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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

In Brief: Cavs sweep Hawks, make Eastern finals

Cleveland’s Kevin Love (left) battles Atlanta’s Dennis Schroder for a rebound in Cavaliers’ victory. (John Bazemore / Associated Press)
From staff and wire reports

NBA: Cleveland’s Big Three is on quite a roll.

Two playoff series, two sweeps.

Now, the Cavaliers get to rest up for the Eastern Conference finals.

Kevin Love scored 27 points, LeBron James knocked down a huge shot with 39.2 seconds to go, and Kyrie Irving turned in another dazzling performance to lead Cleveland past the Hawks 100-99 in Atlanta on Sunday.

The Cavs finished off the series with four straight wins, just as they did in the opening round against Detroit.

“This is more than I dreamed of,” Irving said. “It’s what I genuinely enjoy about basketball, playing with great guys.”

“We’re in a great rhythm right now,” James said. “We know exactly where we want to be on the floor.”

Love carried Cleveland much of the game, hitting one 3-pointer after another as the Hawks continually left him open in the corner.

James and Irving finished with 21 points apiece. James also doled out nine assists, while Irving had eight.

The Hawks had one last chance to extend the series and put the ball in the hands of Dennis Schroder, who led the team with 21 points. The speedy point guard drove into the lane but was surrounded by James and Tristan Thompson. Schroder slipped and James tied up the ball, forcing a huge mismatch of a jump ball with 2.8 seconds left.

“I just tried to be aggressive,” said Schroder, who was at least hoping to draw a foul. “They didn’t call it, so we can’t take it back. We’ve got to live with that.”

Valanciunas and Whiteside out: Toronto center Jonas Valanciunas will miss the rest of his team’s Eastern Conference semifinal series against Miami with a sprained right ankle.

Meanwhile, the Heat could be without Center Hassan Whiteside, who has a sprained medial collateral ligament in his right knee and is listed as day-to-day.

Toronto leads the series 2-1 with Game 3 in Miami on Monday.

Senators hire Boucher to replace Cameron

HOCKEY: Guy Boucher was hired as the new head coach of the Ottawa Senators.

The 44-year-old Boucher becomes the 12th head coach in franchise history, replacing Dave Cameron who was fired on April 12. Boucher has spent parts of the past three seasons as the coach of SC Bern of the National League A in Switzerland, posting a 44-29-5 record. Before that, he spent two-plus seasons as the head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Canada 2-0 at championship: Canada routed Hungary 7-1 at the world championship in Russia.

After ending the first period 2-1 up, Canada took total control in the second with four straight goals in less than six minutes against a Hungarian team that has no NHL players and is only in its second world championship since 1939.

The win follows an opening 5-1 victory over the U.S. and puts Canada at the top of the standings in the St. Petersburg group for the preliminary round.

Finland is also 2-0 for the tournament after it beat Germany 5-1.

The U.S. plays Finland on Monday, coming off a 6-3 win over Belarus.

The other 2-0 team in St. Petersburg is Slovakia, which defeated France 5-1.

In Moscow, the struggles of host nation continued in a tighter-than-expected 6-4 win against underdog Kazakhstan.

Sweden took its second win in the Moscow group, beating Denmark 5-2.

Switzerland slipped to its second loss in two games when it was beaten 4-3 by Norway in overtime.

UAB RB recruit brain dead after shooting

MISCELLANY: UAB running back Gregory Bryant was declared brain dead, a day after he was found shot in a car on Interstate 95 in South Florida.

West Palm Beach Police spokeswoman Lori Colombino said Bryant was declared brain dead at 1 p.m. Sunday. Her statement added the investigation into the shooting of 21-year-old recruit of the UAB is now classified as a homicide.

Detectives are seeking witnesses to the shooting, Colombino said. A passenger in the car, 25-year-old Maurice Grover, was hospitalized with minor injuries.

Schwazer walks to Olympic berth: Alex Schwazer made a triumphant return from a doping ban to win the 50-kilometer event at the world race walking team championships in Rome.

The victory also secured the Italian a spot in the Olympic Games in Rio later this year.

Schwazer was banned for three years and nine months after testing positive for EPO before the 2012 London Games.

The 2008 Olympic champion showed no signs of a near four-year absence from competition as he stormed to victory in 3 hours 39 minutes, the second best time of the year.

Italy claimed the team prize ahead of Ukraine, while Spain took bronze.

Kittel repeats stage win: Another superb performance from Marcel Kittel saw the German cyclist claim a second successive sprint victory at the Giro d’Italia and replace Tom Dumoulin as the overall leader after the third stage.

Set up perfectly by his Etixx-QuickStep teammates, Kittel opened his sprint 200 meters out and crossed the line several bike lengths ahead of Elia Viviani of Italy.

Another Italian cyclist, Giacomo Nizzolo, was third on the 118-mile route from Nijmegen to Arnhem in the Netherlands.

It was Kittel’s fourth stage win in the Giro. By coincidence, none of those victories have come in Italy, with his two previous successes in Belfast and Dublin in 2014.

The bonus Kittel earned for the stage win moved him nine seconds ahead of Dumoulin. It is 10 years since a German wore the leader’s pink jersey.

Lorenzo dominates at Le Mans: Jorge Lorenzo led from the start to win a crash-filled French Moto Grand Prix and move to the top of the world championship standings.