Russell Westbrook had 21 points, 15 assists and 13 rebounds to help the Thunder beat the Houston Rockets 111-107 on Tuesday night.
Westbrook has 15 triple-doubles this season and 34 in his career. It was the most triple-doubles by a player in a season since 1988-1989, when Magic Johnson had 17 and Michael Jordan had 15.
It was also Westbrook’s sixth triple-double in March. According to STATS, it was the most by a player in a calendar month since Jordan had seven in April 1989. It was his third in a row and fourth in his past five games.
Photo: EPA
Kevin Durant scored 23 points and Dion Waiters added 17 to help the Thunder win their fifth straight.
James Harden had 24 points, a career-high 16 assists and seven rebounds for the Rockets. Dwight Howard had 16 points and 13 rebounds and Patrick Beverley added 16 points.
LAKERS 107, GRIZZLIES 100
In Los Angeles, Jordan Clarkson scored 22 points and Kobe Bryant added 20 as the Lakers snapped a four-game losing streak.
Bryant scored 12 points in the third quarter, but the superstar sat out the final 4 minutes, 20 seconds. Brandon Bass got eight of his 18 points in the fourth while Los Angeles’ younger players closed out an unlikely victory over the playoff-bound Grizzlies, who had won the clubs’ first three meetings of the season.
The Western Conference-worst Lakers wrapped up an eight-game homestand with three wins, beating contenders Golden State and Memphis.
Tony Allen made all 12 of his shots while scoring 27 points for the Grizzlies, who had won two straight. Zach Randolph and Lance Stephenson added 16 points apiece.
HEAT 113, PELICANS 99
In New Orleans, Hassan Whiteside had 24 points, 14 and three blocked shots to lead Miami past injury-ravaged New Orleans.
Dwyane Wade and Goran Dragic each scored 23 points for the Heat, who have won nine of 12 games to put Miami in position to grab a playoff seeding as high as third in the Eastern Conference.
Jrue Holiday scored 24 for New Orleans, but missed 16 of his 23 shots. His shooting struggles against Miami’s stout defense was part of a theme for New Orleans, who shot only 39.1 percent (34 of 87) for the game.
Luke Babbitt scored a season-high 23 points for the Pelicans, who trailed by double digits for much of the game before briefly getting as close as five points in the fourth quarter.
HORNETS 105, NETS 100
In New York, Nicolas Batum scored 23 points to lead Charlotte past Brooklyn.
Jeremy Lin added 21 points, a night after scoring 29 in Charlotte’s rally from 23 down to beat the San Antonio Spurs.
Brook Lopez had 29 points, nine rebounds and a season-high six assists, and Sean Kilpatrick added a career-high 25 points for the Nets.
Batum hit two big shots down the stretch to key the win. Batum had a four-point play to put Charlotte up 91-84 with 4:11 left and 3-pointer to extend the lead to 96-88 with 2:44 remaining.
Bojan Bogdanovic cut the deficit to 98-97. Kemba Walker then sank two free throws to push Charlotte’s lead to 100-97 and the Hornets never looked back.
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