Marlins ink free-agent INF Jose Castillo
Former Pittsburgh infielder Jose Castillo signed a free-agent deal with the Florida Marlins on Monday.Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
The 26-year-old Castillo, from Venezuela, played both second and third base for Pittsburgh last season, hitting .244 with 24 RBIs and no homers. In 2006, he hit .253 with 14 home runs and 65 RBIs.
Royals sign C Olivo to 1-year contract
Catcher Miguel Olivo signed a one-year contract with the Kansas City Royals on Thursday.The 29-year-old was the Florida Marlins’ primary catcher the past two seasons and batted .237 in 2007.
Olivo was not tendered a contract by the Marlins before becoming a free agent. Florida acquired catching prospect Mike Rabelo from Detroit in a trade this month.
The Royals and Olivo each hold options for the 2009 season. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The 6-foot, 220-pound Olivo has thrown out 31.2 percent of attempted base stealers the past two seasons, the fourth-best in the National League. Olivio also has played for the Chicago White Sox, Seattle and San Diego, hitting .239 in his career with 61 home runs and 224 RBI in 556 games.
“Miguel is a talented catcher with a power bat and a very strong throwing arm,” Royals general manager Dayton Moore said. “With him and John Buck, they form one of the most powerful catching duos in baseball.”
MSG settles sex case with ex-cheerleader
Madison Square Garden settled Wednesday with a former New York Rangers cheerleader who sued for sexual discrimination, avoiding the potential of another embarrassing trial.
Courtney Prince was fired in January 2004. She later claimed MSG failed to properly protect the dozen skating cheerleaders from being touched inappropriately when they went into the crowd at games and required them to be glamorous and to wear padded bras, fake eyelashes and hairpieces.
A statement released on her behalf said: “We resolved this matter with no admission of wrongdoing on the part of any party, and I will have no further comment.”
Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
Madison Square Garden refused to settle with former Knicks team executive Anucha Browne Sanders when she accused coach Isiah Thomas and MSG of sexual harassment. Instead, she was awarded $11.6 million in October after a trial that embarrassed the organization and the NBA.
MSG eventually settled for $11.5 million shortly before both sides were to return to court for the punitive phase.
Boozer helps Jazz hold off Mavericks
Jerry Sloan has been coaching the Utah Jazz for 20 seasons and has never seen his team play more inspired to start a game.”Our defense was about as good in the first quarter as I’ve seen since I’ve been here. If you can play defense like that the whole time, we’d be pretty good,” Sloan said.
Alas, after taking a 16-0 lead, the Jazz squandered the advantage by halftime. But they reversed their trend of weak finishes and beat the Dallas Mavericks 99-90 on Wednesday night.
Carlos Boozer scored 21 points, including six of Utah’s last seven. Although he was hampered by foul trouble, Boozer finished strong for the Jazz, who had been struggling in the closing moments of games in the past few weeks.
“It’s a big win for us. It feels good to be on the other side. We beat a very good team and held our composure at the end for a change. We executed our plays and finished strong,” said Boozer, who shot 8-of-13 and grabbed nine rebounds to lead the Jazz to their third win in the last 12 games.
Andrei Kirilenko and Deron Williams had 17 points apiece as the Jazz improved to 10-2 at home.
The Jazz led by 10 points in the fourth quarter before Devean George made back-to-back 3-pointers. The Jazz, bolstered by steals by Kirilenko and Ronnie Brewer, then held the Mavericks scoreless for almost 4 minutes.
“We weren’t very good from the start but you’ve got to give our guys credit for battling and coming back,” Dallas coach Avery Johnson said.
Dallas stayed close with 3-pointers until Boozer made a mid-range jumper and a dunk that put Utah ahead 97-89 with 1:28 to play.
“We closed out a ballgame for a change,” Williams said. “We have always felt like we are one of the better teams in the Western Conference, but we haven’t been playing that way. Tonight is a move in the right direction.”
Dirk Nowitzki had 20 points for Dallas but made just 3-of-10 from 3-point range as the Mavericks abandoned any attempt at an inside game in the fourth quarter. Devin Harris and Josh Howard each had 17 points for the Mavericks, who had their five-game winning streak snapped.
“We made them take tougher shots farther from the basket. They have great jump shooters but we certainly didn’t make it easy for them. We hung our hat on defense tonight,” Boozer said.
The Mavericks didn’t score until Brandon Bass’ jumper 5:12 into the game.
“We got after them. We were playing the passing lanes, getting deflections and making them take tough shots. We struggled on the road and we needed a win so we played with a lot of intensity,” Brewer said.
But Dallas whittled away at the lead and actually passed the Jazz just before the end of the first half. Kirilenko’s dunk before the buzzer regained the lead for the Jazz, 47-46.
