Nets edge Hawks to push NBA winning streak to 10 games

Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving drives to the basket against Atlanta Hawks guard Aaron Holiday during the second half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday in Atlanta. (AP)
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Updated 29 December 2022
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Nets edge Hawks to push NBA winning streak to 10 games

  • Heat’s Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo spoiled LeBron James’s latest return to Miami, leading the hosts to a 112-98 victory over James and the Lakers

LOS ANGELES: The Brooklyn Nets pushed their NBA winning streak to 10 games in dramatic style on Wednesday, rallying in the second half then hanging on to edge the Hawks 108-107 in Atlanta.

Kyrie Irving scored 15 of his 28 points in the fourth quarter and Kevin Durant added 26 points, 16 rebounds and eight assists for the Nets — whose winning streak is their longest since the 2005-06 season and the longest in the league this season.

The game was just one of the close ones around the league on Wednesday, with Zion Williamson and the New Orleans Pelicans beating the Minnesota Timberwolves 119-118 and the Chicago Bulls downing the Milwaukee Bucks 119-113 in overtime.

In Atlanta, the absence of Hawks leading scorer Trae Young as well as Clint Capela and De’Andre Hunter didn’t stop the hosts from taking a 63-56 lead after a first half in which Atlanta made just one turnover to Brooklyn’s eight.

But the Nets clawed their way back in the third and Irving scored eight straight points with a layup and two three-pointers to push the Nets’ lead to 93-82 early in the fourth.

He then fed Yuta Watanabe for a floater that gave the Nets a 13-point lead with 8:40 remaining.

The Hawks, led by Dejounte Murray’s 24 points, responded and knotted the score at 104-104 with 1:48 to go.

Durant made a pair of baskets sandwiched around one for Atlanta’s John Collins and the Nets escaped with the win.

“Sounds pretty good,” Durant said of the 10-game streak, noting the struggles the Nets have endured for a couple of years — including this season’s slow start, the sacking of coach Steve Nash and the anti-Semitism row that engulfed Irving.

“It’s good to get some stability and win a few games along the way and have some fun,” he told an on-court television interviewer, noting the depleted Hawks played “faster and harder without their leader.

“I was glad we were able to play a four-quarter game and understand what we needed to do to get a win,” Durant said.

In New Orleans, Williamson returned after missing three games because of COVID concerns and scored a career-high 43 points to lead the Pelicans.

Williamson scored the Pelicans’ final 14 points and his free throw with four seconds remaining proved the game-winner in a fourth quarter that featured nine lead changes and was tied seven times.

Anthony Edwards and D’Angelo Russell scored 27 points apiece for the Timberwolves, but Edwards missed a potential game winner as the clock ticked down.

In Chicago, DeMar DeRozan scored 42 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to lead the Bulls, who withstood a 45-point, 22-rebound performance from Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo.

DeRozan came up with a steal and fed Ayo Dosunmu for the game-tying dunk in the waning seconds of the fourth quarter.

After Nikola Vucevic’s three-pointer put the Bulls up 111-110 with 1:28 left in overtime DeRozan scored Chicago’s last eight points – six of them from the foul line.

The Heat’s Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo spoiled LeBron James’s latest return to Miami, leading the hosts to a 112-98 victory over James and the Los Angeles Lakers.

Butler, back after missing one game with a sprained ankle, scored 27 points with five rebounds, four assists and six steals.

Adebayo, sidelined for a game by non-Covid illness, had 23 points and 14 rebounds.

James, who led the Lakers with 27 points, said the discrepancy in shots attempted — Miami’s 92 to the Lakers’ 77 — was a direct result of the Lakers’ 26 turnovers.

“They had 31 points off our turnovers. They had 19 second-chance points off offensive rebounds, and that’s pretty much the game right there,” James said.

Things got heated in Detroit, where Orlando’s Moritz Wagner and the Pistons’ Killian Hayes and Hamidou Diallo were all ejected after a shoving match that had both benches worked up in the second quarter of the Pistons’ 121-101 victory over the Magic.

The Pistons were up by nine when the incident was sparked by Magic forward Wagner, who shoved Hayes off the court as he chased a loose ball down the sideline.

Diallo raced in and pushed Wagner from behind, then Hayes hit Wagner in the back of the head, sending him sprawling into the Pistons bench.


FIFA announces $60 World Cup tickets after pricing backlash

Updated 17 December 2025
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FIFA announces $60 World Cup tickets after pricing backlash

PARIS: World Cup organizers unveiled a new cut-price ticket category on Tuesday after a backlash by fans over pricing for the 2026 tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Football’s global governing body FIFA said in a statement that it had created a limited number of “Supporter Entry Tier” fixed at $60 for all 104 matches, including the final.
It said the plan was “designed to further support traveling fans following their national teams across the tournament.”
FIFA said that the $60  tickets would be reserved for fans of qualified teams and would make up 10 percent of each national federation’s allotment.
Fan group Football Supporters Europe , which last week called prices “extortionate” and “astronomical,” responded by saying the FIFA was offering too little.
“While we welcome FIFA’s seeming recognition of the damage its original plans were to cause, the revisions do not go far enough,” FSE said in a statement on Tuesday.
Last week, FSE said ticket prices were almost five times higher than in 2022 in Qatar, describing FIFA’s pricing for 2026 as a “monumental betrayal of the tradition of the World Cup.”
“If a supporter were to follow their team from the first match to the final it would cost them a minimum of $6,900,” it said at the time, adding that World Cup organizers had promised tickets priced from $21 in a bid document released in 2018.

‘Appeasement tactic’

On Tuesday, FSE said FIFA’s partial ticketing U-turn exposed flaws in how prices for next year’s tournament had been set.
“For the moment we are looking at the FIFA announcement as nothing more than an appeasement tactic due to the global negative backlash,” FSE said.
“This shows that FIFA’s ticketing policy is not set in stone, was decided in a rush, and without proper consultation — including with FIFA’s own member associations.
“Based on the allocations publicly available, this would mean that at best a few hundred fans per match and team would be lucky enough to take advantage of the 60 US dollar prices, while the vast majority would still have to pay extortionate prices, way higher than at any tournament before.”
The organization also criticized the failure to make provisions for supporters with disabilities or their companions.
Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer echoed FSE, stating that FIFA’s cheaper ticket category did not go far enough.
“I welcome FIFA’s announcement of some lower priced supporters tickets,” Starmer wrote on X.
“But as someone who used to save up for England tickets, I encourage FIFA to do more to make tickets more affordable so that the World Cup doesn’t lose touch with the genuine supporters who make the game so special.”
Announcing the $60 tickets on Tuesday, FIFA said that national federations “are requested to ensure that these tickets are specifically allocated to loyal fans who are closely connected to their national teams.”
FIFA also said that if fans bought tickets for games in the knockout rounds only to find their team eliminated at an earlier stage, they “will have the administrative fee waived when refunds are processed.”
It added that it was making the announcement “amid extraordinary global demand for tickets” with 20 million requests already submitted.
The draw for tickets of all prices in the first round of sales will take place on Tuesday, January 13.