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Wednesday February 7, 2018

GERMANY’S Dirk Nowitzki joined another elite NBA club when he reached the 50,000-minute milestone.

Nowitzki fi nished with 12 points but the Dallas Mavericks failed to hold onto the lead and lost to the Los Angeles Clippers 104-101 Monday night.

The Mavericks didn’t score in the fi nal four minutes.

Nowitzki has played his full 20-year NBA career with the Mavericks. He came into the game needing seven minutes to reach the milestone and becomes just the sixth player to play at least 50,000 minutes in his career.

He joins Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Kevin Garnett, Jason Kidd and Elvin Hayes in the exclusive group.

(SD-Agencies)

Nowitzki reaches 50,000 minutes

Dirk Nowitzki

ANTONIO CONTE’S future as Chelsea manager was cast into further doubt when the strug-gling English Premier League champion was thrashed by Watford 4-1 Monday.

The west London club, which lost 3-0 at home to Bournemouth last week, was poor again as Tiemoue Bakayoko was sent off inside half an hour for a second yellow card for a second woeful tackle.

Chelsea has lost three of its last four games in all competitions, and sits fourth in the league, a point above Tottenham.

“Our performance was very bad from the start,” Conte said. “Maybe I made a mistake in the starting XI. My choices were very poor because our start was very poor.”

Conte again deployed Eden Hazard as Chelsea’s main attack-ing option with new signing Olivier Giroud on the bench.

Ahead of the game, Conte called on Chelsea’s hierarchy to “prepare a statement ... to say they trust me in my work,” but it was another dismal evening for the titleholder, which is 19 points adrift of leader Manches-ter City.

Conte insisted he intended to see out his contract to 2019 despite a series of complaints this season over his lack of infl u-ence over the club’s recruitment strategy.

It was the perfect home debut for new Watford manager Javi Gracia as the team climbed to 11th place.

The challenge became harder for Conte and his players when Bakayoko was dismissed.

Watford’s Daryl Janmaat (R) in action with Chelsea’s Pedro during their match at Vicarage Road in Watford on Monday. SD-Agencies

Watford crushes 10-man Chelsea 4-1

It went from bad to worse for Chelsea. Watford received a penalty when Chelsea goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois burst from his line to close down the onrushing Gerard Deulofeu, the new arrival on loan from Barcelona who fell over too easily.

Troy Deeney, whose only pre-vious league goals this season were penalties against Arsenal and Manchester United, stuck home the resulting spot kick to give Watford a deserved halftime lead.

Chelsea’s equalizer was as

brilliant as it was unexpected, Hazard dancing past Etienne Capoue before fi nishing perfectly past Watford goalkeeper Orestis Karnezis from 25 meters.

But Watford was back in front two minutes later as Daryl Jan-maat collected the ball on the right before jinking into the box, exchanging passes with Roberto Pereyra and keeping his cool to fi nish past Courtois.

With Chelsea committing play-ers forward, Deulofeu capitalized to lead a counterattack, which he started and fi nished with a

well-taken 88th-minute strike.Pereyra compounded Chel-

sea’s misery with a fourth in stoppage time as Watford won in the league for the fi rst time since Dec. 26.

“It is an unforgettable night,” said Gracia. “A great victory and a great match.

“The match changed after the sending-off, but I am happy for all the match not only after the sending-off. I don’t think we have only a good result because Chel-sea played with 10 players.”

(SD-Agencies)

SIX-TIME Olympic gold medal-ist Viktor Ahn and three former National Hockey League (NHL) players are among 32 Rus-sian athletes who fi led appeals yesterday seeking spots at the PyeongChang Olympics.

The 32 athletes all failed to pass the mandatory Interna-tional Olympic Committee (IOC) vetting and weren’t invited to the Games.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said it would likely hear the case today. If the Rus-sian athletes force the IOC to invite them, it would mean the medal contenders in some sports change dramatically only days before the Games open Friday.

CAS added that as well as short-track speedskating great Ahn, the 32 include world cross-country skiing champion Sergei Ustyugov and world biathlon champion Anton Shipulin.

Also on the list are former NHL players Sergei Plotnikov, Anton Belov and Valeri Nichushkin, who had been considered pos-sible candidates for the Russian team in PyeongChang.

If fi gure skater Ksenia Stolbova is invited, she could compete as soon as Friday morning in the pairs short program component of the team event.

Some of the 32 Russians are already in Far East countries like Japan so they will be accli-matized and ready to travel to PyeongChang if invited.

John Coates, the Australian IOC member who also oversees CAS operations, said that the 32 had also fi led appeals in Swiss courts, but didn’t give details.

The IOC hasn’t said why any of the individual Russians weren’t invited, but did say it used a newly available database detail-ing past doping when it decided who should be eligible.

It is a separate case from the 28 Russian athletes who last week overturned doping bans from the 2014 Olympics at CAS. The IOC is also refusing to invite 13 of those that are still active.

Any Russians who win late invitations would compete under “Olympic Athletes from Russia” because the Russian team is for-mally banned for doping at the Sochi Olympics. That means they will compete under the Olympic fl ag and wearing uniforms with-out national insignia.

(SD-Agencies)

Six-time Olympic gold medalist Viktor Ahn is among 32 Russian athletes who fi led appeals yesterday. SD-Agencies

32 Russians appeal to CAS seeking Olympic spots

FORMER NBA All-Star Ste-phon Marbury said he would like to work for China’s national basketball program as he confi rmed that the curtain would fall at the weekend on his pioneering 22-year playing career.

Marbury was expected to hang up his sneakers after the current season, which ends Sunday. The 40-year-old affi rmed that in a series of social media posts Monday in which he professed his love for adopted home, China.

Marbury is among the most popular players in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) after becoming the fi rst top former NBA star to switch to China, where he has thrived since arriving in 2010.

He went on to win three league titles with the Beijing Ducks before switching this season to the Beijing Fly Dragons.

Marbury said on China’s social media Weibo on Monday that the Fly Dragons’ season-closer Sunday would be his “fi nal cry,” as he thanked Chi-nese fans and players for their welcome.

Marbury hopes to work for China’s team

“I want to work with the national team if asked. I think I can help and be a part of the growth. China is home and Beijing is life,” Marbury said.

“I will be here forever, so I have time to help the youth. I want to add to China’s basket-ball foundation. I understand the culture and work ethic because I’m a part of it.”

The point guard began his NBA career with the Minne-

sota Timberwolves in 1996 and was later a two-time All-Star, fi rst for the New Jersey Nets then the Phoenix Suns, before joining his hometown New York Knicks from 2004-2009.

In China, Marbury played fi rst for Shanxi and Foshan before settling with the Beijing Ducks and sparking them to CBA crowns in 2012, 2014 and 2015.

(SD-Agencies)

Stephon Marbury is among the most popular players in the Chinese Basketball Associa-tion after becoming the fi rst top former NBA star to switch to China in 2010. SD-Agencies