WASHINGTON -- Neither the Miami Heat nor the Washington Wizards have forged a consistent winning path this season. At least the Southeast Division foes enter their first meeting of the season coming off rare victories.Miami (3-8) ended a six-game losing streak Thursday with a 96-73 rout over the Milwaukee Bucks. Hassan Whiteside blocked seven shots -- the most in the NBA this season -- and Dion Waiters scored 23 points. The losing streak was the Heats longest since 2008.Washington (3-8) nearly had its own blowout, but still won comfortably over New York. John Wall had 23 points and 11 assists in their 119-112 victory as the Wizards drained 15 of 25 3-pointers. The point guard sank all three of his deep attempts in the third quarter as Washington turned a 53-43 halftime lead into a 27-point cushion.Otto Porter scored 21 points and Bradley Beal had 18 points in his return after missing the previous three games with a hamstring injury. One of those missed game included a loss to a 1-win and short-handed Philadelphia 76ers team Wednesday night.We were hungry for a win, Beal said. We knew this was a tough team with a bunch of scorers. Our biggest thing was to make sure that we were defending and just control what we control and get back to having fun, get back to playing for one another and do whatever it takes to win. We did a great job of keeping up that pressure.They needed that large margin because New York scored 47 points in the fourth quarter, but never could pull closer than seven points.The late fade forced coached Scott Brooks to put his starters back into the game, but didnt damper his enthusiasm for his teams effort and the much needed win.That is the message I have been talking about, Brooks said. We have to play for 48 minutes but I thought we played a great basketball game coming back from a tough loss last night. Guys really competed. We moved the ball. Having Brad out there, we are a different team for the obvious reasons.Having an interior force like Whiteside gives the Heat a different component than most teams.Anytime I see a team that likes to score in the paint, my eyes light up, said Whiteside, who also had 12 points and 17 rebounds.Miamis bench helped fuel the win which came despite trailing 20-6. James Johnson and Tyler Johnson combined for 17 points, 18 rebounds and eight assists.Thats what were supposed to do, James Johnson told the Miami Herald. Thats what the reserves are for -- bring energy, sustain the lead or come back from any deficit. I think we did our job today.Washingtons bench play has been a major source of the early-season struggles, though Marcus Thornton scored 13 points against the Knicks. Adidas Ultra Boost Nederland . Brazilian national coach Luiz Felipe Scolari has confirmed that the veteran goalkeeper is set to join Toronto on loan, saying it will help him be ready for the World Cup. Adidas Futurecraft 4d Nederland . Miller reached right to deflect Mikhail Grabovskis attempt with just over 2 minutes remaining in regulation, and then made two more saves in the shootout Sunday to give the Sabres a 2-1 win over the Washington Capitals. http://www.nmdtekoop.com/stan-smith-sneakers.html . The Barrie Colts defenceman, who impressed many with his play for Canada at the World Junior Hockey Championship, is the top-ranked skater in the February rankings. He has 19 goals and 24 assists for 43 points in 45 games with the Colts this season. Adidas Superstar Goedkoop . During the athletes parade, the 23-strong Ukrainian team was represented by a lone flagbearer in an apparent protest at the presence of Russian troops in Ukraines Crimean peninsula. Adidas Ultra Boost Uncaged Kopen .C. -- After a listless first half, the Washington Wizards used a big third quarter run to beat the Charlotte Bobcats Bradley Beal scored 21 points and the Wizards used a 17-0 run in the third quarter to take control of what had been a close game and beat the Bobcats 97-83 on Tuesday night. CHICAGO -- Between World Series Games 4 and 5, twin brothers hung out on a popular corner in the Old Town neighborhood. Edwin and Edward Bryant liked sports, McDonalds and flirting with girls. They were 17 years old. They were hanging in a group of kids crowded around the brick wall of an apartment building, across Evergreen Street from a parking lot. It was around 3:15 in the morning.A car drove west down Evergreen, at least one of the passengers holding a gun.They shot Edward first, in the chest and head, and he fell right where he was shot, by the wrought iron fence, seriously wounded but alive. Edwin started running, taking a right on Hudson. The car followed him, shooting him maybe 20 or 30 steps later, in the chest and back. (Police dont yet have suspects or a motive.) The car sped away. The phone calls began. Michael Horton, one of the coaches for Edwards Chicago Demons basketball team, woke up around 4 a.m., and as he decided whether to go back to sleep or get up and start his day, he saw the light flashing on his silenced phone.He rushed to the hospital.Edwin was dead on arrival, but Edward -- known to his friends as Ed -- hung on, fighting. His father waited inside the hospital. His mother refused to go in, so she sat on the ground surrounded by family. She didnt speak to anyone, alone in her grief. She waited for someone to come out and tell her if shed lost one son or two. Around 4:45 a.m., someone wheeled the boys grandmother out of the hospital with the news. Coach Horton stood about 10 feet away and couldnt hear the words.He didnt need to. He saw the twins mother collapse.SEVENTEEN PEOPLE DIED?this weekend in Chicago while the Cubs hosted three World Series games. It was the citys deadliest weekend of the year. Hernando Caster was shot on West Huron Street during the sixth inning of Game 3. He died 16 minutes after the game ended. Tyrice Anderson was 30. Martell Turner, who died five minutes after Anderson, was 25. Luis Corona was 19. Walter McCurry was 36. A 31-year-old man died in Humboldt Park, shot in the face. Fifteen minutes later, a man