Pacers handle Heat to take 2-1 series lead
NBA: Roy Hibbert had 19 points and 18 rebounds, George Hill scored 20 and Danny Granger 17 as the Indiana Pacers, showing more balance, toughness and togetherness than Miami, throttled the Heat 94-75 on Thursday night in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals at Indianapolis.
Overlooked during the regular season and given little chance to upset the reigning East champions, the Pacers took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-7 series.
Game 4 is Sunday at raucous Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
LeBron James scored 22 – 16 in the first half – and Mario Chalmers added 25 for Miami. However, Dwyane Wade scored only five on 2-of-13 shooting for the Heat, already missing forward Chris Bosh because of a strained abdominal muscle and not expected to return for this series.
Indiana outscored Miami 51-32 in the second half.
• Streaking Spurs go up 2-0 on Clippers: Tony Parker scored 22 points, Tim Duncan had 18 and the host San Antonio Spurs beat the fading Los Angeles Clippers 105-88, pushing their winning streak to 16 and taking a 2-0 lead in their Western Conference semifinal series.
Blake Griffin led the Clippers with 20 points. Game 3 is Saturday night in Los Angeles.
Kings move closer to Stanley Cup final
Hockey: Dwight King scored the tiebreaking goal early in the third period, Jonathan Quick made 18 saves, and the Los Angeles Kings rolled to the brink of their first Stanley Cup final in 19 years with a 2-1 victory over the visiting Phoenix Coyotes.
The Kings lead the Western Conference finals 3-0.
Anze Kopitar also scored to help the eighth-seeded Kings improve to 11-1 in their improbable postseason run. Despite trailing in a game for the first time since April 28, King scored his fourth goal in three games against the Coyotes, who face a deficit only three teams have overcome in NHL playoff history.
• Oilers fire coach Renney: Tom Renney is out as coach of the Edmonton Oilers, the team announced on its Twitter feed.
The Oilers were 32-40-10 this season, the second-worst record in the NHL, after going a league-worst 25-45-12 in 2010-11 in Renney’s first season with the team. The 57-year-old Renney also has coached the New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks.
• Finland knocks out U.S. to reach semifinals: Finnish forward Jesse Joensuu’s winning goal with 9 seconds left lifted Finland past the United States 3-2 for a place in the semifinals of the hockey world championships in Helsinki.
Palmer seizes first-round lead
Golf: Ryan Palmer shot a bogey-free, 6-under-par 64 to take the first-round lead in the Byron Nelson Championship at Irving, Texas, a year after losing a playoff to Keegan Bradley in the event.
Marc Leishman and Alex Cejka were a stroke back. Matt Kuchar, coming off a victory Sunday in The Players Championship last weekend, topped a group of seven players at 66.
Phil Mickelson, back at the Nelson for the first time in five years, shot 70 with two bogeys and two birdies.
• Top LPGA players fall: Defending champion Suzann Pettersen didn’t last long at the Sybase Match Play Championship at Gladstone, N.J., and neither did three well-known Americans.
Pettersen, the world’s No. 3 ranked player, was eliminated 3 and 1 by Jodi Ewart of England in the first round of an LPGA event.
Paula Creamer, Brittanny Lincicome and Michelle Wie were upset by fellow Americans.
Wendy Ward of Edwall, Wash., also lost to a fellow American, Angela Stanford, 2 and 1.
• Snedeker triumphs with borrowed clubs: Brandt Snedeker used a loaner set of clubs to begin his World Match Play Championship for a 5 and 4 victory over Thomas Bjorn at Casares, Spain.
The lone American in the 24-man field teed off with only 10 clubs in his replacement bag – including a putter bought from the pro shop.
Penske deal should fill Indy 500 field
Auto racing: Jay Penske risked his whole Indianapolis 500 race program on finding two new engines before qualifying began.
The risk paid off for his team – and race organizers.
A deal made in Indy will give Penske’s two drivers, Sebastien Bourdais and Katherine Legge, the dominant Chevrolet engines for the rest of the season and was a big step toward making sure the Indy 500 will start with its traditional 33-car field.
Penske did it by ending his contentious relationship with Lotus, including dropping a $4.6 million lawsuit against the engine manufacturer.
Denmark’s Bak takes 12th stage in Italy
Cycling: Lars Bak of Denmark won the 12th stage of the Giro d’Italia and Joaquin Rodriguez retained the overall lead at Sestri Levante, Italy.
Bak burst away from the breakaway group with a half mile to go for a clear victory on the 96-mile route from Seravezza to Sestri Levante.
Sandy Casar finished 3:23 ahead of Rodriguez and the rest of the peloton but it was not enough to overtake Rodriguez as the overall leader.
• Zabriskie leads at Tour of California: Dave Zabriskie won the individual time trial in hot and breezy conditions at Bakersfield to take the Tour of California overall lead in with three stages left.
McNamee admits lie at Clemens trial
Baseball: Brian McNamee, the chief prosecution witness in the Roger Clemens perjury trial, conceded he initially lied about his involvement with steroids.
In January 2007, McNamee sent an email to Jim Murray, an employee of the agency that represents Clemens, complaining about “gross inaccuracies” in a newspaper story that identified him as a steroids supplier. He also claimed in the email he had been assured by Jeff Novitzky, at the time an Internal Revenue Service agent investigating drug use in sports, that McNamee was not named in a search warrant affidavit referenced in the story.
“It was a lie wasn’t it?” Clemens lawyer Rusty Hardin said.
“Yes,” McNamee said, adding, “It was just self-preservation.”