NBA Roundup : Bucks Beat Rockets, Lead Hawks by 5 Games

Terry Cummings scored 25 points and Sidney Moncrief added 23 Thursday night as the Milwaukee Bucks turned back the Houston Rockets, 116-106, at Milwaukee for their third straight victory.

The Bucks stretched their Central Division lead to five games over Atlanta. The Rockets had their Midwest Division lead over Denver trimmed to one game.

Ralph Sampson scored 20, Akeem Olajuwon had 19 and Lewis Lloyd added 18 for the Rockets.

Trailing most of the way, Houston got within 104-102 on Steve Harris’ free throws with 4:29 left.

Paul Pressey, who had 20 points, made two free throws and a jumper, and Cummings added a basket to give the Bucks a 110-103 edge with 2:35 left.

Dallas 114, Utah 107--Rolando Blackman scored 21 of his 35 points in the fourth period and the Mavericks rallied to overcome the Jazz at Salt Lake City.

Utah led, 88-84, with 8:14 remaining when Blackman scored Dallas’ next 12 points and outscored the entire Jazz team, 21-13, during a seven-minute stretch.

Jay Vincent had 26 points for Dallas and Mark Aguirre added 25. Utah’s Adrian Dantley scored 29.

New York 93, Cleveland 87--Darrell Walker scored 16 points and James Bailey added 15 as the Knicks rallied to beat the Cavaliers at Richfield, Ohio.

It was New York’s fourth win in its last 23 games. The loss sliced Cleveland’s advantage to a half-game over Indiana and one over Chicago in the race for the eighth and final Eastern Conference playoff berth.

Seattle 116, Golden State 104--Ricky Sobers and Tom Chambers came off the bench to score 16 points each as the SuperSonics beat the Warriors at Seattle.

The Warriors were without starter Purvis Short, who had a sore toe, but his replacement, Greg Ballard, scored 25 points. Joe Barry Carroll had 29 points for the Warriors, who had a three-game winning streak snapped.

Xavier McDaniel had 19 points for Seattle.