICKS 128, TIMBERWOLVES 101
Chandler Parsons scored 29 points as Dallas started fast in their first game since getting booed by their home crowd during a bad opening half, beating Minnesota.
Parsons scored 13 straight Dallas points in a stretch covering the second and third quarters to help the Mavericks restore a 20-point lead they built in the first 11 minutes of their sixth straight victory against Minnesota.
Two nights after scoring 27 points to help Dallas rally from 23 down in the second quarter of an overtime victory against Denver, Parsons was 10 of 15 from the field, made four of seven from three-point range and scored all five of his free throws.
Shabazz Muhammad scored 24 points to lead the Timberwolves.
TRAIL BLAZERS 111, PACERS 102
Damian Lillard had 33 points and five rebounds to lead Portland to a victory over Indiana.
C.J. McCollumn and Gerald Henderson each scored 19 points for the Trail Blazers, who have won eight of nine games.
Monta Ellis had 18 points and Jordan Hill added 15 off the bench for the Pacers, who have lost three of four games.
Meyers Leonard made a three-pointer at the buzzer to give the Trail Blazers an 87-77 at the end of the third quarter. Then Leonard opened the fourth with a basket and two three-pointers, including one to give Portland a 95-79 lead with 10 minutes, 16 seconds remaining.
PISTONS 114, RAPTORS 101
Andre Drummond had 15 points and 18 rebounds, as Detroit Pistons took advantage of Kyle Lowry’s absence to beat Toronto.
Lowry sat out for the first time all season, because the Raptors wanted to rest him after a 43-point performance against Cleveland on Friday. Detroit (31-29) won their fourth straight game and moved into a virtual tie with Charlotte (30-28) and Chicago (30-28) for seventh place in the Eastern Conference.
The Raptors had their four-game winning streak snapped.
Terrence Ross scored 27 points for the Raptors.
MAGIC 130, 76ERS 116
Rookie Mario Hezonja dunked four seconds into his first NBA start, finishing with 13 points, as Orlando led all the way in a victory over Philadelphia.
Nik Vucevic and Victor Oladipo scored 28 points each, while Aaron Gordon added a career-high 22 for the Magic.
Jahlil Okafor scored 26 points for the 76ers, who lost their eighth straight.
Starting in place of injured forward Evan Fournier, Hezonja’s game-opening baskets got the Magic off to an 11-0 start and they shot 65 percent (30-for-46) in dominating the first half.
Oladipo, Vucevic and Gordon all reached double figures in a 40-point first quarter, Orlando’s highest-scoring quarter of the season.
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