Tim Duncan scored a season-high 34 points and grabbed 13 rebounds Thursday to lead the San Antonio Spurs to their fifth straight victory, 88-80 over the Philadelphia 76ers.
Allen Iverson scored 24, Kyle Korver had 17 and Corliss Williamson added 15 for the Sixers, who set a dubious team record by scoring just 6 points in the first quarter.
PHOTO: AFP
"It was a great game for us," Duncan said. "We played pretty good defense. They missed some shots and we gave ourselves a lead there. They did a hell of a job coming back, but we fought straight through."
Rasho Nesterovic had 16 points and 11 rebounds and Manu Ginobili scored 17 for San Antonio, which had lost four in a row in Philadelphia since winning on Nov. 22, 1999. The Spurs improved to 7-1, their best start since the 1991-1992 season.
"We didn't knock down shots available to us," Sixers coach Jim O'Brien said. "They did what they had to do ... They're a potential world champion"
Philadelphia finished its five-game homestand with two consecutive losses after winning the first three games.
Cavaliers 106, Bobcats 89
In Charlotte, North Carolina, LeBron James helped break the game open late in the second quarter by driving baseline for a windmill dunk as Cleveland downed Charlotte.
James' dunk was one of three crowd-pleasers among his 19 points.
It was the fifth consecutive victory for the Cavaliers and moved them two games over .500 for the first time since 1999 -- James' freshman year in high school.
Jeff McInnis scored 18 points for Cleveland, Zydrunas Ilgauskas had 16 and Newble scored 11.
Knicks 93, Rockets 92
In Houston, Jamal Crawford banked in a 3-pointer at the final buzzer to send New York past Houston for its first road win of the season. Crawford finished with 19 points, going 5-of-11 from the 3-point arc, and Kurt Thomas added 23 points and 14 rebounds to hand the Rockets their fourth loss in five games.
New York came back from an 11-point deficit to start the fourth quarter.
Tracy McGrady led the Rockets with 24 points and Yao Ming added 23 points and 11 rebounds.
Taiwanese badminton player Lin Chun-yi had to settle for silver in the men’s singles at the Orleans Masters in France on Sunday after losing in the final to his French opponent. The 25-year-old Lin, ranked world No. 14, lost to Alex Lanier 13-21, 18-21 in a match that lasted 42 minutes at the Palais des Sports arena. It was the first time that the two players were facing each other in their professional careers. In the opener, Lin was slow to warm up, which gave the 20-year-old Lanier an opportunity to take an early lead with seven consecutive points. Despite
Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday held their nerve to beat Liverpool 4-1 on penalties and reach the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals after their tie finished one-apiece on aggregate, while Bayern Munich saw off Bayer 04 Leverkusen to complete a 5-0 win over both legs. Lamine Yamal and Raphinha fired Barcelona into the next round as the Catalans bested SL Benfica 3-1, and Inter booked a last-eight meeting with Bayern by seeing off Feyenoord 2-1. At Anfield, Ousmane Dembele netted the only goal of the night as PSG bounced back from Liverpool’s late winner last week to force the tie to extra-time and penalties. Maligned
Taiwan’s Lin Chun-yi on Wednesday inflicted a first-round defeat on former badminton world No. 1 Viktor Axelsen at the All England Open. Lin came out of top after a back-and-forth first game before Axelsen dominated the second, but the Dane was not able to keep that form in the decider as Lin reeled off six points in a row on the way to a 21-19, 13-21, 21-11 victory. “If I don’t play my best, everyone can win against me,” said Axelsen, the world No. 4. “Today’s opponent played a fantastic game; it was disappointing, but that is how it is.” “I just tried
Two-time Indian Wells champion Iga Swiatek on Thursday avenged her shock Paris Olympics loss to Zheng Qinwen with a 6-3, 6-3 win over the Chinese eighth seed, setting up a semi-final against 17-year-old Russian Mirra Andreeva in the California desert. In the men’s singles, Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz put on a show with his acrobatic shotmaking under the lights to close out the day’s action, overcoming a 4-1 second-set deficit to defeat Francisco Cerundolo 6-3, 7-6 (7/4), while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei crashed out of the women’s doubles. Swiatek, one of the gold medal favorites when she lost to eventual champion Zheng in the
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