The Los Angeles Lakers say they are fully prepared for the steady stream of tributes to Kobe Bryant that they will surely see the rest of the season.
LeBron James welcomes it, calling it a therapeutic and needed part of the Lakers’ healing process.
James had another triple-double, despite an off-night shooting, while Anthony Davis scored 21 points as Los Angeles thumped the Sacramento Kings 129-113 on Saturday, their first win since Bryant’s death.
Photo: AP
“It’s never going to feel normal. It’s never going to feel the same, but we got our first win since this happened,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said. “There’s going to be a lot of important steps for us along the way and this was definitely one.”
James had 15 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds while helping Los Angeles end a two-game skid. James shot 6 of 15 and missed three of four three-pointers, but made up for it with his 11th triple-double of the season and the 92nd of his career.
Meanwhile, Bryant’s stolen high-school jersey has been returned.
The jersey spent more time in China of late than it did hanging on the wall of the gym named in honor of Lower Merion High School’s career leading scorer.
Bryant’s retired No. 33 jersey was stolen in 2017 from the school’s campus and eventually bought by a collector in China.
Suspicious that the jersey was stolen, the Kobe collector contacted the school and helped return the keepsake to suburban Philadelphia, a process already under way before Bryant was killed on Jan. 26 in a helicopter crash.
The uniform was at last back where it belonged on Saturday at Bryant Gymnasium.
“Good timing,” Lower Merion coach Gregg Downer said. “That was kind of an iconic moment when the spotlight went on that jersey. It was just tremendous. It was major irony, almost, how we’ve been waiting for that jersey for a long time. For a long time we didn’t know where it was. To have it back, it’s a fitting ending to a tough week.”
In other games, it was:
‧ Trail Blazers 124, Jazz 107
‧ Celtics 116, 76ers 95
‧ Clippers 118, T’wolves 106
‧ Heat 102, Magic 89
‧ Mavericks 123, Hawks 100
‧ Wizards 113, Nets 107
‧ Spurs 114, Hornets 90
‧ Knicks 92, Pacers 85
‧ Warriors 131, Cavaliers 112
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