Los Angeles  - In the end, Ron Artest made the big plays at both ends, to rescue the Houston Rockets.

Artest hit the go-ahead jumper in the closing seconds, and then blocked Vladimir Radmanovic's potential game-tying three-pointer with 4.9 ticks left, helping the visiting Rockets escape the Charlotte Bobcats, 91-86 on Friday night.

"We're very fortunate to get that win," Rockets coach Rick Adelman said. "We had it in control and we made three straight mistakes. They had a chance to win it."

Melbourne, Mar 14 : Australian skipper Ricky Ponting is happy to bowl part time bowler Simon Katich in occasional short spells as he did on the final day of the second Test when his team needed to end the resistance from South Africa's lower order.

Reluctant Katich is happy to bowl. And, in the process he helped win the second Test and the series.

Ponting threw Katich the ball in Durban and the opening batman took three wickets. The pair had appeared to be involved in a strange standoff until then, FOX Sports reported.

Whistler, Canada - World Champion Helena Jonsson on Friday won the women's 7.5 kilometre biathlon World Cup sprint event in the Canadian venue of Whistler.

Competing at the venue of next year's winter Olympics Jonsson had a perfect record in the shooting range, finishing without a miss and winning in a time of 19 minutes 43.6 seconds.

Whistler, Canada - World Champion Helena Jonsson on Friday won the women's 7.5 kilometre biathlon World Cup sprint event in the Canadian venue of Whistler.

Competing at the venue of next year's winter Olympics Jonsson had a perfect record in the shooting range, finishing without a miss and winning in a time of 19 minutes 43.6 seconds.

Germany's six-time world champion Magdalena Neuner, who missed the target once, was second 0.7 seconds behind, while Russian Olga Zaitseva, who won two gold medals at the recent world championships, finished third 1.6 seconds behind.

Lillehammer, Norway  - Finland's Harri Olli on Friday proved too strong for the rest of the field as he won the World Cup event at the Norwegian venue of Lillehammer.

Olli soared to leaps of 135.5 and 142.0 metres, for a total of 288.7 points, beating Dimitry Vassiljev into second place. The Russian, who was leading after the first round of jumps, finished on 275.2 points.

Are, Sweden - Didier Cuche of Switzerland clinched the giant slalom World Cup by finishing third in the season-ender in Are, Sweden on Friday.

Benjamin Raich of Austria won to stay in the running for the overall World Cup title, but super-g world champion Cuche's third-place was just enough to give him the discipline title.

Raich posted a combined time of 2 minutes 18.95 seconds, edging Ted Ligety of the United States by 0.13 seconds, with Cuche 0.71 seconds behind Raich.