SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Collin Sexton scored 23 points, Lauri Markkanen added 20 and the Utah Jazz held off the San Antonio Spurs 111-110 on Saturday, overcoming 24 points, 16 rebounds and seven blocks from Victor Wembanyama.
Markkanen stayed in the game after landing directly on his left hip with 2:44 remaining. He was down on the court for a few minutes before being helped to his feet. The 7-footer was hobbling noticeably in the final minutes.
Jordan Clarkson had 16 points and John Collins scored 15 for Utah (2-7).
San Antonio rookie Stephon Castle had a career-high 23 points in his third NBA start. Wembanyama shot 6 for 9 on 3-pointers and Castle, also 20 years old, was 3 for 7.
Spurs guard Devin Vassell had 18 points in his season debut after missing seven months with a fractured right foot.
BULLS 125, HAWKS 113
ATLANTA (AP) — After trailing for the majority of the game, Chicago stormed back in the second half to defeat Atlanta, snapping a four-game losing streak on Saturday night.
Atlanta outscored Chicago 37-24 in the first quarter and led by as many as 18, but the Bulls started the fourth quarter with a 14-3 run and never looked back.
Ayo Dosunmu led the Bulls with 19 points, Nikola Vucevic added 18 points and 12 rebounds, and Zack LaVine and Coby White also scored 18. Josh Giddey scored 13 points and Patrick Williams tallied 10.
Chicago shot 50% (46 of 92) while Atlanta shot 46.1% (41 of 89).
Trae Young had his third double-double in as many games with 14 points and 16 assists, but the effort was wasted for a second game in a row. Clint Capela and Jalen Johnson led all scorers with 20 points apiece.
CAVALIERS 105, NETS 100
CLEVELAND (AP) — Evan Mobley had 23 points and 16 rebounds, and Donovan Mitchell scored 22 as Cleveland rallied for a win over Brooklyn, becoming the 12th team in NBA history to start a season 11-0.
Darius Garland scored eight of his 20 points in the fourth quarter for Cleveland, which trailed 82-68 with 35 seconds left in the third. Garland put the Cavaliers ahead for good at 97-96 with two free throws.
The 2015-16 Golden State Warriors hold the league record after winning their first 24 games. They lost to the Cavaliers in the NBA Finals.
Cam Johnson scored 23 points and Dennis Schroder and Cam Thomas had 22 apiece for the Nets. Brooklyn trailed by 15 in the second quarter, but held Cleveland to a season-low 13 points in the third with Johnson and Thomas combining for 19.
The Cavaliers failed to score 110 points for the first time, ending their NBA-record streak of doing so in 10 consecutive wins to open a season. Hall of Fame center Wilt Chamberlain and the 1960-61 Philadelphia Warriors had held the mark with nine.
CLIPPERS 105, RAPTORS 103
INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — James Harden had 24 points and 12 rebounds, Norman Powell added 24 points and Los Angeles barely hung on to beat Toronto for their fourth straight victory.
Ivica Zubac had 14 points and 12 rebounds for the Clippers, who have won three straight at Intuit Dome after starting 0-4 in their lavish new home.
Ochai Agbaji and Immanuel Quickley scored 21 points apiece for the Raptors, who have lost three straight and seven of eight.
After Quickley hit a tying 3-pointer with 39 seconds left, Powell and Harden combined to miss three of six free throws to leave the door open for Toronto. But Quickley and RJ Barrett both missed tough short shots under defensive pressure before Jakob Poeltl missed a putback attempt with 4.1 seconds left.
Utah Jazz's Kyle Filipowski (22) tangles with San Antonio Spurs' Victor Wembanyama (1) Devin Vassell, left, and Keldon Johnson during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024, in San Antonio. Utah won 111-110. (AP Photo/Darren Abate)
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — A court in Vietnam on Tuesday upheld the death sentence for real estate tycoon Truong My Lan but said it could be commuted to life if she reimburses some $11 billion, or three-fourths of what she defrauded in the country’s largest financial crime.
The scale of her fraud shocked the nation with analysts raising questions about whether other banks or businesses had similarly erred. It has also dampened Vietnam’s economic outlook and made foreign investors jittery at a time when Vietnam has been trying to position itself as a home for businesses pivoting their supply chains away from China.
Lan, 67, was convicted in April of embezzlement and bribery amounting to $12.5 billion, equivalent to 3% of the country’s GDP. As chairperson of the Van Thinh Phat real estate firm, the court said she illegally controlled Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 and 2022 and allowed 2,500 loans that cost the bank $27 billion in losses.
A higher court in Ho Chi Minh on Tuesday rejected her appeal of the conviction but said that her death sentence could be commuted to life if she reimburses three-fourth of the losses, working out to around $11 billion, state media reported.
Her lawyers argued that she had repaid the money but the court disagreed since there were legal issues with some of the seized properties and prosecuting agencies couldn't assess their value, VN Express reported.
Lan's lawyers also noted several mitigating circumstances — she had admitted guilt, showed remorse and had paid back part of the amount.
“I feel pained due to the waste of national resources,” she said last week, according to state media.
But the court said her violations had negatively impacted banking, caused public disorder and eroded people’s trust, VN Express said.
Under Vietnamese law, death sentences aren't immediately carried out and there is an extended legal process, said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow in the Vietnam Studies Program at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute. He added that Lan would seek another review of the case or a presidential pardon to reduce her sentence.
“Moreover, if she repays at least three-quarters of the misappropriated funds, the court may consider commuting her sentence to life imprisonment,” he said.
Her arrest was among the most high-profile in an anti-corruption drive in Vietnam that intensified after 2022. The so-called Blazing Furnace campaign touched the highest echelons of Vietnamese politics.
Lan, 67, and her family had set up the Van Thing Phat company in 1992, after Vietnam shed its state-run economy in favor of a more market-oriented approach open to foreigners. The company grew into one of Vietnam’s richest real estate firms, with luxury residential buildings, offices, hotels and shopping centers.
This made her a key player in the country’s financial industry. She orchestrated the 2011 merger of the beleaguered SCB bank with two other lenders in coordination with Vietnam’s central bank. The court said that she used this to tap SCB for cash and, according to government documents, owned more than 90% of the bank while approving thousands of loans to “ghost companies.”
These loans, according to state media, found their way to her and she bribed officials to cover her tracks.
The scale of the crime meant the case was split into two trials, and Lan was sentenced to another life sentence in October. At that trial, she was accused of raising $1.2 billion from nearly 36,000 investors by issuing bonds illegally through four companies, state media reported.
She was also found guilty of siphoning off $18 billion obtained through fraud and for using companies controlled by her to illegally transfer more than $4.5 billion in and out of Vietnam between 2012 and 2022.
Vietnam has handed down more than 2,000 death sentences in the past decade and executed more than 400 prisoners. It is a possible sentence for 14 different crimes but is typically applied for cases of murder and drug trafficking.
Vietnamese real estate tycoon Truong My Lan, second left, attends trial in an appeal she filed against her death sentence in a financial fraud case in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (Tran Quynh/VNExpress via AP)
Vietnamese real estate tycoon Truong My Lan attends trial in an appeal she filed against her death sentence in a financial fraud case in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (Tran Quynh/VNExpress via AP)
