Los Angeles  - LeBron James took care of the offence, and the Cleveland Cavaliers took care of the ball.

James scored six of his 26 points in overtime, to go along with 11 rebounds and 10 assists for his seventh triple-double of the season, leading the Cavaliers past the short-handed Portland Trail Blazers 97-92 on Thursday night.

The Cavaliers improved the NBA's best-mark to 55-13 and 31-1 at home with their seventh straight victory, en route to tying a league-record for fewest turnovers in a game with two.

Hamilton (New Zealand), Mar. 20 : New Zealand fast bowler Chris Martin is of the view that except for Indian opener Virender Sehwag, most batters respect a decent ball when it is delivered to them.

"Bowling to the likes of Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar was not as daunting. Most of the players will respect a decent ball apart from Sehwag," a smiling Martin said.

Martin, who has played 46 Tests for New Zealand, is featuring in his first series against India.

Sydney, Mar. 20 : White Ferns coach Gary Stead has demanded that his side impose themselves on England with the aggressive style that got them within sight of their second World Cup women''s cricket title.

New Zealand enter their fourth World Cup final on Sunday as underdogs against the form side of recent years, who racked up 17 consecutive wins in completed one-day internationals until yesterday''s defeat to Australia which had no bearing on the decider.

Guyana (West Indies), Mar. 20 : Former England cricket captain Kevin Pietersen is insisting that he does not want to lead the side in this summer's Twenty20 World Cup.

In an interview with his Nasser Hussain on Sky Sports to be aired today, Pietersen emphatically said `No' when asked whether he could be persuaded to lead England in the World Twenty20.

Hamburg  - Title holders Zenit St Petersburg were dumped by Udinese and the 2005 winners CSKA Moscow crashed against Skakhtar Donetsk on a bad Thursday for Russia in the UEFA Cup round of 16.

Zenit won 1-0 on the night but that was not good enough to reverse last week's 2-0 defeat in Italy as Udinese made a European quarter-final for the first time.

That also applied to Donetsk, who rebounded from a 1-0 first-leg loss in the Russian capital with a 2-0 home win over CSKA.

Rome - Former Argentine striker Abel Balbo has quit the coaching job at struggling Serie B side Treviso after clinching a single point from four games, Italian media reported.

Luca Gotti, 41, Thursday took back the job he had left to Balbo, 42, in a controversial switch in late February.