Harden bags 39 as Clippers edge Warriors to clinch playoff spot

LA Clippers guard James Harden drives to the basket against Golden State Warriors guard Moses Moody during the third quarter of an NBA game Sunday. (Imagn Images)
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Updated 14 April 2025
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Harden bags 39 as Clippers edge Warriors to clinch playoff spot

  • The defeat for Golden State means the Warriors must now secure their place in the playoffs via the four-team play-in tournament starting this week, hosting Memphis on Tuesday
  • Denver clinched the fourth seed in the West with a 126-111 victory over the second-seeded Houston Rockets

LOS ANGELES: James Harden scored 39 points as the Los Angeles Clippers defeated the Golden State Warriors 124-119 in overtime to clinch the final playoff spot in a thrilling last day of the NBA regular season on Sunday.

Harden’s superb display in San Francisco helped the Clippers bag the fifth seed in the Western Conference and sets up a first-round postseason series with the fourth-seeded Denver Nuggets.

The 35-year-old Harden’s points tally included two crucial back-to-back three-pointers in overtime which ultimately proved decisive in a back-and-forth duel that saw the lead change hands 23 times.

The defeat for Golden State means the Warriors must now secure their place in the playoffs via the four-team play-in tournament starting this week, hosting Memphis on Tuesday.

Harden, meanwhile, praised the Clippers’ composure in closing out victory in front of the Warriors’ vociferous home support.

“We knew it was gonna be a hostile environment, and the main goal was just to win the game,” Harden told ESPN. “Whether it’s scoring, whether it’s playmaking...it’s whatever it takes at this point.”

The win was the Clippers’ eighth straight victory to close out the regular season, ensuring they will enter the playoffs as the form team in the Western Conference after a campaign where few gave them much hope.

“We know we’re a good team and we’re excited to show the world that we’re a good team,” Harden said.

Harden was backed with 33 points from Kawhi Leonard while Ivica Zubac added 22.

Stephen Curry led Golden State’s scoring with 36 points while Jimmy Butler added 30 points.

Golden State coach Steve Kerr praised the Clippers performance after a gripping contest.

“That was a big-time basketball game — they’re one of the best teams in the NBA, and so are we,” Kerr said. “It was a great, great game — high-level stuff, stars being stars. We came up short but not for lack of effort.

“There was a lot of great execution, and lot of stuff that was very impressive. But we couldn’t quite pull it off.”

In other games on Sunday, Denver clinched the fourth seed in the West with a 126-111 victory over the second-seeded Houston Rockets.

The win capped a tumultuous week for the Nuggets, who fired head coach Michael Malone on Tuesday with the playoffs beckoning in a move that stunned the NBA.

Denver were always in control of Sunday’s clash, leading by as many as 36 points in the fourth quarter after taking the lead midway through the first period.

Denver’s interim coach David Adelman reserved praise for Serbian star Nikola Jokic, who finished a regular season campaign in which he averaged a triple double with 18 points, seven rebounds and seven assists.

“I’ve been around special players, I’ve never seen any player like him,” Adelman said.

“The work he puts in away from it. Just how systematic he is, professional, no wasted steps. He is absolutely the most impressive basketball player I’ve ever seen.”

The Minnesota Timberwolves meanwhile snaffled sixth place in the West — the final automatic playoff berth — with a 116-105 defeat of the Utah Jazz.

Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch paid tribute to his team’s effort in muscling their way into the playoffs.

“I’m super proud of their body of work this year,” Finch said. “We didn’t make a big trade in the middle of the season to sort thing out, or fire coaches to try to sort things out — they sorted it out themselves. Those guys made the right adjustments and sacrifices and figured who they needed to be as a team. All credit to them.”

The win means the Timberwolves will face the third-seeded Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs.


