LeBron James scored 25 points against his former team to lead the Miami Heat to a 114-107 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers in their NBA game on Saturday.
Dwyane Wade added 24 points and Chris Bosh had 22 for the Heat, who squandered a 19-point third-quarter lead before rallying from a two-point deficit with eight unanswered points late in the fourth.
Kyrie Irving scored 19 points for the Cavaliers, who played the second half without coach Mike Brown after he was ejected late in the second after storming onto the court looking for a foul on Shane Battier’s block of Alonzo Gee’s layup.
In other games, the Portland Trail Blazers became the second NBA team to reach 20 wins after beating the Philadelphia 76ers 139-105, while the Los Angeles Lakers won their first game since Kobe Bryant’s return, topping the Charlotte Bobcats 88-85 as crosstown rivals the Clippers beat the Washington Wizards 113-97.
LaMarcus Aldridge had 20 points and 16 rebounds, while Nicolas Batum added 17 points for Portland, who set a franchise record for three-pointers with 21.
Damian Lillard scored 16 and Dorell Wright had 15 on 5-for-5 shooting from beyond the arc for the Northwest Division leaders, who won their third in a row and improved to 20-4. They have the second-best record in the NBA after the Indiana Pacers (20-3).
Bryant scored a season-high 21 points for his first win since returning from a torn Achilles tendon four games ago.
Bryant was 8 of 15 from the field and hit two free throws with 37 seconds left to put the Lakers ahead for good after they trailed most of the game. Pau Gasol and Jordan Hill had 15 points apiece for Los Angeles.
The Clippers finished their seven-game road trip with a victory to go 4-3. They are now 6-6 on the season against the pedestrian Eastern Conference and 10-3 against the mighty Western Conference.
Chris Paul had 38 points and 12 assists, while Jamal Crawford — making his first start since April last year — finished with 17 points, with Blake Griffin adding 16 points and nine rebounds.
John Wall had 24 points and 12 assists for the Wizards, who were again missing Brazilian forward Nene due to a foot injury.
Washington have lost seven in a row with Nene not on the court and are 3-24 without him since the beginning of last season.
Elsewhere in the league, San Antonio’s Tim Duncan continued his run of good form, scoring 22 points and grabbing 12 rebounds in the Spurs’ 100-84 win over the Utah Jazz.
After a slow start to the season, the 37-year-old Duncan is averaging 17 points and 13 rebounds over his past six games. Tony Parker scored 15 points and Kawhi Leonard added 13 for the Spurs.
Also on Saturday, it was:
‧ Knicks 111, Hawks 106
‧ Mavericks 106, Bucks 93
‧ Raptors 99, Bulls 77
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
RSS