Sheryl Swoopes scored 18 points and Lisa Leslie added 17, leading the United States to a 79-74 victory over Russia on Wednesday in Nanjing, China, for its second straight Women’s World Basketball Championship. The win was the 19th straight victory in championship play for the American women, who last lost a game in 1994.
Leslie, who clinched the game with a jumper in the final minutes of the fourth quarter after Russia came within one, was named tournament most valuable player.
The gold medal was America’s seventh, the most in the championship’s 49-year history. The former Soviet Union had six golds.
– An arbitrator handed the NBA a victory that should help keep down team payrolls, ruling that the 29 owners can redistribute luxury-tax and escrow funds any way they please. The players union argued that the league’s plan to withhold funds to high-spending teams amounted to circumvention of the collective-bargaining agreement.
– Forward Lamond Murray, who had been asking the Cavaliers to trade him for months, was dealt along with a second-round draft pick to Toronto for center Michael Stewart and a future first-round pick.
– The Minnesota Timberwolves re-signed free-agent forward Gary Trent, who averaged 7.5 points last season, and signed 34-year-old swingman Kendall Gill, a 12-year veteran.
