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LOS ANGELES -- Although his San Antonio Spurs have the NBAs best record and the longest active winning streak after four weeks of unbeaten basketball, coach Gregg Popovich can always find areas of imperfection. Luke Willson Jersey Seattle Seahawks . The Spurs defensive performance against the woeful Los Angeles Lakers made it easy this time. Tony Parker scored 25 points, Kawhi Leonard added 22 points and 10 rebounds, and the Spurs beat the Lakers 125-109 Wednesday night for their 11th consecutive victory. Danny Green scored 16 points and Tim Duncan had 12 points and 16 rebounds for the NBA-leading Spurs, who havent lost since Feb. 21 while winning 14 of 15. San Antonio managed to hold off a decent challenge from the Lakers with strong shooting down the stretch and 14 second-half points from Leonard, but Popovich wasnt overly impressed. "Probably the only thing I liked is that they hung in there," Popovich said. "I thought we played really porous defence. I thought a lot of that was because L.A. was very aggressive. They were in attack mode, and I dont think we adjusted to it until maybe the end of the third quarter. From that point, I thought our defence was very good." Green and Manu Ginobili hit three 3-pointers apiece for the Spurs, who opened a three-game California road trip by calmly matching their longest winning streak of the season. Parker took charge after halftime, scoring eight points in the third quarter and catalyzing San Antonios offence in the fourth. "We have to give a lot of credit to the Lakers," Parker said. "It took a lot of energy for us to win. We have to play better." With their seventh straight victory over the Lakers dating to last seasons playoffs, the Spurs opened a 1 1/2-game lead over Indiana for the leagues best record. San Antonio leads Oklahoma City by two games atop the Western Conference. "The Spurs are a fine-tuned machine," said Lakers centre Robert Sacre, who had a career-high 11 rebounds. "They have all the pieces to make it work, and if one guy goes down, they have someone to fill that spot." Xavier Henry scored 24 points and Pau Gasol had 22 points, 10 rebounds and six assists in the Lakers sixth loss in seven games. A few hours after longtime Lakers coach Phil Jackson got a standing ovation across the continent at his first game at the New York Knicks top basketball boss, his fiancee, Lakers executive Jeanie Buss, watched Los Angeles stumble to its 20th loss in 26 games. "It was a tough way to go out, but we fought," Henry said. "You could tell from the jump that we really wanted it. About six minutes in, the guys really pushed the tempo and really gave them a run." Kent Bazemore scored 13 points and hit three 3-pointers for the Lakers, who hadnt played since their 34-point loss at San Antonio five days earlier. That win was the biggest in this long-standing rivalry for the Spurs, who have followed up last springs four-game playoff sweep of Los Angeles with three straight wins this season. "In the last game, the effort wasnt there and the toughness wasnt there, and we got beat by a lot," Lakers forward Ryan Kelly said. "We realized we cant play that way, and tonight was different. We have to build off this and play like this all the time so that we put ourselves in a position to win some games." Green hit five of the Spurs 13 3-pointers in last weeks blowout, but the Lakers largely kept up with powerful San Antonio in the rematch. Los Angeles led for stretches of the third quarter before San Antonio scored 18 points in roughly 3 1/2 minutes with big baskets from Parker and Leonard. The Lakers yielded 100 points for the 12th consecutive game and gave up 110 for the seventh straight game. Los Angeles is the Western Conferences worst defensive team. NOTES: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, Baron Davis and new Oakland Raiders left tackle Donald Penn attended the game. ... The Lakers will be without G Jordan Farmar for at least two weeks while he recovers from a moderate groin strain. Los Angeles still is without G Nick Young (sore left knee), F Jordan Hill (sore right knee) and G Steve Nash. ... The Spurs, who have no currently injured players, have missed 83 games due to injury this season. The Lakers have missed 260. ... San Antonio will attempt to sweep the clubs season series when they meet in Texas on April 16 in both teams regular-season finale. OBrien Schofield Jerseys . NHL hockey is returning to the Manitoba capital. The True North Sports and Entertainment group announced on Tuesday that they have completed a deal to purchase the Atlanta Thrashers and move them to Winnipeg in time for the 2011-12 season.Steve Largent Jersey Seattle Seahawks . Justin Dowling, Travis Morin and Francis Wathier also scored for the Stars (22-10-5), who bypassed Abbotsford for top spot in the West Division, and Mike