Kyrie Irving scored 22 points as the Brooklyn Nets got a significant contribution from their reserves and pulled away down the stretch for a 105-91 victory over the visiting Chicago Bulls on Saturday afternoon in New York.

ROME — A long-range screamer from AS Roma substitute Pedro crowned a 2-0 Rome Derby win on Saturday that mathematically ended Lazio’s hopes of a top-four finish in Serie A.

TURIN, Italy — Juan Cuadrado scored twice as Juventus kept their Champions League qualification hopes alive with a 3-2 “Derby of Italy” victory over Serie A champions Inter Milan on Saturday despite spending most of the second half with 10 men.

Tim Duncan came very close to missing out on a Hall of Fame career. If he was enshrined yesterday as the greatest power forward in hoops annals, it’s because another sport’s evident grasp on him was let loose by a hurricane. He could — perhaps even should — have been a swimmer had Hugo not interfered and destroyed the only Olympic-sized pool in the entire Saint Croix, Virgin Islands. The calamity became a blessing; fate turned his attention to basketball, and he would go on to stamp his class with, well, class.

RECOGNIZING that not many are given the chance to participate in the Olympic Games, Joshua Munzon and Mo Tautuaa feel privileged and are basking in the opportunity given to them through 3x3 basketball.

JAMES Harden collected 18 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds in his return from a strained right hamstring as the Brooklyn Nets posted a 128-116 victory over the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night in New York.

ONE Championship action returns this weekend with “ONE: DANGAL,” a tape-delayed event from the Singapore Indoor Stadium to be broadcast on Saturday.

ROME — Serena Williams, playing the 1,000th Tour-level match of her glittering career, suffered a shock (7-6(6), 7-5) defeat by Argentina’s Nadia Podoroska in the Italian Open second round on Wednesday.

TORONTO — Irish mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter Conor McGregor was the world’s highest-paid athlete over the last year ahead of soccer players Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, according to the annual Forbes list released on Wednesday.

THE International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday said it supported Japanese measures to counter COVID-19 and was confident the Tokyo Olympics would be a “historic” event, despite wide public opposition.

SINGAPOREAN Siew Kai Xin and Filipino Robert Suelo, Jr. will be put to the test as they lead the Quezon City (QC) Simba’s Tribe in the GM Wesley So Cup of the Professional Chess Association of the Philippines (PCAP), which kicks off on May 15.

Solomon Hill checked into the match with a little under three minutes left in the first quarter. By all accounts, he played solid defense over the next eight minutes. The rest of his game was unremarkable at best; he missed both of his three-point attempts and had a rebound offset by a foul. Which was probably why he didn’t see action until the final 24.4 seconds of what turned out to be a playoff-clinching victory against the Wizards; he was the 10th man for a reason, with his season norms of four and a half points, three rebounds, and one assist reflecting his importance — or lack thereof — to the Hawks.