Clan-Members » ntending for championships.These

DALLAS -- Wesley Matthews shot the Dallas Mavericks back into the win column.Matthews scored 12 of his 21 points in the fourth quarter, including eight during a rally that gave Dallas the lead for good, and the Mavericks beat the New Orleans Pelicans 91-81 on Sunday night to end an eight-game losing streak.Im never worried about my shot, Matthews said. I know the time I put into it. I know the confidence that I have, and I know the team has confidence in me.He made all four field goal attempts, including 3 of 4 from 3-point range, in the fourth quarter.Matthews made a 3-pointer and another basket to give Dallas a 72-71 edge with 5:39 remaining. New Orleans regained the lead on Anthony Davis two free throws, but for the last time because Matthews made another 3-pointer.His shot-making in the fourth was huge, Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. He popped the game open and gave us some separation.He has an iron will. He just stayed into it.Dallas improved to 3-13, still the NBAs worst record.Games like that, a couple of weeks ago we would have hung our heads, let a lead slip and let the team slip, Matthews said. But we held our ground, we stayed firm.Harrison Barnes led the Mavericks with 23 points. Justin Anderson scored 14 off the bench.The Pelicans, who lost eight straight to begin the season, fell to 6-12.They outplayed us. They deserved to win. Thats the thought. Thats all that needs to be said, Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry said.Davis, who had 36 points and 13 rebounds, was more expansive.We werent doing what our game plan was, he said. Harrison and Wes got a couple shots. It was our defense that killed us tonight.Jrue Holiday had 17 points and six assists for New Orleans.Neither team led by more than two points during the games first 10 minutes. Dallas had an 11-0 run to go from trailing 17-15 to a 26-17 lead.Davis scored 13 of New Orleans first 17 points, including 10 in a row.Dallas led 44-42 at halftime, and the game was tied at 60-all after three quarters.In the fourth, Holiday gave the Pelicans their biggest lead, six points at 68-62, with two 3-pointers.TIP-INSPelicans: They made all 12 free throws in the first three quarters, but Davis missed two of six in the fourth. . The Pelicans were without F Dante Cunningham (fractured right fibula) and G/F Tyreke Evans (right knee injury). New Orleans recalled F Cheick Diallo from Austin of the D-League, but he did not play.Mavericks: The 10-point winning margin was the largest lead in the game. . After shooting 38 percent from the floor in the first three quarters, Dallas was 10 for 17 (58 percent) in the fourth. The 3-point shooting improved from 25 to 67 percent (4 for 6).NOWITZKI OUTF Dirk Nowitzki (strained right Achilles tendon) did not play. He played in Dallas previous two games, but has missed 11 of their 16 games this season.Getting him better is going to have to take it incrementally, Carlisle said. Its not as if there was any great setback. Its not the right thing to play him tonight.UP NEXTPelicans: Return home to play the Lakers on Tuesday. New Orleans lost at home to Los Angeles 126-99 on Nov. 12 to fall to 1-9.Mavericks: Finish a brief two-game homestand on Wednesday against the Spurs. The Mavericks lost 96-91 at San Antonio on Nov. 21.Oleksandr Zinchenko Manchester City Jersey . Howard Ganz, an MLB lawyer, said in a letter to U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos that Rodriguezs claims do not come "remotely close" to what is needed to overturn an arbitration decision in federal court. Gabriel Jesus Jersey . Self was acquired from the Buffalo Bandits in a trade for Alex Hill midway through last season, and made his debut in Rochester on March 16, 2013. http://www.authenticmanchestercityshop.com/Authentic-Ederson-Moraes-Manchester-City-Jersey/ . On Saturday night, the normally free throw-challenged centre did just that. Howard scored 18 of his 25 points in the fourth quarter, including 13 of 19 free throws in a 2 1/2-minute stretch, and the Houston Rockets beat the Denver Nuggets 122-111. Benjamin Mendy Jersey . Nigeria beat surprise package Ethiopia 2-0 in the second leg of their playoff for a comfortable 4-1 aggregate victory. Victor Moses converted a 20th-minute penalty after an Ethiopian handball, and Victor Obinna made certain of Nigerias place in Brazil with his powerful free kick in the 82nd at UJ Esuene Stadium. Leroy Sane Jersey . -- In a span of seven Washington Redskins offensive plays, Justin Tuck sacked Robert Griffin III four times.CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Lets