Los Angeles Lakers vs Sacramento Kings 109-108

LOS ANGELES With apologies to Jerry West, the Lakers’ modern-day “Mr. Clutch” did it again.Kobe Bryant hit yet another buzzer-beating 3-pointer and finished with 39 points as the defending NBA champions overcame a 20-point deficit to beat the Sacramento Kings 109-108 on Friday night. The last time the Lakers won a game in which they trailed by 20 or more points was Dec. 12, 2006, when they erased a 21-point deficit in a 112-101 double-overtime win against Houston at Los Angeles.”It looked like they went into a zone coverage on the inbounds pass, and that side was wide open,” said Bryant, averaging 35.7 points in his last 10 games.”It was just a matter of me getting to that spot with enough time to get a shot off. Phil drew up a play for a 3. He wanted me to get a good look and knock it down. I think he wanted to get out of here.”

Lamar Odom had a season-high 20 points and grabbed 10 rebounds for the NBA-leading Lakers (26-6). Pau Gasol had 17 points, 16 rebounds and four assists – one of which set up Bryant’s clutch basket from in front of the Sacramento bench.”Kobe’s shooting the ball at a high percentage,” Gasol said. “But he’s not always going to shot like that. We understand that, and I think he understands that, too. But when he’s feeling it and the shots are going down, he’s going to keep shooting.”Spencer Hawes had a career-high 30 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for the Kings, Omri Casspi scored 23 points, and Beno Udrih added 19 points and 13 assists.

“I am so proud of our team – but at the same time, it’s disappointing,” Sacramento coach Paul Westphal said. “We’ve played well enough to beat those guys twice, but they have a knack at the end of games. We got everything we needed, performance-wise, from everybody that played, and we couldn’t close it out. That’s one of the things that makes the Lakers so good. Kobe is an unbelievable player, no question about it.”One night after scoring a season-high 44 points and getting a season-best 11 assists, Bryant added another chapter to his Hall of Fame resume. This miracle shot came exactly four weeks after his off-balance 3-point buzzer-beating bank shot that pulled out a win over the Miami Heat at Staples Center. On Dec. 16 at Milwaukee, Bryant hit a 15-footer as time expired in overtime to give the Lakers a 107-106 win.

“These players – I don’t know how they get themselves into those positions, but they do an unbelievable job of hitting shots that are remarkable shots, marvelous shots,” coach Phil Jackson said. “He’s right there with Michael in that kind of breath you look at.”The Lakers came out as flat as half-empty champagne bottles left over from New Year’s Eve, shooting 37 percent from the field in the first half and trailing 64-49 at intermission. Derek Fisher was the biggest offender, missing nine of 10 shots in the half while the Kings had the highest-scoring half by a Lakers opponent this season.

Fisher, who had six points, played 9 minutes in the third quarter without taking a shot, then sat out the entire fourth quarter.The sellout crowd let the Lakers feel their pain, booing them loudly after Jon Brockman’s layup gave Sacramento a 38-23 lead with 9:12 left in the second quarter. The Kings built the lead to 20 at 52-32 with a 3-pointer by Ime Udoka that capped a 26-9 run with 5:06 left in the half.

“I think we kind of took the pedal off,” Hawes said. “We knew they were going to make a run. It was inevitable. We knew that we couldn’t sit up by 20 points the whole game. And they chipped away and chipped away to put themselves in a position to win it at the end. That’s why he’s Kobe. He makes big shots at big times.”In their previous game, Tuesday night at Staples Center, the Lakers fell behind by 15 points to Golden State and gave up 60 points in the first half before pulling out a 124-118 win.

NOTES: According to Jackson, it looks as though Ron Artest will be back playing by early next week, following the fall at his home on Christmas night that caused a concussion, a deep cut on his left elbow and a slight loss of memory. “He’s improved significantly in the last two days, and optimistic that he’ll be able to practice soon – probably not a full-out practice with contact tomorrow, but will have non-contact activity with the team,” Jackson said. “There’s a number of checks they go through with concussions, like speech patterns. But with Ron, that doesn’t work.” … This was only the third time in the last 36 years that the Lakers played on New Year’s Day. Their overall record on Jan. 1 is 9-6. … It was the first time the Kings played on New Year’s Day since the vagabond franchise moved from Kansas City to Sacramento in 1985-86. They are 11-9 overall on this date (0-3 in K.C., 4-4 in Cincinnati and 7-1 in Rochester). … With 24,800 career points, Bryant is 16 points away from overtaking Patrick Ewing for 15th place.(AP)