Dallas and Utah seemed to be headed in opposite directions since their last meeting on Dec. 8, when Howard and Williams reached career highs in points. Williams had 41, but Howard scored 47 points and led Dallas to a 125-117 victory. The Mavs were winning and the Jazz became mired in their worst streak of the season.
But this game was much more physical and the Jazz had 12 steals and forced 18 turnovers. Though the Jazz are a higher-scoring team this year at nearly 105 points a game, they win when they play inspired defense. The Jazz improved to 10-0 when holding their opponents under 95 points.
“We played much better defense than we have lately. We talked, we helped each other and we moved quicker,” Williams said. “That kind of effort always helps us on the offensive end and we got pretty much any shot we wanted.”
The third quarter began much like the first as the Jazz put the Mavericks on their heels.
“We had all the momentum going into halftime and knocked the game down to one. Then in the third, we gave up some shots again and dug ourselves a little too deep,” Harris said.
Williams had 12 assists and his adept passes on the pick-and-roll in key moments helped erase Utah’s recent faltering finishes. The Jazz outscored the Mavericks in the paint, 44-28.
George and Jerry Stackhouse combined for 24 points but fellow reserve Jason Terry missed all 10 of his field goal attempts and the Mavs managed just 43 percent shooting.
Celts end 11-year drought in Sacramento
One dominating stretch in the second quarter turned out to be enough to carry the Boston Celtics to a win in their first West Coast game this season.Coach Doc Rivers knows his team will need to play more complete games to beat some of the elite Western Conference teams on the road.
Paul Pierce scored 14 of his 16 points during a 33-5 second-quarter run that led the Celtics to their first win in Sacramento in more than 11 years, an 89-69 victory over the Kings on Wednesday night.
Boston has won 12 of 13 games, but the early season success has been attributed to a soft schedule as well as the offseason additions of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to a lineup that had relied primarily on Pierce in recent years.
The Celtics played just their 11th road game of the season Wednesday and first against a team in the Western Conference. They have three more in the next four days of this trip, including Allen’s return to Seattle on Thursday and weekend games at Utah and the Los Angeles Lakers.
“If we play like we played in the first half I’m fine with being on the road,” Rivers said. “If we play like we did in the second half the road can be long. We just have to do a better job of executing on both ends. I thought in the third quarter we stopped scoring and then we stopped defending too.”
The NBA-leading Celtics (23-3) started slowly, scoring just 18 points in the opening quarter and trailing by four early in the second. That’s when they found their groove, closing the half on the big run to go up 53-29.
Instead of coasting from there, the Celtics lost their shooting touch at halftime. They missed their first seven shots in the third quarter as the Kings went on a 14-1 run to cut the Boston lead to 11.
Allen led the way with 17 points and Garnett added 14 points and 10 rebounds for the Celtics, who had lost 11 straight at Arco Arena since Feb. 16, 1996. Pierce had been a part of nine of those losses.
“It’s the only building I probably hadn’t won in in my whole NBA career,” Pierce said. “I got that off my back now.”
Sacramento got within five points early in the fourth quarter when Ron Artest scored off an offensive rebound before Eddie House and James Posey hit consecutive 3-pointers to start an 8-0 run that put the Celtics back in control.
It was a chippy game with the Celtics getting called for two technicals and the Kings committing many hard fouls.
“I got poked in the eye twice tonight and I got elbowed in the head,” Garnett said. “It’s part of the game. I could tell they were a little edgy. Some of their guys were out of character doing some of the things they were doing. I guess they were doing whatever they thought they had to do to win this game.”
Artest scored 15 points to lead Sacramento. John Salmons added 13 and Francisco Garcia had 12 for the Kings, who scored 27 points in the third quarter but just 42 in the other three. Sacramento shot 38.2 percent in their lowest scoring game of the season.
“We can try to analyze this all you want but we did not play well, they played well and we’re not good enough to sustain something like that,” Kings coach Reggie Theus said.
The Celtics started the big second-quarter run by scoring nine straight points in a 58-second span, getting a three-point play from Allen and consecutive 3-pointers from House to go back up by five.
That’s when Pierce took over. After going scoreless in the first 17 minutes of the game, Pierce scored 14 points in the final 7 minutes of the half, hitting his third 3-pointer in the final minute to make it 53-29.
As well as Boston shot that quarter, hitting six of 10 3-pointers, they were even tougher on the defensive end, forcing 12 turnovers and limiting Sacramento to 32.4 percent shooting in their best defensive first half of the season.
The Kings missed 10 of their final 11 shots in the half, with their only basket in the final 9 minutes coming on a jumper by Salmons with 5:24 left.
“We were ready but things didn’t go our way tonight,” Garcia said. “I don’t think it was their defense. We were just careless.”
Card Trader Chat 