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Kevin Durant dominates, Thunder beat Warriors 116-97

kevin Durant

Russell Westbrook blocked Stephen Curry’s layup, Kevin Durant corralled the ball and dribbled down court. He threw down a soaring dunk at full extension, then pretended to slice his throat and crossed his hands in prayer.

”Kill ’em and pray for ’em after the game,” Durant said of his new celebration.

Durant finished with 31 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists to help the Oklahoma City Thunder regain the Western Conference’s best record with a 116-97 victory over the Golden State Warriors on Thursday night.

”It’s nothing against the team I’m playing against,” Durant said of his animated moves, adding that somebody encouraged him to do it following a highlight dunk. ”Come out with a mindset and be friends after the game.”

With Durant leading the way, that’s just what the Thunder did.

Kevin Martin scored 23 points off the bench and Russell Westbrook added 18 points and nine assists for the Thunder, who moved a half-game ahead of idle San Antonio for the top seed. The Spurs split the season series with Oklahoma City, but the Thunder (58-21) own the tiebreaker because of its better conference record…

Curry scored 22 points and reserve Jarrett Jack had 19 points on a night the Warriors lost center Andrew Bogut to another injury. The 7-footer left in the first quarter with a sprained left ankle…

Ibaka finished with 17 points, seven rebounds and three blocks. Durant was 10 for 16 from the floor, helping the Thunder outshoot the Warriors 50.6 to 44 percent.

— Reported by Antonio Gonzalez of the Associated Press

Nate Robinson scores 35, Bulls end Knicks winning streak

Nate Robinson scores 35, Bulls end Knicks winning streak

The win streak’s over. Bigger goals remain in play.

All the New York Knicks could do was shrug off this one.

Nate Robinson scored a season-high 35 points and the Chicago Bulls stopped another lengthy winning streak, rallying to beat New York 118-111 in overtime Thursday night and end the Knicks’ 13-game run.

”It’s over with,” coach Mike Woodson said. ”You can’t win them all.”

Carmelo Anthony missed a potential winner at the end of regulation, and Robinson took over down the stretch, scoring eight points in overtime to lift the Bulls to another streak-breaking win.

”It would have been nice if Melo knocks down that shot,” Woodson said. ”We could have walked out of here with a win. It didn’t happen.”

Jimmy Butler added 22 points, Luol Deng scored 16, and the Bulls busted a long run for the second time in about a two-week span, ending the Miami Heat’s 27-game streak – the second-longest in NBA history – on March 27.

They put the Knicks’ longest streak in nearly two decades to rest with a huge surge in the second half, offsetting Anthony’s 36 points…

Smith scored 28 points and Raymond Felton added 19, but the Bulls hung on down the stretch in OT to complete the four-game sweep.

— Reported by Andrew Seligman of the Associated Press

Jazz home finale could be farewell for nine players

More than the playoffs are on the line in Utah’s regular-season home finale Friday night against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The game could be the last in Salt Lake City for as many as nine Jazz players with expiring contracts, including starters Paul Millsap, Mo Williams, Al Jefferson and Randy Foye.

The Jazz have three games remaining as do the Los Angeles Lakers, with whom they are mired in a battle for the final Western Conference playoff spot.

— Reported by Lynn DeBruin of the Associated Press

Dwyane Wade plans to return to Heat lineup on Friday

Dwyane Wade plans to return to the Miami Heat lineup on Friday, when the reigning NBA champions play host to the Boston Celtics.

Wade has missed Miami’s last six games while dealing with knee and ankle issues. Wade tells The Associated Press that doctors eventually discovered three separate bone bruises around his right kneecap, but that rest and treatment has largely taken care of the problem.

Wade says he isn’t sure how much he will play against Boston.

— Reported by Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press

Kobe unleashes epic 47-point game on Blazers

Kobe unleashes epic 47-point game on Blazers

It didn’t matter that it was the Rose Garden. The ”M-V-P!” chant for Kobe Bryant was loud and clear.

Bryant scored a season-high 47 points [plus eight rebounds, five assists, three steals and four blocks] and carried the Los Angeles Lakers closer to a playoff berth with a 113-106 victory over the short-handed but tenacious Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday night.

The Lakers moved a full game up on the Utah Jazz for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

”We’ve got no breathing room at all,” Bryant said. ”I’m still on edge. We’ve got to win three more games and we’re in.”

