Heat beat Wizards, end rare 2-game slide

MIAMI —LeBron James scored 25 points and Chris Bosh added 24 as Miami beat winless Washington 103-93 on Sunday night to end a rare two-game slide.

Dwyane Wade scored 20 points for Miami, which hasn’t dropped three straight regular-season games since Jan. 10-13, 2012. The Heat (2-2) had 32 assists on 37 field goals, including on all nine of their baskets in the third quarter.

Including playoffs, the Heat are now 100 games over .500 at home since the start of the 2010-11 season — 127-27.


Bradley Beal scored 19 points for the Wizards. Marcin Gortat finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds for Washington (0-3).

Miami’s last three-game slide was against Boston in the 2012 Eastern Conference finals, a series the Heat won in seven games.

In Michigan, Josh Smith and Andre Drummond scored 15 points each as Detroit kept Boston, 87-77, and first-year coach Brad Stevens winless.

The Pistons (2-1) trailed 65-63 early in the fourth quarter but went on a 10-0 run to take the lead for good and win their second home game in as many tries. Drummond added 12 rebounds and Brandon Jennings had 14 points in his Detroit debut.

Rookie Kelly Olynyk scored 15 points and Jordan Crawford added 13 for the Celtics (0-3).

Jennings missed most of the preseason and the first two games because of a fractured jaw caused by a wisdom tooth. Jennings came to Detroit during the offseason in a sign-and-trade deal with Milwaukee.

In Orlando, Florida, Nikola Vucevic had 19 points and 12 rebounds as Orlando routed Brooklyn, 107-86, in Jason Kidd’s coaching debut.

Magic rookie Victor Oladipo scored 19 points, 14 in the second half, as Orlando won back-to-back games for the first time since Dec. 19, 2012. Andrew Nicholson added 17 points and 11 rebounds for the Magic (2-2), who beat New Orleans 110-90 at home last Friday night.

Brook Lopez led the Nets with 21 points. Paul Pierce was the only other Net to score in double figures with 16 points and he grabbed seven rebounds. The Nets (1-2), who shot 38.2 percent for the game, and were outscored 66-48 in the second half.

In Oklahoma City,  Kevin Durant had 33 points and 10 rebounds and Russell Westbrook had 21 points and seven assists in his return from a knee injury to bring down Phoenix, 103-96.

Serge Ibaka added nine points and 10 rebounds for Oklahoma City (2-1), which won its fifth straight home opener and defeated Phoenix (2-1) for the 11th straight time. The Suns last beat Oklahoma City in December 2010.

Westbrook, sidelined for six months after first tearing the lateral meniscus in his right knee during the second game of the NBA playoffs, then having a medical setback, returned three to five weeks ahead of the team’s previously announced timetable.

Eric Bledsoe scored 26 points and added a career-best 14 assists for Phoenix, which opened the season with home wins over Portland and Utah. The Suns stayed with Oklahoma City thanks to 14-of-37 3-point shooting, compared to 2 of 18 for the Thunder.

In New York, Kevin Love had 34 points, 15 rebounds and five assists and Kevin Martin scored 30 points as Minnesota improved to 3-0 for the first time in 12 years by beating New York, 109-100.

Minnesota took a huge lead after a 40-point first quarter, then pulled away after the Knicks trimmed it to two in the closing minutes to move halfway to matching the 2001-02 team that set the franchise record by winning its first six.

The Timberwolves, averaging a whopping 37.3 points in the first quarter, are healthy again after an injury-wrecked 2012-13 and showing the early promise of a team that can contend for its first playoff berth since 2004.

Carmelo Anthony had 22 points and 17 rebounds for the Knicks, who have dropped two straight after a season-opening victory and drew some loud boos in the first half while appearing to be standing still on defense.

Anthony shot just 8 of 21. Metta World Peace added 17 points, but the Knicks were too far behind by the time they found any offense.

LAKERS 105, HAWKS 103

In Los Angeles, Xavier Henry scored 18 points and Pau Gasol hit two tiebreaking free throws with 6 seconds remaining for Los Angeles to get past Atlanta, 105-103.