Chicago Bulls vs Sacramento 98-87

Derrick Rose (1)

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. – When the Chicago Bulls won in Sacramento on Nov. 14, they were hoping they’d get their next road victory before Thanksgiving. Instead, it took until New Year’s Eve. “I wasn’t thinking about the streak – I just wanted to get a win,” Bulls coach Vinny Del Negro said. “This was just a nice, solid win for us.” Derrick Rose scored 22 points, and Joakim Noah added 15 points and 21 rebounds to help the Bulls end a six-week road drought with a 98-87 victory over Detroit. “This feels good,” Noah said after Chicago won its third in a row overall. “I think we are just playing better basketball right now for whatever reason.” Rose finished with a point more than Ben Gordon, who joined Detroit from Chicago this summer. “Ben’s role is to score the ball, and I’m playing point guard, so no one said anything about this being me against him,” Rose said. “I’ll do whatever it takes for us to win, and today that took being aggressive.”

Chicago had lost eight straight on the road, but never trailed while handing Detroit its ninth straight loss. The Pistons (11-21) are 10 games under .500 for the first time since the 2000-01 season, but coach John Kuester was still encouraged. “I saw a number of positive things out there,” he said. “I’m sure people are going to hear that and say, ‘You must be kidding,’ but we did some good things. We lost Rip (Hamilton), Tayshaun (Prince) and Ben Gordon for extended periods of time, and there’s no chance that they were going to come right back in midseason form.” Tyrus Thomas added 19 points for Chicago (13-17), and John Salmons had 17.

Rodney Stuckey led the Pistons with 22 points despite leaving the game twice in the first half after spraining his left ankle. “The first time Stuck went down, I was really concerned, because the way he fell, I thought this was going to be another long-term injury for us,” Kuester said. “He not only went back in, he hurt it again and he still came back. No one would have blinked if he had taken the rest of the day off, so he earned our admiration.” Stuckey acknowledged playing through severe pain in the second half. “It hurt a lot – it always does when you sprain your ankle – and then it just gave out on me the second time,” he said. “I was going to play though it if I could even walk, though, because we need to get something going. There’s no way this group of players should only be scoring 87 points.” The Bulls led 44-39 after a sloppy first half that saw the teams combine for 22 turnovers. Detroit got to 46-44 in the third quarter, but Chicago led 69-56 at the end of the period. The Bulls led by 20 as the Palace emptied during the fourth quarter.

NOTES: Charlie Villanueva, who had stopped wearing the mask protecting his broken nose, put it back on for the second half, but only wore it for a few possessions. … Detroit has not led in the second half of any of its last six games. Their only lead in the last two games – at home against the struggling Knicks and Bulls – was 2-0 against New York. … Thomas had 10 points in the first three quarters without making a field goal. He was 0-for-2 from the floor and 10-for-12 from the line.

world celebrations for the new years

Taipei 101

PARIS jazzed up the Eiffel Tower with a multicolored, disco-style light display as the world basked in New Year’s festivities with hopes that 2010 and beyond will bring more peace and prosperity.From fireworks over Sydney’s famous bridge to balloons sent aloft in Tokyo, revelers across the globe at least temporarily shelved worries about the future to bid farewell to “The Noughties” – a bitter-tinged nickname for the first decade of the 21st century playing on a term for “zero” and evoking the word naughty.In New York City, hundreds of thousands of revelers gathered in chilly weather in Times Square to usher in the new decade. Organizers were preparing 3,000 pounds (1,360 kilograms) of confetti that will be scattered when the New Year’s Eve crystal ball drops at midnight.Fireworks were set off at about 6 p.m. and the gigantic ball was lowered into place in preparation for midnight. Many people wore conical party hats and 2010 glasses that blinked colorfully, and some were jumping up and down to keep warm – the National Weather Service said the temperature will be in the low 30s and forecast snow for around midnight.Las Vegas prepared to welcome some 315,000 revelers with fireworks from casino rooftops, a traffic-free Las Vegas Strip and toasts at nightclubs from celebrities including actress Eva Longoria and rapper 50 Cent.

