The Orlando Magic’s day went from uncomfortable to ugly on Thursday as a tense moment between coach Stan Van Gundy and star Dwight Howard was followed by a 96-80 loss to the New York Knicks.
Van Gundy told reporters at the team’s morning shootaround that Howard had asked team management to sack him — an allegation Howard has denied.
“I know he has,” Van Gundy insisted. “I was told it was true by people in our management right from the top.”
No sooner had Van Gundy finished talking than Howard arrived, and when asked reiterated that he hadn’t requested the coach’s dismissal.
As to whether Van Gundy would or should be handed his walking papers at the end of the season, Howard said: “Whatever happens at the end of the season is not under my control. I am a player for the Magic. I am not the general manager. I am not [team owner] Rich DeVos. I am not [CEO] Alex Martins. So that’s not my job.”
“So you guys should stop with every other week ... trying to find something, because there’s nothing. There’s nothing. I haven’t said anything to anybody about anything. Our main concern is winning,” he added.
Howard didn’t score any points in the first half, his first points coming with a dunk with 3.5 seconds left in the third quarter.
The star center finished with eight points on four-of-eight shooting with eight rebounds.
However, New York had taken charge of the game in the second quarter, when they made 12 of 16 shots and outscored Orlando 33-23.
The Knicks made eight of their first 11 three-point attempts and finished 13-for-25 from beyond the arc as they bounced back from a pounding on Tuesday by Indiana.
In other NBA action, it was:
‧ Pistons 99, Wizards 94
‧ Bulls 93, Celtics 86
‧ Clippers 93, Kings 85
New Taipei Kings guard Jeremy Lin on Friday was named the Taiwan Professional Basketball League’s (TPBL) Player of the Month, the first domestic player to win the award, while the Hsinchu Toplus Lioneers are to welcome their third head coach in less than a year. Lin averaged 22 points, 5.4 rebounds and 6.6 assists over five games in October and last month, helping the Kings to second in the standings with a 4-2 record as of Friday. The Kings last night defeated the Lioneers 96-78 to move level with the top-of-the-table Formosa Dreamers (5-2), while in the night game, the New Taipei
Taiwan on Wednesday finished with 15 medals at the World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Hong Kong, taking home four gold, five silver and six bronze medals across the age group divisions. Taiwan ranked third on the medal table after South Korea with 17 golds and the US with eight golds at the five-day competition. “Your athletes have proven themselves as the best in the world,” World Taekwondo president Choue Chung-won said at the closing ceremony of the martial art contest that was attended by a record 1,727 athletes from around the world. On the first day of the competition at the Hong Kong
TO NO AVAIL: The Denver Nuggets’ Serbian center Nikola Jokic surpassed his 53-point performance in the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix The Washington Wizards withstood a 56-point explosion from Denver star Nikola Jokic to beat the Nuggets 122-113 on Saturday and snap their 16-game NBA losing streak. Jokic, who won his third NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) award last season, posted a career scoring high — surpassing a 53-point performance in game four of the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix and a 50-point regular-season best against Sacramento in 2021. The Serbian big man added 16 rebounds and eight assists, but it was all to no avail as Washington, buoyed by 39 points from Jordan Poole, won for the first time
Taiwan’s Lin Cheng-jing won a bronze medal in the clean and jerk in the women’s under-49 kg division at the 2024 IWF World Weightlifting Championships in Bahrain on Saturday. Lin won her first medal at a World Weightlifting Championships for lifting 107kg in the clean and jerk in her weight class, 2kg more than Rosegie Ramos of the Philippines. However, Ramos won bronze for the combined lift after topping Lin by 5kg in the snatch. Ri Song-gum of North Korea won gold in the division’s combined lift with a total of 213kg, while Xiang Linxiang of China took silver with
RSS