Russell Westbrook bagged his 14th triple-double of the season on Tuesday as the Oklahoma City Thunder overpowered Western Conference rivals the Portland Trail Blazers.
Westbrook put up 29 points, 10 rebounds and 14 assists, while teammate Paul George led the scoring with 36 points in a 123-114 win at the Chesapeake Energy Arena.
The win saw the Thunder improve to 29-18, tightening their grip on third place in the West ahead of fourth-placed Portland, who slipped to 29-20 with the defeat.
New Zealand’s Steven Adams and shooting guard Terrance Ferguson had 14 points apiece, while Jerami Grant had 11 points. Dennis Schroder added 13 off the bench in his 22 minutes on court.
“It’s very important to get everyone involved,” Westbrook said.
The burden of Portland’s scoring was once again shouldered by Damian Lillard, who had 34 points. C.J. McCollum added 31 points, while Bosnia international Jusuf Nurkic added 22 points.
In the Eastern Conference on Tuesday, the Toronto Raptors bagged their 36th win of the season with a 120-105 defeat of the Sacramento Kings at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, despite resting star Kawhi Leonard.
The Kings, who fell to 24-24 after the loss, jolted the home crowd after taking a 34-29 first-quarter lead.
However, the Raptors clicked into gear in the second quarter to build a four-point lead at halftime, which they held onto after the interval.
In Tuesday’s other games, Dennis Smith Jr returned from his mysterious week-long absence to help the Dallas Mavericks claim a 106-98 win over the Los Angeles Clippers.
Smith Jr, whose absence had been attributed variously to a sore back and a stomach bug, scored 17 points on his return, along with Luka Doncic, who also had 17. Harrison Barnes led the Mavericks with 20 points.
Elsewhere, Karl Anthony-Towns scored 25 points and had 18 rebounds for the Minnesota Timberwolves in a 118-91 blowout against the Phoenix Suns.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later