Henry started at forward for the first time as a Laker and the 19th time in 137 NBA games. He was 5 of 11 from the field. Gasol finished with 16 points and 13 rebounds, while Steve Nash had 13 points and six assists and Nick Young added 13 points.

Kyle Korver led Atlanta with 22 points, converting all six 3-point attempts, but he missed a 21-footer from the right baseline as time ran out. Hawks point guard Jeff Teague had 14 points and six assists after missing his first five shots.

Two nights after shooting only 37 percent from the field and blowing a 15-point lead against San Antonio, Los Angeles shot 42.7 percent.

source: sports.inquirer.net

Wade’s 25 points lift Heat over Spurs, 121-96

MIAMI—LeBron James spent most of the night sitting with fans, Ray Allen didn’t re-enact his famous shot and the Larry O’Brien Trophy was nowhere to be found.

It was an NBA Finals rematch in name only, though once again, it was the Miami Heat coming out on top.

Dwyane Wade scored 25 points in 26 minutes, James Jones added 18 and the Heat beat the San Antonio Spurs 121-96 in a preseason game Saturday night.

Wade made 10 of 14 shots, plus added seven assists and four rebounds for the Heat, who were without reigning league MVP James and Ray Allen for the matchup of last season’s NBA finalists.

“I don’t know how I look,” Wade said. “I’m getting better every day. But I’m not where I want to be. When the season starts I won’t be where I want to be. But as the season goes on, I’ll get stronger and stronger and better.”

Chris Bosh finished with 17 points on 8-for-10 shooting for Miami. Bosh is shooting 61 percent in the preseason, averaging 17 points in six games.

Kawhi Leonard scored 17 for the Spurs, while Marco Belinelli added 15 and Manu Ginobili scored 13.

Michael Beasley scored 12 and Norris Cole added 10 for Miami, which led by as many as 32 and never trailed.

“Both teams are trying to prepare for the regular season,” Wade said. “I’m sure it wasn’t a joy for them to come back to Miami in the preseason.”

The Heat were without James, who decided to rest, and Allen – whose 3-pointer with 5.2 seconds left in regulation of Game 6 of the title series saved Miami and essentially ripped the trophy from San Antonio’s grasp. The Spurs hardly went with what could be called a regular-season rotation: Tony Parker logged no points, rebounds or assists in 18 minutes, and Tim Duncan scored nine points in 21 minutes.

“Haven’t thought about it at all,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich deadpanned, when asked if being back in Miami churned up painful memories. “Are you serious? I think about it every day.”

That can’t be surprising.

Popovich confessed he recently dreamt of James and his MVP-level play during that seven-game series, and that it doesn’t take much for his thoughts to drift back to Allen’s 3-pointer or the missed opportunities – free throws that bounced off the rim, rebounds that weren’t corralled – that probably would have wrapped up a fifth title for the Spurs.

For 13 hours last month, Popovich relived all the pain of the last two finals games as part of his preparations for this season.

“We have a practice, we’ve done it every year I’ve been there, we take the coaches on a retreat in September and we watch film for four days,” Popovich said. “And we begin with whatever team we ended with the year before, whether the first round or the finals or you won or you lost or whatever, and we go through that tape. So we took seven hours and went through Game 6, we took six hours and went through Game 7.”

At least this time, James did nothing that would keep Popovich up at night. He was in warmups and sitting on the baseline near the Heat bench, fans on either side of him.

But James does understand where Popovich is coming from. He long lamented what happened in his first finals experience against San Antonio – the one in 2007 when the Spurs swept Cleveland.

And that outcome wasn’t the down-to-the-wire, excruciating-type of loss the Spurs had to deal with.

“I’m right with him,” James said, when told of Popovich’s regular reflection upon last season’s series. “I think about it a lot, man. One play here, one second there, it changes the whole format of the games. I think about it almost every day, too.”

The Heat played again without Rashard Lewis, who remains away from the team while tending to a personal matter. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said the team expects Lewis back in the coming days.

source: sports.inquirer.net