Treble-chasing Inter sweat over Thuram’s fitness

Updated 9 sec ago
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Treble-chasing Inter sweat over Thuram’s fitness

The Frenchman, Inter’s top scorer in Serie A with 14 goals, is likely to miss Sunday’s Serie A match
“The tests revealed fatigue in the adductor muscles of his left thigh,” Inter said

MILANO: Inter Milan striker Marcus Thuram has a thigh injury, the Serie A leaders said on Friday as they wait to see if he can recover in time for their Coppa Italia semifinal against AC Milan next week.
The Frenchman, Inter’s top scorer in Serie A with 14 goals, is likely to miss Sunday’s Serie A match at fifth-placed Bologna, Italian media reported as the club confirmed Thuram underwent medical tests this morning.
“The tests revealed fatigue in the adductor muscles of his left thigh. His condition will be assessed day by day,” Inter said in a statement.
Champions Inter lead the Italian top-flight standings on 71 points after 32 games, three ahead of Napoli.
They host Milan in the second leg of their Italian Cup semifinal on Wednesday, after the first leg ended in a 1-1 draw.
Inter, one of eight teams who have won a league, cup and European Cup treble, could repeat the feat this season.
They face Barcelona, another treble-winning side, in the Champions League semifinals after advancing to the last four of Europe’s elite club competition with a 4-3 aggregate win over Bayern Munich.
Thuram, who has started 26 league games and missed only one this season, recently dropped out of the France squad due to an ankle injury.

Klopp ‘happy’ in new job despite Real Madrid rumors: agent

Updated 36 min 26 sec ago
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Klopp ‘happy’ in new job despite Real Madrid rumors: agent

  • Agent Marc Kosicke said 57-year-old Klopp was enjoying his new job
  • RB Leipzig coach Zsolt Low said he “could not imagine” Klopp moving to Real Madrid

BERLIN: Jurgen Klopp is “very happy” in his current post at Red Bull despite rumors linking him to a return to management with Real Madrid, his agent said Friday.
The former Liverpool manager became Red Bull’s Global Head of Soccer in January, taking care of a stable of clubs including RB Leipzig, the New York Red Bulls and Bragantino in Brazil.
Real Madrid’s quarter-final elimination from the Champions League at the hands of Arsenal this week has led to speculation manager Carlo Ancelotti is headed for the exit at the end of the season.
German media reported that Klopp was one of the names that the Spanish giants want to take over in the Bernabeu dugout.
Asked about the rumors, his agent Marc Kosicke said 57-year-old Klopp was enjoying his new job.
“Jurgen is very happy with his new role with Red Bull,” Kosicke told Sky Deutschland.
Also speaking on Friday, RB Leipzig coach Zsolt Low said he “could not imagine” Klopp moving to Real Madrid, adding the German was “very happy in the job.”
Low praised Klopp’s impact, saying “he’s shown that he can bring a club together, a group of 40, 50, 60 people, and take them with him.
“He adds incredible value with his experience, his human quality and his energy.”
In a 23-year career as a top-flight manager with Liverpool, Borussia Dortmund and Mainz, Klopp left each club of his own accord, a rarity in coaching.
“No matter where he’s been, he’s given 100 percent,” Low said, adding “regardless of where he is he’s stayed and done the job. It’s important to him to make a clean exit.”
Bayer Leverkusen manager Xabi Alonso is considered a leading candidate for the Real Madrid job. Alonso, a former Madrid player, said Friday it was “not the time” to discuss his future.


Morocco ex-football club chair denies seizing villa in drug case

Updated 45 min 2 sec ago
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Morocco ex-football club chair denies seizing villa in drug case

  • Said Naciri is being tried alongside the head of a regional council in eastern Morocco, Abdennabi Bioui, in a vast drug trafficking case
  • Naciri denied the allegation in court on Friday, saying he legally purchased the villa

CASABLANCA: The former president of Morocco’s most successful football club maintained in court Friday that he legally acquired a villa he is accused of seizing from a convicted Malian drug trafficker dubbed the “Escobar of the Sahara.”
Said Naciri, who was chairman of Casablanca club Wydad AC and president of the city’s prefectural council, is being tried alongside the head of a regional council in eastern Morocco, Abdennabi Bioui, in a vast drug trafficking case related to the jailed kingpin.
Both defendants — former officials of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), a member of the country’s ruling coalition — have been in custody since the end of 2023, and face charges of “possession, marketing, and export of drugs,” as well as corruption and related offenses.
Naciri was accused by the Malian trafficker, Ahmed Ben Brahim, of having wrongfully dispossessed him of a villa in an upscale Casablanca neighborhood, one of Naciri’s lawyers told AFP.
But Naciri denied the allegation in court on Friday, saying he legally purchased the villa though a real estate company in 2017 before finalizing the acquisition in 2019.
“I am taking advantage of my hearing before the court to refute the false allegations being made,” he told the court, presenting documents and testimony that he said supported his version of events.
The trial is the first in Morocco to see prominent political figures accused in a drug trafficking case.
It opened last May, and involves 25 people alleged to have played roles in the trafficking network of Ben Brahim, who is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence.
Ben Brahim, whose complaint initiated the proceedings against Naciri and Bioui, accuses the pair of helping him smuggle drugs to elsewhere in North Africa and the Sahel.
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for April 25.


