Cousins recorded 28 points (9-25 FG, 0-6 3Pt, 10-12 FT), 12 rebounds, six assists, three steals and one block across 36 minutes in Friday’s 103-100 loss to the Knicks.
Cousins came up empty from three-point range for the first time in 13 games…
James Harden and Russell Westbrook are both one-man shows. They’re traveling visual art performances, spectacular and ridiculous, while simultaneously defying the team nature of the sport they play and showing the importance of a few good players around them. On Wednesday, after Westbrook had one the duo’s first clash of the year, Harden won out with just enough help from his teammates. More
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Carmelo Anthony scored 33 points, including two free throws with 14.8 seconds remaining, and the New York Knicks held on to beat the Sacramento Kings 103-100 Friday night. More
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kevin Durant had 29 points, nine assists and six rebounds, and the Golden State Warriors beat the injury-depleted Los Angeles Lakers for the second time in three days, 109-85 on Friday night.
Stephen Curry scored 24 points and Klay Thompson had 18 in the Warriors’ 10th consecutive victory. They followed up their 43-point win in Oakland on Wednesday with another comfortable win in these clubs’ fifth meeting in 43 days.
Draymond Green had 12 points and eight rebounds before leaving in the third quarter with a bruised left ankle from a collision with teammate Ian Clark.
Jordan Clarkson scored 20 points for the Lakers, who played without injured starters Julius Randle, Nick Young and D’Angelo Russell.
Los Angeles beat the Warriors three weeks ago at Staples Center, but couldn’t keep up this week. The Lakers gave up 149 points on Wednesday, and they never made it close Friday with three of their top five scorers sidelined.
The Lakers were the last team to beat the Warriors, notching a 20-point blowout on Nov. 4. Since then, Golden State has found the rhythm necessary to become the powerhouse everyone expected when Durant abandoned Oklahoma City to join up with the two-time defending Western Conference champions in July.
TIP-INS
Warriors: Clark was prone under the basket when Green fell and tripped over his head. Clark was hit in the throat, but showed…
BOSTON (AP) Kawhi Leonard had 25 points and 10 rebounds and Patty Mills scored 19 to lead the San Antonio Spurs past Boston 109-103 Friday for their eighth straight victory. Mills made a 3-pointer with 45 seconds left after the Celtics made it a one-possession game.
David Lee had 15 points and 12 rebounds, and rookie Davis Bertans scored a career-high 15 to help the Spurs improve to 9-0 on the road this season. San Antonio beat Boston for the 10th straight time.
Isaiah Thomas scored 24 points with eight assists and Avery Bradley had 19 points and eight rebounds for Boston, which had won three in a row. Al Horford had 12 points and 10 rebounds in his second home game since signing a four-year, $113-million contract with Boston this summer. Jae Crowder added 18 points for Boston.
CAVALIERS 128, MAVERICKS 90
CLEVELAND (AP) – Kevin Love scored 27 points, Kyrie Irving added 25 and Cleveland led by as many as 45 points in a rout of Dallas.
Love hit seven 3-pointers while Irving, who made his first 10 shots, scored 19 points in the first quarter. Irving’s big quarter came two nights after Love scored an NBA-record 34 in the first against Portland.
LeBron James, playing in his 1,000th regular-season game, had 19 points and 11 assists.
The defending NBA champions faced little resistance from the team with the league’s worst record. Dallas scored the game’s first basket before the Cavaliers turned the game into a rout. Cleveland led 36-16 after one quarter and was ahead 68-28 late in the second.
Dirk Nowitzki, who appeared in only his fifth game of the season because of an injured right Achilles, scored 15 points for Dallas.
KNICKS 113, HORNETS 111, OT
NEW YORK (AP) – Carmelo Anthony scored a season-high 35 points, including the tiebreaking jumper with 3.1 seconds left in overtime, and New York beat Charlotte.
Derrick Rose added 16 points and blocked Kemba Walker’s 3-pointer that would have won it just before the buzzer. Kristaps Porzingis also scored 16 points in the Knicks’ sixth straight home victory.
Former Hornets guard Courtney Lee finished with 12 points in the opener of a home-and-home series.
Marco Belinelli scored 19 points, Nicolas Batum had 18 and Walker added 17 for the Hornets, who have lost four straight games.