Portland, missing the playoffs for the second straight season, has lost nine straight, the most since an 11-game skid in the 2005-06 season. Rookie Damian Lillard led the Blazers with a career-high 38 points.

Pau Gasol had 23 points, seven rebounds and nine assists, while Dwight Howard added 20 points and 10 rebounds for the Lakers. Bryant was 18 of 18 from the free throw line and played the entire game, determined to pull out a win after trailing early.

”What he (Bryant) is doing is phenomenal. He’s determined to get us in the playoffs,” Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni said. ”That’s what happens when you open your mouth and guarantee that we’ll get in the playoffs.”

Bryant vowed in late February that his team would make it to the postseason. The Lakers wrap up the regular season at home with games against playoff-bound Golden State, San Antonio and Houston.

— Reported by Anne M. Peterson of the Associated Press

Lakers guard Steve Nash frustrated with season

steve nash

Steve Nash was back at the Rose Garden on Wednesday, the site of the collision that broke his left leg in the Los Angeles Lakers’ second game of the season, sidelining him for nearly two months.

Only this time around, he was dealing with a right hip and hamstring injury that kept him out of the game against the Portland Trail Blazers and caused him to miss all or part of the Lakers’ past six games before it.

Seeing Nash make his way to the training room for treatment before the game rather than head to the court for a crucial matchup as the Lakers fight for a playoff spot begged the question: Has this been the most frustrating season of his career?

“Right up there, if not the most frustrating,” said Nash, a 17-year veteran. “I’ve played a long time, so I can’t remember all those years, but it’s frustrating. Maybe it’s because of the freshness, but it feels the most frustrating for sure.”

Nash, who hurt his hip March 25 at Golden State and has suffered discomfort in his hamstring stemming from the injury ever since, said he is improving but added, “There’s still a question for Friday.”

— Reported by Dave McMenamin of ESPN Los Angeles

Sixers may hope coach Doug Collins moves on this summer

Doug Collins

According to multiple league sources, the 76ers organization privately hopes that coach Doug Collins decides not to return for the 2013-14 season and, regardless of his decision, it does not intend to extend his contract – which has one year remaining.

It will be an interesting game of cat-and-mouse when this season ends. Collins is unlikely to quit and leave $4.5 million on the table, but he is just as unlikely to agree to coach the lame-duck year of his contract.

“I’m entirely focused on trying to win the games we have left,” Collins said Wednesday night before the Sixers played Atlanta at the Wells Fargo Center. “I’m not thinking at all about next season. I haven’t gone there.”

Previously, Collins has said he simply doesn’t know yet what he will do. This has been an excruciatingly difficult season for the entire organization, and particularly for Collins, who pours so much passion and energy into coaching that he is always exhausted at the end of a season. This time around, dealing with the crushing disappointment of not having the Andrew Bynum deal work out, and then dealing with a team that is incapable of winning without him, the toll has been even greater.

“I think he’s gone at the end of the year. He’ll be moving on,” said one NBA source with intimate knowledge of the situation. “He’ll decide to leave, and they won’t be upset about it. They would like to see it work out that he decides to move on.”

— Reported by Bob Ford of the Philadelphia Inquirer

Heat clinch home-court advantage for entire 2013 NBA playoffs

lebron james

All the Miami Heat did was set a franchise single-season record for wins with four games left to play, clinch the top overall spot in the NBA and secure home-court advantage for the entirety of the playoffs.

No big deal.

No wild celebration was merited. No celebration at all, really. Just business as usual for the Heat, whose lone goal isn’t being the best team in April – but rather, being the best team in June. Miami wrapped up the No. 1 overall seed with a 103-98 win in Washington on Wednesday, a game where the Heat played without LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Udonis Haslem, all sidelined by minor injuries or illness.

”We’ve had an amazing year,” Heat forward Shane Battier told reporters in Washington. ”We’ve set a lot of records and we’ve had a lot of story lines the whole year. Hopefully our best story line is still ahead of us. That’s what we’re saving the high-fives for.”

It was Miami’s 62nd win, one more than the Heat club of 1996-97 managed.

And now what has seemed inevitable for the last couple weeks – Miami finishing the regular season atop the league – has become reality.

— Reported by Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press