NBA Roundup: Warriors, Cavs Lead All-Star Starters

New York — Stephen Curry won a tiebreaker to join Golden State teammate Kevin Durant in the lineup, while LeBron James and Kyrie Irving also gave Cleveland two starters in the NBA All-Star Game.

Curry and Houston’s James Harden beat out Russell Westbrook for the two Western Conference backcourt spots Thursday in the new voting system that included players and media for the first time this season. They will join frontcourt choices Durant, Anthony Davis of New Orleans and Kawhi Leonard of San Antonio.

The rest of the East lineup for the Feb. 19 game in New Orleans is Giannis Antetokounmpo of Milwaukee and Jimmy Butler of Chicago in the frontcourt and DeMar DeRozan of Toronto in the backcourt. He beat out Boston’s Isaiah Thomas in another tiebreaker.

Fan voting accounted for 50 percent in the new system, while current players and a media panel each made up 25 percent.

James is the leading scorer in All-Star Game history and is set to become just the fifth player to start at least 13 games. He said it meant something extra being the leading vote-getter among fans with nearly 1.9 million votes.

“I think from the standpoint of people enjoy the way I play the game, they respect the way I play the game and at this point in my career I’m still doing something right,” he said earlier Thursday. “Makes me proud, makes my family proud and my support system so it’s cool in that sense.”

He and Durant had the highest possible scores across all three voting groups, but the new process eliminated Chicago’s Dwyane Wade, Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid and Golden State’s Zaza Pachulia, who would have been elected by fans under the old format.

But they didn’t rank high enough to hold onto spots when player and media votes were counted, though Curry did.

Fan voting served as the tiebreaker, and the two-time MVP’s 1.8 million votes trailed only James. So even though he ranked third behind MVP candidates Harden and Westbrook in the other categories and ended up with the same weighted score as them, he got one spot and Harden the other after earning nearly 200,000 more fan votes than his former teammate.

DeRozan edged Thomas by about 41,000 votes among fans, which gave him the tiebreaker to join Irving, the MVP of the 2014 All-Star Game, which also was in New Orleans.

The reserves will be announced next Thursday after voting by head coaches in each conference.

Kings Forward Out

Sacramento, Calif.— Sacramento Kings forward Rudy Gay will need season-ending surgery to repair a ruptured left Achilles tendon.

Gay is the second-leading scorer for the Kings, averaging 18.7 points and 6.3 rebounds per game. Sacramento entered the day in 11th place in the Western Conference, 1½ games out of the final playoff spot.

Thursday’s Games

Cavaliers 118, Suns 103

Cleveland — Kyrie Irving scored 26 points, All-Star teammate LeBron James had 21 points and 15 assists, and the Cavaliers looked more like themselves at home.

The Cavs were back in Quicken Loans Arena following a six-game road trip (their longest of the season) that concluded with an embarrassing 35-point loss at Golden State. But on their home floor, they had better offensive balance and ball movement while improving to 30-11 — the same record Cleveland had at the halfway point of its 2016 NBA championship season.

Wizards 113, Knicks 110

New York — John Wall had 29 points and 13 assists, scoring Washington’s final four points in the last 32 seconds as the surging Wizards beat New York.

Otto Porter Jr. made six 3-pointers for the second straight night and added 23 points, but the Wizards needed big plays from Wall down the stretch to win their fourth in a row.

Heat 99, Mavericks 95

Miami — Goran Dragic had 32 points, Tyler Johnson scored 10 of his 23 in the fourth quarter and Miami topped Dallas.

Dragic shot 11 for 15 from the field and 4 of 4 from 3-point range. He also got a big offensive rebound in the final minute to extend a possession, and Johnson made a pair of free throws with 29.9 seconds left to give Miami an eight-point lead.