Hedden tacked on two assists. Defenceman John Ramage was a team-worst minus-4 for the Heat (23-13-2), who dropped their fourth game in a row.Chicago Blackhawks 5, Winnipeg Jets 1 - There was plenty of hype going into this game as the Chicago Blackhawks made their first appearance at MTS Centre. And plenty of reasons for the hype - an original six team, the defending Stanley Cup champs, theyve won two of the last four league championships, local boy Jonathan Toews is the Hawks captain, and plenty of players and people with ties to one of the cities or organizations. For only the fourth time this season the Jets opened the scoring, as a Toby Enstrom (2nd) blast from the line found the back of the net. It was only the fourth time this season the Jets scored the games first goal. This game saw momentum swings, the first coming right after the goal. Brandon Bollig was called for tripping and the Jets went on the power play but within 41 seconds, it went from a Jets power play to four-on-four to a Chicago power play, as Dustin Byfuglin and Andrew Ladd were called for penalties 20 seconds apart. It was the third time this season the Jets have been two men short and officially they killed it off, but a Chicago goal came one second after the penalty to Ladd expired. A clean faceoff win by Marcus Kruger led to a blast from Niklas Hjalmarsson for his first of the year to tie the game at one. The next momentum swing was the first six minutes of the second, a swing that decided the game. Andrew Ladd and Brian Little combined for a couple of great chances in the opening seconds but could not beat Corey Crawford. The Jets aggressiveness led to an odd-man rush for Chicago with Brandon Bollig (2nd) ripping a wrist shot short side to give the Hawks the lead. One minute and 47 seconds later, Patrick Sharp got in behind the Jets defence and scored a beauty to make it 3-1. It was a goal the Jets felt really turned the game. At 5:49, a neutral zone turnover lead to a Nick Leddy shot that found the net through all sorts of traffic to make it 4-1 and end the day for Ondrej Pavelec and pretty much put the game away. Patrick Kane had a penalty shot in the third but other than that, the three calls in 41 seconds in the first were the only penalties. On the penalty shot, Kane went to the back hand and appeared to have Al Montoya beaten, only to hit the cross bar. Ben Smith scored soon after to make it a 5-1 final. The Jets spent plenty of time Thursday and Friday at practice working on defensive parts of the game. Malcolm Smith Jersey Seattle Seahawks. . Some was just because it needed work and some was because of playing Chicago. And the Jets followed the plan in the first period. Keep the puck out of the middle of the ice, dont over attack in the Chicago end, and be careful of the transition game. The feeling from several players was that once they fell behind, the game plan was abandoned. It does not get any easier for the Jets, with Detroit in Winnipeg Monday (TSN Jets and TSN 1290) and the Jets back in Chicago Wednesday. This game started a stretch of six games in 11 days. The Jets will play 14 in 28 days in the month of November. "We had a good first period, coming out 1-0 would have been nice but we lost a face-off and they scored," is how Coach Claude Noel started his post-game news conference. "Turning point was the goal that made it 3-1. Took the win out of our sails and took the air out of the building. You could see the frustration. Turnovers hurt us. I am not going to fault Pavelec. There were breakdowns long before it got to him." Andrew Ladd led the Jets with five shots on goal. Matt Halischuk had four, as his line with Mark Scheiffele and Michael Frolik was probably the Jets best line. Jets kept Toews off the score sheet, ending his five game point streak. After scoring 10 goals in the first two games of the season, the Jets have now scored 23 in the last 13 games, not counting shootout goals. Jets record is now 3-5-1 at home and 5-7-2 on the season. Hawks are now 8-1-2 in their last 11. Jets were minus Paul Postma, Mark Stuart, Jacob Trouba and Jim Slater because of injury while Eric Tangradi was a healthy scratch. Ben Chairot made his NHL debut and along with defence partner Adam Pardy had a tough night at minus- 3. Chairot played 10:47 and had three hits. Julian Melchiori was recalled from St. Johns because of all the injuries on defence but did not play, plus the Jets picked up Keaton Ellerby off waivers from Los Angeles. He is expected at practice Sunday. Ellerby is 65, 220 and turns 25 on Tuesday. He was a Florida pick, 10th overall in the 2007, a draft pick out of Kamloops of the WHL, and was traded to the Kings last February. He has not gotten into any games this season and has 160 NHL regular season games under his belt. He appeared in five playoff games with the Kings last spring, averaging 10:43 of ice time. ' ' ' |