rewind five years, shall we? Conference realignment destabilized the college football foundation we had come to know. Talk about 16-team superconferences started dominating the discussion, and soon, survival-of-the-fittest scenarios began unfolding.The ACC? Many thought the future looked bleak, especially after Florida State and the Big 12 became publicly tangled in a public relations mess that dominated spring meetings in 2012. A few months later, Maryland decided to join the Big Ten and left the ACC reeling.What is a commissioner to do? If you are John Swofford, you swat away any doomsday talk and make your league stronger. Since 2012, he has gotten Notre Dame to join in all sports but football, but secured an annual five-game football scheduling agreement and included the Irish in future bowl partnerships; he swapped Maryland for Louisville, a huge upgrade across the board; he got league schools to raise the exit fee to $50 million; and he got them all to sign a grant-of-rights agreement.But wait. Theres more.On the opening day of ACC Kickoff on Thursday, Swofford and ESPN announced a long-awaited deal with ESPN for an ACC linear and digital network, along with a grant-of-rights extension through 2036 -- essentially stabilizing and securing the conference for the foreseeable future. John Swofford made all the right moves, Duke athletic director Kevin White said. In my behind-the-barn expression, the dart board is no longer jumping. We know where the dart board is. Were pretty frozen.The ACC has made a remarkable shift over a very short time. Swofford has secured his leagues future for the next 20 years, all while completely outmaneuvering the Big 12 -- a conference whose future appears murkiest. The Big 12 spent all summer discussing future expansion and wondering about the prospects for its own television network.Now the conference is talking about expansion again, Oklahoma president David Boren said as a direct result of the ACCs network news. But any thought about trying to poach an ACC team is not based in reality.If Florida State or any other team considers leaving over the next 20 years, it would have to pay the ACC a $50 million exit fee plus leave behind its television rights until the grant of rights expires. Thats a whole lot of cash to leave on the table to join a league that looks the most unstable and leastt secure among the Power 5 conferences.ddddddddddddhe future ACC Network, years in the making, finally puts the ACC on par with the SEC, Big Ten and Pac-12, which all have their own networks. Having more television exposure is nice, but this is about the money a television network brings in -- money the ACC hopes will allow for even more substantial upgrades to its football product.We could debate which makes the ACC stronger -- a network or the grant-of-rights extension. They are both big, but the grant of rights should be considered the biggest news to emerge out of this week. With the Big 12 still hemming and hawing about whether to add more teams, extending the grant of rights basically locks ACC schools into place -- and that is the type of stability the league didnt have five years ago.Given all these developments, the natural expectation should be for the ACC to now make the necessary steps to be more than just a top-heavy football league. After the conference went 13 years between championship game appearances, two ACC schools have played for a title in two of the past three years. Florida State and Clemson continue to carry the flag, but programs like Miami, Louisville, North Carolina and Virginia Tech -- just to name four -- have a responsibility to the league to prove they are top-25 teams capable of contending for championships.These are exciting times for the ACC. Playing as a stable, unified conference with a network on the way should be only just the beginning. They also provide quite a legacy for the man who has engineered it all.I feel great about where it is because were where we should be, Swofford said. It feels good to be there. The last 10 to 15 years in college athletics theres been a lot of instability, theres been a lot of rumors, a lot of people who were saying things without any basis about who might be where and why this would happen, and there were all kinds of reasons why a lot of those things would not have happened.But I think what this does is totally take the ACC out of any kind of conversation of that nature, and thats a huge plus for the league and for the individual institutions and a huge plus for our ability to truly reach our potential as a league. I think thats already started. ' ' '