Shane Battier went 4-for-4 from three-point range — including a critical one from the right corner with 1 minute, 33 seconds left — as Miami wasted most of a 25-point lead before holding off the Chicago Bulls 107-95 on Tuesday in their NBA season-opener.
LeBron James scored 17 points for Miami, who were awarded this year’s NBA Championship rings in a pregame ceremony. The Heat trailed 9-2 early in the game, before outscoring Chicago 52-24 over the remainder of the first half.
The Bulls’ Derrick Rose finished with 12 points on 4-of-15 shooting in 34 minutes in his first game since suffering a serious knee injury in April last year.
Carlos Boozer had 31 points and seven rebounds for Chicago, who got within eight points in the final minutes.
Chris Bosh scored 16 points and Battier finished with 14, while Dwyane Wade and Mario Chalmers each had 13 for Miami, who had seven players score in the double figures.
PACERS 97, MAGIC 87
In Indianapolis, Paul George scored 24 points, as Roy Hibbert added 16 rebounds and seven blocks to lead the Indiana Pacers past the Orlando Magic.
George’s buzzer-beating three-pointer at the end of the third quarter gave the Pacers a 69-64 lead and sparked the decisive 17-4 run to open the fourth quarter.
Hibbert nearly matched his career-high for rebounds — 17 — in the first half. He had eight points, but left the game midway through the fourth quarter after injuring his knee in a spill underneath his own basket. Team officials said it was not serious and he could have returned.
Victor Oladipo, the No. 2 pick in this year’s NBA draft, had 12 points and three turnovers for the Magic.
LAKERS 116, CLIPPERS 103
In Los Angeles, Xavier Henry scored a career-high 22 points and Jordan Farmar added 16 as the Lakers relied on reserves to surge past the Clippers in the fourth.
With an injured Kobe Bryant watching on the Lakers’ bench, Jodie Meeks scored nine of his 13 points in the fourth quarter, as the Lakers stunned their Staples Center rivals in Clippers coach Doc Rivers’ debut.
Henry scored 12 points in the fourth quarter, while leading a decisive 28-8 run.
Blake Griffin scored 19 points, while Chris Paul had 15 points and 11 assists for the Clippers, who beat the Lakers four times last season on the way to their first Pacific Division title. DeAndre Jordan added 17 points and 11 rebounds.
The Lakers improved to 42-24 on opening night, the best winning percentage in NBA history.
‘AWFUL PERFORMANCE’: Golden State were always chasing the game after failing to threaten from long range, making just eight of 33 three-point attempts Aaron Gordon on Monday scored 38 points as the Denver Nuggets shrugged off the absence of Nikola Jokic to halt the Golden State Warriors’ seven-game winning streak with a 114-105 victory over their Western Conference rivals. A dazzling display from Gordon inspired what was ultimately a comfortable win for Denver, who were missing regular starters Jokic and Jamal Murray from their lineup. The absentees were barely felt by Denver, who startled the Warriors early at San Francisco’s Chase Center and led for most of the game. The Warriors threatened to stage a late rally after slashing the Nuggets’ fourth-quarter lead from 15 points
Barcelona’s Ferran Torres scored twice on Sunday to help secure a late 4-2 comeback win at Atletico Madrid in a pulsating La Liga clash that took the Catalan side back to the top of the table. Barca have 60 points and a game in hand after last week’s postponement of their home game with CA Osasuna. They are level on points with Real Madrid, who won 2-1 at Villarreal on Saturday. “I am happy and proud of this team,” Barcelona head coach Hansi Flick told a news conference. “They never give up... It’s a great three points and we are happy to
Chris Wood has fired Nottingham Forest into surprise UEFA Champions League contention and now the striker wants to score the goals to help New Zealand make history at the FIFA World Cup. New Zealand are strong favorites to qualify out of the Oceania region over the next week and reach the World Cup for only the third time. At the country’s two previous appearances at the finals, in 1982 and 2010, they have failed to win a match in six attempts. With Wood captaining the side and leading from the front, he told local media yesterday that the current squad can finally deliver
Paolo Banchero on Sunday scored 24 points as the Orlando Magic overturned a 13-point deficit to end the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 16-game unbeaten streak with a gutsy 108-103 road victory. Cleveland, the runaway Eastern Conference leaders, had looked poised to extend their franchise-record winning run after surging clear of Orlando early in the third quarter, but after a season where they have staged hefty winning comebacks of their own, the tables turned on Cleveland in the face of a furious burst of Orlando scoring. The Magic outscored Cleveland 35-23 in the third quarter, with Franz Wagner leading the charge with nine points and
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