Leonard leads Clippers’ rally past Bulls
LOS ANGELES » Kawhi Leonard scored a season-high 35 points, going over 10,000 in his career, and the Los Angeles Clippers rallied to beat the Chicago Bulls 130-127 on Sunday.
Leonard reached the milestone on one of his five
3-pointers in the third quarter, when he scored 21 points. His points and 3-pointers made were the most in a single quarter in his career. Leonard’s last 3-pointer in the quarter gave the Clippers their first lead since they scored the game’s first basket. In all, he had seven
3-pointers, tying his career high.
Paul George had 28 points, seven rebounds and nine assists for the Clippers, who avoided their first threegame losing streak of the season. Lou Williams added
21 points off the bench. LAKERS 120, ROCKETS 102» Anthony Davis had 27 points, LeBron James added 18 and Los Angeles won for the sixth
time in seven games with a victory over Houston.
It was a testy game that included five technical fouls, two flagrant fouls and the first-half ejections of Markieff Morris and DeMarcus Cousins.
Davis, who sat out on Friday with a groin strain, helped the Lakers finish with 62 points in the paint in a game in which they led by as many as 27.
THUNDER 129, NETS 116» Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 31 points to lead Oklahoma City over Brooklyn.
Gilgeous-Alexander was one of six players to finish in double-figure scoring for the Thunder, who won their third straight and beat Brooklyn for the fifth consecutive time.
Hamidou Diallo finished with 25 points, Al Horford had 22, George Hill added 14, and Lugentz Dort and Isaiah Roby had 13 each.
Kevin Durant scored 36 points for Brooklyn after sitting three games after being exposed to COVID-19. Caris LeVert added 21 points, Jarrett Allen had 15 points and
10 rebounds, and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot scored
12 as the Nets dropped their second straight.
NUGGETS 114, KNICKS 89» Nikola Jokic had 22 points,
10 rebounds and five assists in another short night, and Denver reached .500 for the first time this season with a victory over New York.
The Nuggets opened 1-4 after reaching the Western Conference finals last season but have now answered with four wins in five games.
Gary Harris added 14 points for the Nuggets, who got only nine from star guard Jamal Murray.
Julius Randle had 29 points, 10 rebounds and five assists for the Knicks, which the team said made him the only player other than Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson to have at least 200 points,
115 rebounds and 70 assists in his team’s first 10 games of a season.
JAZZ 96, PISTONS 86 » Donovan Mitchell scored 13 of his
28 points in a decisive first quarter, and Utah held on for a victory over Detroit.
The Pistons were coming off an overtime win over Phoenix on Friday night in which they rallied from a
23-point deficit, but they couldn’t climb out of another big hole. Utah scored the game’s first nine points and never trailed. The Jazz went on a 17-0 run later in the first, pushing their lead to 20 before the quarter was over.
Jerami Grant scored 28 points for the Pistons, who cut the deficit to six late in the third quarter. They had the ball down five late in the fourth, but Rudy Gobert blocked a shot by Mason Plumlee, and Mike Conley made two free throws to make it 93-86 with 1:00 remaining.
Conley finished with 22 points.