Sydney Harbour

Even as some major stock market indexes rose in 2009, the financial downturn hit hard, sending many industrial economies into recession, tossing millions out of work and out of their homes as foreclosures rose dramatically in some countries.”The year that is ending has been difficult for everybody. No continent, no country, no sector has been spared,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on national TV in a New Year’s Eve address. “Even if the tests are unfinished, 2010 will be a year of renewal,” he added.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned her people that the start of the new decade won’t herald immediate relief from the global economic ills. South Africa’s president, Jacob Zuma, was more ebullient, saying the World Cup is set to make 2010 the country’s most important year since the end of apartheid in 1994.At midnight in Rio de Janeiro, about 2 million people gathered along the 2.5-mile (4 kilometer) Copacabana beach to watch a huge fireworks display and listen to dozens of music acts and DJs.

The multitudes came mostly dressed in traditional white clothing, a nod to the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomble but a custom followed by nearly everyone as it is thought to bring peace and good luck for the coming year.Officials said about 12,000 police were on duty during the New Year’s Eve party in and around Copacabana to provide security.Dressed in white and holding a glass of champagne in his hand, visitor Chad Bissonnette, 27, a nongovernmental group’s director from Washington, D.C., said, “This year was the toughest I’ve experienced – for the first time as an American I saw many friends lose jobs and businesses in my neighborhood close regularly.”

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd hailed events in 2009 like the inauguration of the United States’ first black president, and international attempts to grapple with climate change and the global financial crisis.”The great message from 2009 is that because we’ve been all in this together, we’ve all worked together,” Rudd said in a New Year’s message.Australia got the some of the festivities rolling, as Sydney draped its skies with explosive bursts of crimson, purple and blue to the delight of more than 1 million New Year revelers near the harbor bridge.Concerns that global warming might raise sea levels and cause other environmental problems were on the minds of some as the year ended.

Venice revelers rang in the New Year with wet feet as high tide on its archipelago peaked just before midnight to flood low-lying parts of the city – including the St. Mark’s Square.The last year also offered its reminders of the decade’s fight against terrorism, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more recently, rising militant violence in Pakistan.Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain, in a statement Wednesday, suggested that terrorism book-ended the decade, with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, and foiled plot by a Nigerian man to set off explosives on a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas Eve.

“In late December we were reminded at this decade’s end, just as we were at its beginning, that there is a terrorist threat which puts our safety and security at risk and which requires us to take on al-Qaeda and the Taliban at the epicentre of global terrorism,” he said.

The American Embassy in Indonesia warned of a possible terrorist attack on the resort island of Bali on New Year’s Eve, citing information from the island’s governor – though local security officials said they were unaware of a threat.In a more upbeat theme, the Eiffel Tower was decked out for its 120th anniversary year with hundreds of multicolored lights along its latticework. It was seemingly retro in style, but decidedly 21st century as it showered the Iron Lady in a light show billed as more energy-saving than its usual sparkling lights.

Police blocked off the Champs-Elysees to vehicle traffic as partygoers popped champagne, exchanged la bise – the traditional French cheek to cheek peck – or more amorous kisses to celebrate the New Year.Spain rang in the start of its six-month presidency of the European Union with a sound and light show illuminating Sol square in Madrid and images from the 27 member states projected onto the central post office building.Partiers braved the cold – and a shower from sparkling cava wine bottles – in traditional style by eating 12 grapes, one with each tolling of the city hall bell.Despite frigid temperatures, thousands gathered along the River Thames for fireworks were fired from the London Eye attraction just as Big Ben struck midnight – an hour after continental western Europe.

Europe and the Americas may have partied harder than Asia. Islamic countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan use a different calendar; China will mark the new year in February.Still, in Shanghai, some people paid 518 yuan ($75) to ring the bell at the Longhua Temple at midnight and wish for new-year luck. In Chinese, saying “518” sounds like the phrase “I want prosperity.”

Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries where New Year’s Eve is not celebrated publicly. Clerics in the ultraconservative country say Muslims can only observe their faith’s feasts of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. For them, any other occasions are considered innovations that Islam rejects.Unlike many Islamic countries where pigs are considered unclean, New Year’s in Austria just isn’t complete without a pig-shaped lucky charm – and stalls selling the little porkers did a good business Thursday. Some are made of marzipan or chocolate; others come in glass, wood, rubber or soap.

Herbert Nikitsch of the University of Vienna’s Institute of European Ethnology said the porcine phylactery may originate from the fact that pigs represented food and sustenance for farmers in preindustrial times.Some festivities went awry.In the Philippines, hundreds of people were injured by firecrackers and celebratory gunfire during the celebrations. Many Filipinos, largely influenced by Chinese tradition, believe that noisy New Year’s celebrations drive away evil and misfortune – but some carry that belief to extremes.At Zojoji, one of Tokyo’s oldest and biggest Buddhist temples, thousands of worshippers released clear, helium-filled balloons to mark the new year. Nearby Tokyo Tower twinkled with white lights, while a large “2010” sign glowed from the center.

