BASKETBALL
Dennis Smith Jr. scored 19 points and the visiting New York Knicks snapped a franchise-worst, 18-game losing streak with a 106-91 victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday night.
The Knicks ended their longest skid within a single season with their first victory since Jan. 4 at the Los Angeles Lakers. New York, with the Eastern Conference’s worst record and second-worst overall, had dropped 26 of 27.
• The Orlando Magic ended a 13-game losing streak to Charlotte, routing the visiting Hornets 127-89 behind 21 points from Terrence Ross.
• Golden State Coach Steve Kerr was fined $25,000 by the NBA for verbally abusing and confronting a referee in a 127-107 loss at Portland on Wednesday night.
BIATHLON
WORLD CUP: Clare Egan of Cape Elizabeth hit 9 of 10 targets and finished 21st in a 7.5-kilometer sprint as Utah’s Soldier Hollow hosted its first international biathlon race since the 2002 Olympics.
Egan finished 1 minute, 34.1 seconds behind Marte Olsbu Roeiseland of Norway as she qualified for Saturday’s 10-kilometer pursuit, along with teammates Susan Dunklee and Joanne Reid.
GOLF
PGA: Jordan Spieth made the most out of his chance to start over at rain-soaked Riviera at Los Angeles and was tied for the lead at 5-under par through 12 holes in the Genesis Open.
Tiger Woods never made it to the golf course. He was to play in the afternoon, but a seven-hour delay because of heavy rain meant not starting his first round until Friday morning.
LPGA: Karrie Webb’s bid for a sixth Women’s Australian Open title began with a 5-under 67, leaving her two strokes behind first-round leaders Jodi Ewart Shadoff and Wei-Ling Hsu at Adelaide, Australia.
EUROPEAN TOUR: Miguel Tabuena birdied nine of his first 10 holes on his way to a 7-under-par 65 and a share of the first-round lead at the World Super 6 event at Perth, Australia.
Tabuena was tied with Kristoffer Reitan.
FOOTBALL
AAF: A person with knowledge of the conversation told The Associated Press that the new Alliance of American Football spoke with Colin Kaepernick during its development about joining the league.
But Kaepernick wanted $20 million or more to consider playing with the league.
SKIING
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: Mikaela Shiffrin’s careful planning failed to pay off as her gold-medal bid in the giant slalom was blown off course by strong winds and a Slovakian rival emerging as the biggest threat to her Alpine skiing dominance.
Petra Vlhova won Slovakia’s first world title after finishing 0.14 seconds ahead of Viktoria Rebensburg in a giant slalom at Are, Sweden, raced in winds that reached 43.5 mph and unseasonably high temperatures.
Shiffrin won the bronze medal, 0.38 seconds back.
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