Solomon Hill on Friday night scored a career-high 30 points to help the New Orleans Pelicans overcome the absence of All-Star DeMarcus Cousins in a 128-112 upset over the Houston Rockets.
Anthony Davis had 24 points and 15 rebounds for New Orleans, who have won three of four. Jrue Holiday added 19 points, despite early foul trouble.
James Harden had 41 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists, but that was not enough to prevent Houston’s first loss in four games. Lou Williams added 14 points and Montrezl Harrell 13.
Cousins was sidelined by left knee and rib soreness. New Orleans are now 2-0 without Cousins and 3-7 when he has played since trading for him on Feb. 19.
Pelicans rookie guard Wayne Selden scored 11 points in his third career NBA game.
CELTICS 98, NETS 95
In New York, Jae Crowder scored nine of his 24 points late in the fourth quarter and Avery Bradley had 16 overall as Boston edged Brooklyn.
Al Horford added 14 points and eight rebounds for the Celtics, who were playing without All-Star Isaiah Thomas. Boston’s point guard sat out the first game of a two-game road trip.
Thomas, second in the NBA in scoring with 29.2 points per game, bruised his right knee in Wednesday night’s win over the Minnesota Timberwolves after a hard fall.
Boston moved within two games of the idle Cleveland Cavaliers for the top spot in the Eastern Conference.
Brook Lopez led the Nets with 23 points and Randy Foye added 14 for Brooklyn.
HEAT 123, TIMBERWOLVES 105
In Miami, Hassan Whiteside scored 23 points and grabbed 14 rebounds, while Tyler Johnson scored 23 off the bench as Miami downed Minnesota.
Goran Dragic scored 19 points and added 10 assists for Miami, who lost Dion Waiters to an ankle injury in the second quarter, but moved to 23-5 in their past 28 games overall and 15-1 in their past 16 at home.
James Johnson scored 17 for the Heat, who never trailed and put the game away with a 15-2 run in the fourth quarter.
Karl-Anthony Towns had 31 points and 11 rebounds for the Timberwolves, who were 21 for 22 from the foul line.
BUCKS 107, LAKERS 103
In Los Angeles, Khris Middleton scored 14 of his season-high 30 points in the fourth quarter, while Greg Monroe added 12 points before his ejection as Milwaukee kept up their furious playoff push with their eighth victory in nine games.
Monroe and Lakers guards D’Angelo Russell and Nick Young were ejected with 36 seconds left in the third quarter after a fracas started by Malcolm Brogdon’s hard foul on Young, who shoved back. Monroe then shoved Young, and Russell shoved Monroe while every player on the court got involved.
Jordan Clarkson scored 21 points for the Lakers, who trimmed Milwaukee’s lead from 18 points to 103-100 with 7.9 seconds left.
WIZARDS 112, BULLS 107
In Washington, Bradley Beal scored 24 points and John Wall dished out a career-high 20 assists to go with 14 points as Washington held on to defeat Chicago.
Playing their first game since Dwyane Wade suffered a fractured elbow that will keep him out for the rest of the regular season, the Bulls rallied from 19 points down and had a chance to tie it, but Jimmy Butler missed a three-pointer with 3.9 seconds left.
Butler finished with 28 points, while Robin Lopez added a season-high 25 points and 12 rebounds.
Washington’s Jason Smith, starting in place of Markieff Morris, who was a late scratch due to illness, tied his season high with 17 points.
In other results, it was:
‧ 76ers 116, Mavericks 74
‧ Raptors 87, Pistons 75
‧ Magic 109, Suns 103
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