Atlanta United FC rolls past Orlando
ATLANTA — Miguel Almiron scored twice, and Josef Martinez added a goal and an assist to help Atlanta United FC beat Orlando City 4-0 Saturday night. Martinez opened the scoring in the third minute with a sliding finish off Julian
Gressel’s diagonal cross. Atlanta (11-34) added quick goals in the 55th and 57th minutes. Almiron made it 2-0 on a counterattack, punching home Martinez’s perfectly weighted through ball. Ezequiel Barco gathered the rebound after Almiron’s long-range shot hit the crossbar and punched it back for Atlanta’s third goal of the game. Almiron capped the scoring in the 78th minute, taking Mikey
Ambrose’s pass at midfield and making a run all the way to the goal with a narrow-angle finish that slotted through the keeper’s legs. Orlando City (6-10-1) lost its eighth in a row.
BASKETBALL
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NEW YORK — NBA teams will be working with a salary cap of $101,869,000 for the coming season, with a salary tax level of $123,733,000. The league released those figures Saturday night, hours before the annual moratorium started and teams could begin negotiating with free agents. The figures are virtually the same as what teams have been expecting for some time. With the cap set, the exact amounts of the various exceptions are also now known: The nontaxpayer midlevel is $8,641,000, the taxpayer midlevel is $5,337,000 and the midlevel for teams with salary cap space will be $4,449,000. The minimum team salary for the 2018-19 season is $91,682,000. The moratorium ends at 12:01 p.m. EDT on Friday, when free agent signings can become official. ›
ATLANTA — The Atlanta Hawks have requested waivers on reserve guard
Isaiah Taylor. Signed to a two-year contract last October, Taylor started nine of the 67 games he appeared in last season, when he averaged 6.6 points, 3.1 assists and 17.4 minutes. Taylor appeared to be in the Hawks’ rebuilding plans, sitting alongside teammates Kent Bazemore, DeAndre
Bembry and Mike Muscala at a news conference last month to announce the hiring of new coach Lloyd Pierce. But the Hawks decided Taylor was too expensive to keep. He was due $300,000 of his $1.5 million salary if still on the roster after Saturday.