CAF fines its president’s club $100,000 after African Champions League fan disorder

Updated 18 April 2025
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CAF fines its president’s club $100,000 after African Champions League fan disorder

  • Motsepe has been president of African soccer’s governing body CAF for four years and was re-elected unopposed last month
  • Esperance was fined $150,000 for the fan misconduct

CAIRO: CAF fined its president’s club $100,000 after violent fan clashes at an African Champions League game between two teams that are going to the FIFA Club World Cup in the United States.
Mamelodi Sundowns, owned by Patrice Motsepe — a South African mining billionaire and FIFA vice president – breached safety and security rules hosting an April 1 game against Esperance of Tunisia, the Confederation of African Football said in a disciplinary ruling late Thursday.
Motsepe has been president of African soccer’s governing body CAF for four years and was re-elected unopposed last month.
The African soccer body said Sundowns “is required to strictly implement the safety and security measures specified in the CAF regulations, guidelines and directives, particularly in their upcoming matches.”
Esperance was fined $150,000 for the fan misconduct, CAF said, related to clashes in the stands at the quarterfinal, first leg game.
Sundowns won the first leg 1-0 in Pretoria and advanced to the semifinals after the return game ended 0-0 in Tunis one week later. The South African team on Saturday hosts Al Ahly of Egypt — another Club World Cup team — in the first leg of the semifinals.
Sundowns and Esperance are both coming to the US in June as two of Africa’s four entries in the first 32-team Club World Cup organized by FIFA.
Both qualified because of consistently good results over four years in the CAF Champions League through 2024.
Sundowns has been drawn in a Club World Cup group with Ulsan of South Korea, Borussia Dortmund of Germany and Fluminense of Brazil, playing games in Orlando, Cincinnati and Miami.
Esperance is in a group with Chelsea of England, Brazil’s Flamengo and a third team that was to be Leon, which FIFA disqualified because it is in the same ownership as another Mexican team that qualified, Pachuca. Those games are in Philadelphia and Nashville.
Leon has a May 5 hearing with the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Madrid in its appeal against FIFA’s ruling. The Club World Cup is played in 11 US cities from June 14 to July 13.


Champions PSG eager to preserve unbeaten league run, says Luis Enrique

Updated 18 April 2025
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Champions PSG eager to preserve unbeaten league run, says Luis Enrique

  • “We’re preparing for future games in the same way. We can break a record, it’s within the team’s grasp,” Enrique told reporters
  • “It doesn’t happen very often, and that’s our main motivation”

PARIS: Paris St. Germain have already wrapped up the Ligue 1 title with six games to spare but the French champions remain highly motivated as they look to end their campaign unbeaten, coach Luis Enrique said on Friday ahead of a meeting with Le Havre.
PSG, who have 74 points from 28 games, won their fourth straight Ligue 1 title earlier this month and have also reached the Champions League semifinals and French Cup final.
They host relegation-threatened Le Havre on Saturday and Luis Enrique insisted that his side could not take it easy and let their standards slip if they are to become the first team to win the French top-flight title without tasting defeat.
“We’re preparing for future games in the same way. We can break a record, it’s within the team’s grasp,” Luis Enrique told reporters.
“It doesn’t happen very often, and that’s our main motivation. We’re already champions. If you want to play for PSG and be here for many years, you have to play at the highest level at all times.
“Le Havre has a lot at stake. It will be one of the most difficult games of the season.”
PSG play three league games in the span of eight days — taking on Le Havre, Nantes and OGC Nice — before meeting Premier League side Arsenal in a Champions League semifinal first leg at the Emirates Stadium on April 29.
Asked about the possibility of finally ending PSG’s wait for a European Cup, the Spaniard said: “We haven’t achieved our objective yet. Since we arrived, our objective has been to make history.
“To make history, you have to win everything, especially the trophy you all know. We’re going to give everything we’ve got to achieve that. What’s important to me is the road to get there. It depends on us...
“We already played Arsenal at the start of the season. We know who we have to eliminate. They’re one of the best teams in Europe. They’ve developed very well with (Mikel) Arteta, they’re performing very well.”