PISTONS 108, CLIPPERS 97
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) – Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had 16 points and a career-high 10 assists as Detroit beat Los Angeles.
Detroit won its second straight and improved to 7-2 at home, as opposed to 1-7 on the road. The Clippers lost for just the second time in 13 games, falling to 7-1 on the road.
Marcus Morris scored 17 points and Andre Drummond had 16 points and 10 rebounds, as the Pistons got at least 15 points from all five starters. Jon Leuer added 11 points and 11 rebounds off the bench.
J.J. Redick and Blake Griffith each had 24 points for the Clippers, while Chris Paul had eight points to go with 15 assists.
JAZZ 95, HAWKS 68
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Gordon Hayward scored 24 points as Utah beat…
Boston (AFP) – Kawhi Leonard scored nine points in the final 7:17 as the San Antonio Spurs kept rolling with a spirited 109-103 win over the Boston Celtics that extended three winning streaks.
LaMarcus Aldridge clinched the Spurs come-from-behind victory with an offensive rebound and two free throws with 17 seconds remaining.
“It was a great win for us against the really active team,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said.
The Spurs, who trailed by 14 points in the first half, improved to 13-3 on the season in front of a crowd of 18,600 Friday at the Boston Garden arena.
San Antonio rallied for their eighth straight NBA win, their ninth in as many games on the road this season, and also beat Boston for the 10th straight time.
Leonard, who finished with 25 points, 10 rebounds and four assists, scored nine points in the fourth quarter.
Former Celtic Patty Mills tallied a season-best 19 points and rookie Davis Bertans and veteran David Lee added 15 points apiece.
That…
CLEVELAND, Ohio — At virtually any moment during the third quarter, if not the second, one could easily envision Dallas coach Rick Carlisle frantically searching under the bench chairs muttering “there’s got to be a white towel around here somewhere.”
Had he found it, he’d have thrown it in the Cavs’ general direction.
The defending NBA champs and the league’s worst team played their respective roles to a T in Cleveland’s 128-90 trouncing of the Mavericks Friday night at The Q.
LeBron James and the Cavs (12-2) can now board that plane for Columbus and Saturday’s Ohio State-Michigan game in peace. (As an aside, what was higher, the Cavs’ final point total or the number of times The Q’s game ops people played “Hang On Sloopy”?)
This was the Cavs’ largest margin of victory this season. They drained 20 3-pointers to Dallas’ eight. You do the math.
Staying hot from his 40-point outburst Wednesday, Kevin Love again led the Cavs with 27 points and added 10 rebounds. Kyrie Irving scored 19 of his 25 points in the first quarter. James chipped in 19 points and 11 assists.
All of this, mind you, was in three quarters of work. Cavs coach Tyronn Lue pulled four of his five starters with 1:48 left in the third and Cleveland ahead by 42. It was 72-38 at halftime so, yeah, a running clock in the second half would’ve been fine for Carlisle.
The Mavericks are now 2-13 and have lost eight straight. They have lots of players you’ve heard of, names like Dirk Nowitzki (15 points), Deron Williams (four…
Russell Westbrook all but averages a triple-double with a league-high 31.8 points per game to go with his 10.6 assists and 9.6 rebounds a night. The 28-year-old point guard has been an All-NBA lock when healthy since his third year in the league and All-Star Game MVP each of the past two seasons.
Westbrook does not, however, have an All-Defensive honor bearing his name. Some have posited that Westbrook fails to match his extraordinary offensive exertion on the defensive end, even questioning whether his penchant for statistics, namely steals or rebounds, takes priority over winning basketball.
True or not, Westbrook will not be submitting his defensive effort on the final play of Tuesday night’s game against the Los Angeles Lakers — a sequence that saw Nick Young steal a pass from his own teammate and mend a broken relationship with another all in one game-winning swoop — to the academy for Defensive Player of the Year consideration this season. And neither will his teammates.
In what could be interpreted as a not-so-subtle shot at his backcourt mate, fellow Oklahoma City Thunder guard Victor Oladipo expressed his frustration over having to hedge on Brandon Ingram and chase down a wide-open Young when he began the last-second inbounds play guarding Lou Williams.
“It was a little confusing. It seemed like I was guarding three people at one time, but it is what it is — you know what I mean? He kind of came out of nowhere. It looked like it was going back to Lou [Williams]; he kind of came out of nowhere, grabbed it and shot it. Made a big…