Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge each had 22 points as the San Antonio Spurs beat the Portland Trail Blazers 118-110 on Thursday night to secure the second-best home start to a season in league history.
The Spurs have won 34 straight at home to open the season and only trail the 37 wins by the Chicago Bulls during their historic 72-victory season in 1995-1996.
A dominant third quarter enabled San Antonio to sit their starters for much of the fourth quarter in advance of yesterday’s showdown with the Golden State Warriors. The Warriors and the Spurs have both clinched playoff berths and division titles and are on pace to finish with two of the three best single-season records in league history.
In Indianapolis, DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry each scored 28 points to lead the Toronto Raptors over the Indiana Pacers 101-94 in overtime.
DeRozan had 10 points in the fourth quarter. He had a chance to win the game for Toronto at the end of regulation, but missed a fade-away jumper on the wing as time expired. He has scored at least 25 points in five of Toronto’s past six games.
Playing their fourth game in five nights, the Raptors kept pace with conference-leaders Cleveland, as Indiana fell to 1-7 in overtime this season.
In Philadelphia, John Wall had 16 points, 14 assists and 13 rebounds for his fourth triple-double of the season as the Wizards held on against the 76ers, 99-94.
Wall made eight free-throws in the final 14.6 seconds to help the Wizards win their third straight following a five-game losing streak that put their playoff hopes in peril.
Charlotte’s Al Jefferson and Kemba Walker each scored 21 points to set up a 109-106 win for the Hornets as the Heat again blew a big lead in Miami.
Nic Batum scored 19 for the Hornets, who now have the same 39-29 record as the Heat in the jam-packed Eastern Conference playoff chase. The Hornets are now 15-3 in their past 18 games.
Charlotte trailed 45-30 in the second quarter, then took the lead by halftime and held it for most of the second half. It was the 10th time this season Miami lost a game it had led by double figures, with six of those coming at home.
Charlotte’s Jeremy Lin made four straight free throws in the final seconds.
In other games, it was:
‧ Bulls 118, Nets 102
‧ Hawks 116, Nuggets 98
‧ Bucks 96, Grizzlies 86
‧ Jazz 103, Suns 69
Additional reporting by Reuters
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