National Digest
Hornets win
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Drawing inspiration from a boisterous home crowd, the New Orleans Hornets stifled Tim Duncan and took a 3-2 lead in the series against the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday night with their third lopsided triumph in as many games at the New Orleans Arena. David West led the way with career playoff highs of 38 points, 14 rebounds and five blocked shots in a 101-79 victory.
Chris Paul had 16 of his 22 points in the second half and added 14 assists for the Hornets, who've never advanced past the second round of the playoffs in the franchise’s 20-year history.
Manu Ginobili led San Antonio with 20 points and Tony Parker had 18. The Hornets held Duncan to 10 points, though Duncan was a force on the glass with 23 rebounds. Game 6 is Thursday night in San Antonio.
Moving on
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) — Antonio McDyess was inspired by a loss to help the Detroit Pistons win decisive playoff game. As McDyess was arriving at The Palace, he was told his grandmother died.
Before the power forward left the arena, he scored 11 of his 17 points in the fourth quarter and finished with 11 rebounds as the Detroit Pistons eliminated the Orlando Magic with a 91-86 victory Tuesday night in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinal.
“I’ll definitely dedicate this win to her because she never missed a game,” McDyess said of Beatrice Harris, 84. “She loved the Pistons.”
"I'm just happy to have the opportunity to win this game on such an important day."
Richard Hamilton scored 31 points. Hamilton made all 16 of his free throws, including six in the final 20 seconds, and Tayshaun Prince added to his list of defensive highlights in the playoffs by blocking Hedo Turkoglu’s dunk attempt to keep a three-point lead late in the game.
New counts
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Barry Bonds was charged in a new indictment with 15 felony counts alleging he lied to a grand jury when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs and that he hampered the federal government’s doping investigation.
The career home run leader originally was indicted in November by a federal grand jury on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice.
Following a motion by Bonds’ lawyers to dismiss the case, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in February ordered prosecutors to rewrite the indictment because multiple alleged lies were lumped into single charges.
A grand jury handed up a superseding indictment charging Bonds with 14 counts of making false declarations to a grand jury in 2003 and one count of obstruction of justice. No new lies were alleged.
The case against Bonds remains built on whether he lied when he told the grand jury that his personal trainer, Greg Anderson, never supplied him with steroids and human growth hormone.
Retiring
CLIFTON, N.J. (AP) — Annika Sorenstam will retire after the season, ending an LPGA Tour career in which she has won 72 tournaments to date and delivered a defining moment when she teed it up against the men on the PGA Tour.
The 37-year-old Sorenstam has hinted at retirement the past several seasons, saying she wanted to devote more time to her growing business and to start a family. She is engaged to Mike McGee, son of former PGA Tour player Jerry McGee.
Sorenstam said her final event would be the Dubai Ladies Masters after the LPGA Tour season ends.
The decision comes two days after Sorenstam won the Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill by seven shots for her third victory of the season, and first against a field that included Lorena Ochoa. It was a sign that Sorenstam had fully recovered from injuries and was poised to make a strong bid at recapturing her stature as the best in women’s golf.
BASEBALL
CINCINNATI (AP) — Reds shortstop Jeff Keppinger left Cincinnati’s night’s game against the Florida Marlins with a broken left kneecap.
Keppinger fouled a pitch off his knee in the second inning. He drew a bases-loaded walk, giving the Reds a 2-0 lead, and played defense in the third and fourth innings before departing.
The team said X-rays revealed the injury and Keppinger is scheduled for an MRI exam Wednesday.
Keppinger entered leading Cincinnati with a .320 batting average and tied for third in the National League with a .406 average with runners in scoring position. He took over as the starting shortstop when Alex Gonzalez opened the season on the disabled list with a broken left knee.
FOOTBALL
NEW YORK (AP) — Former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh disclosed no new rules violations in the Spygate scandal during his meeting with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell or in the tapes that the league released.
The clips, shown after Walsh’ s nearly 3?-hour meeting with Goodell, cut between shots of opposing coaches sending in signals and the play that followed.
The most scandalous part of the tapes shown before Goodell’ s news conference had nothing to do with stealing signals — it was several minutes of close-ups of San Diego Chargers cheerleaders performing during a 2002 game.
Walsh did not comment after leaving the NFL offices and left through a different exit to avoid the media following his afternoon meeting with Sen. Arlen Specter in Washington. Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been critical of the NFL’ s handling of the investigation.
Specter postponed his news conference to Wednesday when his meeting with Walsh ran long.
The Spygate investigation began after the NFL confiscated tapes from a Patriots employee who recorded the New York Jets’ defensive signals from the sideline during the 2007 opener. New England coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000, while the team was fined $250,000 and forced to forfeit its 2008 first-round draft choice.
SAILING
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York appeals court agreed to hear a request by two-time defending America’s Cup champion Alinghi to push back the start of its showdown against American challenger BMW Oracle Racing.
The Swiss group went to the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court a day after a lower court judge ruled that the best-of-three showdown between Alinghi and BMW Oracle Racing couldn’ t begin before March 12. Justice Herman Cahn of the state Supreme Court also ordered that the match be sailed in Valencia, Spain, or any other location selected by the Swiss, provided they give the Americans and their backing club, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Yacht Club, six months notice.
While a victory for Alinghi, Cahn’s ruling conflicts with the Deed of Gift, the 19th-century document that governs the America’ s Cup. The Deed of Gift prohibits racing in the Northern Hemisphere between Nov. 1 and May 1.
Alinghi and its yacht club, Societe Nautique de Geneve, asked the Appellate Division to rule that the first possible race date would be in May 2009. The court agreed to hear arguments when it hears Alinghi’ s appeal of Cahn’ s March ruling that GGYC is the Challenger of Record.
HORSE RACING
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Storm Cat, one of the top stallions in thoroughbred history, retired after 21 years.
Overbrook Farm in Lexington announced that the sire of 1994 Preakness winner Tabasco Cat will no longer stand as a stallion. Stallion consultant Ric Waldman said the decision was made due to the horse’ s declining fertility rate.
Storm Cat, a descendant of Secretariat, has produced 160 stakes winners who collectively won more than $112 million. He also formerly commanded a stud fee of $500,000 — believed to be the highest ever in the business.