Tokyo’s Shibuya area, known as a magnet of youth culture, exploded with emotion at the stroke of midnight. Strangers embraced spontaneously as revelers jumped and sang.In Istanbul, Turkish authorities deployed some 2,000 police around Taksim Square to prevent pickpockets and the molestation of women that have marred New Year celebrations in the past. Some officers were under cover, disguised as street vendors or “even in Santa Claus dress,” Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler said.In Stonehaven, on Scotland’s east coast, the fireballs festival – a tradition for a century and a half – saw in the New Year. The pagan festival is observed by marchers swinging large, flaming balls around their heads. The flames are believed to either ensure sunshine or banish harmful influences.In contrast to many galas worldwide, the Stonehaven Fireballs Association warned those attending not to wear their best clothes – because “there will be sparks flying along with smoke and even whisky.” (AP)

JAKARTA,Indonesians bury popular former President Wahid

President Abdurrahman Wahid, center

JAKARTA, Indonesia Thousands of mourners thronged roads Thursday in Indonesia to say farewell to late President Abdurrahman Wahid, a beloved, one-eyed cleric who reached out to religious minorities in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation.Wahid, who ruled for nearly two years of tumult as Indonesia embarked on a path to democracy in 1999 after three decades of dictatorship, died in a hospital Wednesday. He was 69.A memorial service was led by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono before the burial in Wahid’s East Java hometown of Jombang, where about 10,000 supporters prayed over his remains, which were wrapped in white sheets.The televised service began a week of national mourning during which flags will be flown at half-staff. Some official New Year’s Eve celebrations were canceled.There was a massive outpouring of sentiment for a man whose open style, impromptu joke telling and naps during his own speeches endeared him to the masses. Weeping admirers lit candles and incense and said prayers at vigils held at mosques, churches, temples, schools and landmarks.Wahid, known fondly by his nickname Gus Dur, was a democratic reformer and proponent of moderate Islam who ultimately was unable to implement his ambitious ideas amid the financial and political chaos that dominated the vast island state of 235 million people during his presidency.

A White House statement said Wahid was “a pivotal figure” in Indonesia’s transition to free government who “will be remembered for his commitment to democratic principles, inclusive politics, and religious tolerance.”During his short term, from October 1999 to July 2001, Wahid led a broad coalition of unity but was eventually impeached after firing Yudhoyono, then a Cabinet minister, for refusing to declare a state of emergency when the army positioned tanks facing the Presidential Palace.

Wahid had been in the intensive care unit of Ciptomangunkusumo Hospital in Jakarta for the past week.The former president died during surgery to remove a blood clot in his heart, said professor Yusuf Misbach, head of his medical team. Wahid’s condition had deteriorated because of complications with diabetes and kidney failure, he said.

Wahid had struggled with illness for years and was confined to a wheelchair. Nearly blind, he also suffered serious kidney problems and diabetes.Presidential spokesman Julian Pasha noted Wahid’s widespread popularity, saying “we lost one of our greatest figures, who was very much loved by people from all walks of life.”

Abdurrahman Wahid, a long-serving head of the Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest Islamic group, pushed for interfaith dialogue and accepted an invitation to visit Israel in October 1994.In 1997, he traveled to Tel Aviv where he jointly signed a peace charter promoted by the Simon Perez Institute, a courageous effort at diplomacy in a country that still has no formal diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.

“We have lost a true friend and a warrior for peace and mutual respect,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. “As a devout Muslim with a following of tens of millions, Mr. Wahid was unafraid to condemn unambiguously terrorism in all its forms.””He was a very open person. … All minorities, underdogs or those suffering always felt secure with him. That was very extraordinary,” said Franz Magnis-Suseno, a Catholic priest. “He was a humanist. … For people like me, he emitted a friendly Islam that made us feel safe.”

Wahid was an opponent of Suharto in the dictator’s final years in power. Wahid attempted to establish a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate political killings, disappearances and massacres during Suharto’s 32-year rule, but political opposition was too great.Wahid was elected Indonesia’s third president on Oct. 20, 1999. While in office, he worked for peaceful solutions to secessionist movements in restive provinces such as Aceh and Papua.He visited East Timor after it became a new nation and apologized for human rights abuses committed by Indonesian forces during its brutal 24-year occupation.(AP)