James Harden had 27 points and nine assists as the Houston Rockets made it a perfect two-game road trip to start the season, despite playing this one without Chris Paul, beating the Sacramento Kings 105-100 on Wednesday night.
While he did not shoot especially well, Harden hit a trio of dagger three-pointers, the second of which put Houston ahead 89-79. He also had a key left-handed layup late and finished eight for 21 and four of 14 from three-point range.
Sacramento forced the Rockets into a shot-clock violation and the Kings got the ball back with just less than a minute remaining and down 96-92. Willie Cauley-Stein made one of two free throws with 41 seconds left and Harden found Clint Capela for an alley-oop dunk moments later.
After the Kings stole the inbounds pass from Eric Gordon with 25 seconds left and down 98-95, it was initially ruled Sacramento’s ball, but the play went to replay review and a foul was issued to George Hill instead. Gordon converted two free throws.
Capela had 22 points and matched his career high with 17 rebounds.
PACERS 140, NETS 131
In Indianapolis, Indiana, Victor Oladipo scored 22 points in his Indiana debut, while Darren Collison added 21 points and 11 assists in his return to Indianapolis as the Pacers held off Brooklyn.
The Pacers, in their first game since trading All-Star Paul George, had their highest point total since a 144-point game against Denver on Nov. 9, 2010.
Myles Turner had 21 points and 14 rebounds, while Thaddeus Young added 17 points and 11 rebounds.
D’Angelo Russell scored 30 points in his Nets debut, but backcourt teammate Jeremy Lin limped to the locker room with an injury midway through the fourth quarter.
TRAIL BLAZERS 124, SUNS 76
In Phoenix, Arizona, Damian Lillard scored 27 points as Portland opened the season by handing Phoenix the most one-sided loss in the franchise’s 49-year history.
Pat Connaughton added a career-high 24 points, making four of six three-pointers. The Trail Blazers outshot, outrebounded and outhustled the Suns from the opening tip.
The 48-point rout exceeded Phoenix’s previous record, a 44-point loss to Seattle (151-107) on April 2, 1988.
The Blazers dominated even though they were without one of their best players, guard C.J. McCollum, who was suspended one game for leaving the bench area during a tussle involving Phoenix’s Alex Len and Caleb Swanigan in a pre-season game a week ago.
Portland led 60-35 at the half and outscored the Suns 64-41 in the second.
The Blazers led by as many as 58, for a time flirting with the most one-sided game in NBA history, a 68-point blowout of the Miami Heat by the Cleveland Cavaliers on Dec. 17, 1991.
In other results, it was:
‧ Bucks 108, Celtics 100
‧ Spurs 107, Timberwolves 99
‧ Pistons 102, Hornets 90
‧ Wizards 120, 76ers 115
‧ Hawks 117, Mavericks 111
‧ Magic 116, Heat 109
‧ Grizzlies 103, Pelicans 91
‧ Jazz 106, Nuggets 96
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