The Memphis Grizzlies on Friday clinched an NBA playoff berth in emphatic style, with Luke Kennard leading a dazzling display from three-point range in a 151-114 rout of the Houston Rockets.
Kennard set a franchise record with 10 three-pointers — on just 11 attempts — as Memphis set a franchise record with 25 from beyond the arc.
Their 25 treys came on just 42 attempts. Eight Grizzlies players converted from beyond the arc and Kennard was the most ruthlessly efficient of all.
Photo: Petre Thomas-USA TODAY
“It feels like every shot I take is going to go in,” Kennard said after scoring 30 points.
Desmond Bane added 25 points and two-time All-Star Ja Morant added 18 in a confident performance off the bench in his second game back from an eight-game NBA suspension for brandishing a gun at a nightclub.
Even against Western Conference stragglers Houston, it was an impressive display.
Photo: AP
Most importantly, Kennard said, it was the team’s most complete game since his arrival.
“Playing hard, playing fast, communicating a lot better,” he said. “We put it together for about a 48-minute game, so it was a fun game. I love the way we played — we’ve just got to build off that.”
In Salt Lake City, the Milwaukee Bucks made 22 three-pointers in a 144-116 wire-to-wire victory over the Utah Jazz that preserved their 2.5-game lead over the Boston Celtics atop the Eastern Conference.
Photo: AP
The Celtics kept the pressure on with a 120-95 victory over the Indiana Pacers, while the third-placed Philadelphia 76ers slipped back with a 120-112 loss to the Golden State Warriors in San Francisco.
Grayson Allen scored a season-high 25 points for Milwaukee, draining five three-pointers.
Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 24 points and handed out 11 assists for the Bucks before sitting out the fourth quarter.
The Greek superstar took a hard foul early in the game and grabbed his right wrist — the same wrist he injured last month.
However, if Antetokounmpo was slowed, the Bucks were not. They drained eight three-pointers — four by Allen — in the first quarter and Brook Lopez had four of his seven blocks in the first frame as they seized control.
Six Bucks players scored in double figures and Milwaukee dished out 42 assists.
“It’s a really fun way to play,” Allen said. “We were getting the ball up the court super quick today. A bunch of those possessions were less than five seconds — you get, like, three passes in and a good shot.”
In Boston, Jayson Tatum led the Celtics with 34 points — his 40th 30-point game of the season, setting a franchise record.
Jaylen Brown added 27 points and grabbed seven rebounds, while Derrick White chipped in 22 points for Boston, who outscored the Pacers 32-21 in the third quarter and rolled from there.
Tyrese Haliburton and Myles Turner scored 20 apiece for the Indiana Pacers, who are chasing the Chicago Bulls for 10th place in the East and the final play-in tournament berth.
The Bulls beat the Portland Trail Blazers 124-96 in Portland.
In San Francisco, Jordan Poole scored 33 points and Stephen Curry added 29 as reigning champions the Warriors withstood 46 points from Sixers star Joel Embiid.
With James Harden sidelined by injury, Embiid had Philadelphia poised to hand Golden State a rare home defeat.
He made 19 of 22 free throws, grabbed nine rebounds and handed out eight assists.
Philadelphia led by 11 early in the fourth quarter.
The Warriors pulled level four times in the period before Curry got past Embiid for the go-ahead bank shot with 2 minutes, 20 seconds remaining.
In Los Angeles, Anthony Davis scored 37 points and grabbed 14 rebounds as the Lakers boosted their post-season hopes with a 116-111 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Lakers, with superstar LeBron James sidelined by a foot injury, have won three straight and at 37-37 are level with the Minnesota Timberwolves for seventh in the West.
Elsewhere, the Sacramento Kings beat the Phoenix Suns 135-127, the Washington Wizards downed the San Antonio Spurs 136-124, the Charlotte Hornets dented the Dallas Mavericks post-season hopes with a 117-109 win and the Toronto Raptors beat the Detroit Pistons 118-97.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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