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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

In brief: Wade scores 55 as Heat wrap up fifth spot in East

Dwyane Wade ended up one point short of the franchise scoring record. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
From Staff And Wire Reports

Dwyane Wade had one more argument for MVP voters: the second-best scoring show in Miami Heat history.

Wade scored 55 points, one shy of the franchise record, and the Heat wrapped up the No. 5 spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs by beating the New York Knicks 122-105 on Sunday night in Miami.

Wade shot 19 for 30 from the field, set a career high with six 3-pointers, and nearly topped Glen Rice’s record of 56 points before leaving with 1:06 remaining.

Al Harrington and Wilson Chandler each scored 21 points for New York.

Hornets move ahead of Mavs: Chris Paul narrowly missed his seventh triple-double with 31 points, 17 assists and nine rebounds, and the Hornets defeated the Dallas Mavericks 102-92 in New Orleans to earn a split in a key late season home-and-home series.

David West scored 31 points to help New Orleans (49-31) move a game ahead of Dallas for the sixth playoff seed in the Western Conference. Each team has two games left in the regular season.

Tennis

Hewitt holds on for first title in two years

Lleyton Hewitt of Australia held on to win his first tournament in two years with a 6-2, 7-5 victory over Wayne Odesnik of the United States in the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships in Houston.

Hewitt won his 498th career match and moved closer to joining Roger Federer and Carlos Moya as the only active players with 500 or more victories. Hewitt also won his first clay court tournament since the Delray Beach tournament in 1999.

Jankovic earns first title of season: Jelena Jankovic beat Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 to win her first title of the season at the Andalucia Tennis Experience in Marbella, Spain.

The fourth-ranked Serb broke Suarez Navarro six times on the outdoor clay to improve to 3-0 against the Spaniard.

Ferrero wins first title since ’03: Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain beat fifth-seeded Florent Serra of France 6-4, 7-5 to win his first title since 2003 at the Grand Prix Hassan II in Casablanca, Morocco.

Ferrero, who was unseeded at the clay-court event, broke Serra six times to win for the first time since the Madrid Masters in October 2003.

Wozniacki wins MPS: Second-seeded Caroline Wozniacki defeated Canada’s Aleksandra Wozniak 6-1, 6-2 to win The MPS Group Championships in Ponte Verda Beach, Fla.

Wozniacki, from Denmark, committed only 14 unforced errors and won 84 percent of points on her first serve in the clay-court event.

The win was Wozniacki’s first of the season and fourth career title.

Miscellany

20 straight strikes lift Dorin-Ballard

Hall of Famer Carolyn Dorin-Ballard won the inaugural PBA Women’s Series Showdown, rolling a television-record 20 consecutive strikes, including 11 in a row in the title match, at Kegel Training Center in Lake Wales, Fla.

In an event that employed the Johnny Petraglia Scoring System, the Keller, Texas, resident had a score of 11 in the championship match to beat Jodi Woessner of Oregon, Ohio, by a single point.

Under the Petraglia system, players receive one point for each ball thrown in each frame and the lowest score wins.