was killed on the South Side, but police couldnt immediately identify him. Another unidentified man died on the kitchen floor of a second-floor apartment. The youngest victim was 14. Hed been planning on running for student council. He died after Game 3, around the time the Wrigleyville bars were closing. He was helping his father move. His family, like the Bryant twins, lived in Garfield Park. Its almost everywhere around you, coach Horton says, sounding defeated and lost. Then it hits you, then its right back around you.Seventeen shot dead, 42 more wounded. Over and over, people close to the shootings have wondered if the enormous police presence outside Wrigley Field took away resources from the rest of the city, combining with the unseasonably warm weather to create a fertile scenario for violence. In a news conference, police officials denied that claim, but these are facts: Around the stadium, neon-vested officers stood shoulder to shoulder, creating a human barricade; and most nights on the block where the Bryant brothers were shot, there is a parked squad car, officers monitoring the corner where neighborhood kids hang out.The police car was not there Saturday night or early Sunday morning.The only neighborhoods in Chicago without a shooting were the Northwest and the far North Side, between Wrigley Field and the expensive north suburbs. The juxtaposed headlines lead to a delicate conversation, one difficult to describe in a way that feels accurate to everyone in Chicago. Most of the 621 people murdered in Chicago this year are black. Most Cubs fans are white, and with World Series tickets going for thousands of dollars, and with cover charges for bars around the stadium hitting a hundred dollars a head, the madness in Wrigleyville is a celebration for the wealthy. The Cubs fantasy bubble and the weekends violence are happening in separate worlds, which rarely overlap. There is a disconnect.Parts of the city suffered through the worst weekend of the year, while others celebrated the greatest weekend in a ccentury.ddddddddddddBOTH OF THE Bryant brothers played sixth-grade basketball at a youth center a quarter mile from where they were shot. On Tuesday morning, the day of Game 6, that teams coach, a man named Vince Carter, drove toward the corner where the boys were murdered. He and his fellow coaches have been meeting with their players, telling them lies about how things will be better -- but unsure of what else to say.Somewhere in between the grieving and counseling, Horton thought about the last time hed seen Edward, the brother he knew best. Theyd just returned from a tournament in Las Vegas, and a coach from North Dakota State called Horton, asking about the teams three big men. As they talked, Horton drove around the neighborhood and picked up Edward, so he could listen to the conversation on speakerphone. Horton could tell that Ed started to imagine a life beyond Chicago. His world was about to change, Horton said. He wont even get to live that out. Thats my last memory of him. This kid, he wont get a chance. He wont even get a chance.While Carter drove through the neighborhood on Tuesday, his phone rang. It was Shawn Harrington, whod coached basketball before he was shot two years ago while driving his daughter to school, a case of mistaken identity. He played on the Marshall High team featured in the famous documentary Hoop Dreams, and now hes trying to walk again. He wanted to check in with Carter, who has had a rough few days.The elephant in the room is they were out at 3 in the morning, Carter says. We need to stop finding ways to justify why people get shot.He pointed at the fence, where three or so bunches of deflated balloons sagged toward the ground, and dozens of burned-out votive candles and an empty pint of Patron formed the sad remnants of last nights vigil. So many shootings, he said, leave everyone desensitized, almost needing to forget that those numbers in the paper -- 17 dead in a weekend, or seven dead in a single night -- are all attached to families, to bedrooms with posters on the wall and computers logged into social media accounts, all of that a widening hole, taking not just the lives of the dead but the spirit of the living, in neighborhood after neighborhood, month after month. Carter doesnt blame the police for having a huge presence at Wrigley or for not having a squad car in its usual place, just as he doesnt want people to blame the Bryant boys for being out at 3 in the morning, acting like normal teenagers. Its still not their fault, Carter says, of both the cops and the victims. Were so quick to affix blame.Before returning to his youth center, Carter drove over to the other problem spot in the neighborhood, where the police also posts cars nightly. He turned down Cambridge Street, passing the row of houses on the right. Last night, a gunman shot down one of the side streets, accidentally hitting a little girl. Carter points at another child to his right, her mother calling after her, as if to say she could be next.Police cruisers park nightly on either end of the street. But the neighborhood is changing, with construction crews in hard hats walking past the sidewalk where Edward Bryant fell. At the intersection of Cambridge and Chicago, where one of the cops sits watch, there is a Lamborghini dealerships repair shop. A green sports car is visible through an open garage door. Michael Jordans son and ex-wife live a block or so away, Carter says. This is a gentrifying neighborhood, prime Cubs country. An exotic Italian car dealership a block or so from where an innocent child was caught in the crossfire. These worlds are both Chicago, next door and an unbridgeable ocean apart.Exactly, Carter says.There was the World Series and a murder record on the same weekend. There is an Intelligentsia coffee shop less than a half mile from where Edwin and Edward Bryant were shot.?There is a Chicago cheering for the Cubs tonight and another one burying its dead. There is a city struggling to reconcile those things. ' ' '