Dein erstes Forum » knock-on effects are potentially huge.My club in

MILWAUKEE -- Giannis Antetokounmpo tied a career high with 34 points and the Milwaukee Bucks stunned the Cleveland Cavaliers 118-101 on Tuesday night.Antetokounmpo added 12 rebounds and five assists while Milwaukee ended Clevelands four-game winning streak. Jabari Parker had 18 points and Michael Beasley had 17 off the bench for the Bucks.LeBron James had 22 points for the Cavaliers, who fell to 13-3. Kyrie Irving added 20 points.Milwaukee led by 22 points in the fourth quarter and cruised past the defending champions, who benched their starters midway through the final period.The Bucks outscored Cleveland by 14 points in the third quarter.Cleveland rode hot early shooting to a 14-point first quarter lead, but Milwaukee closed on a 10-0 run and trailed by only two at the end of the period.The hot hands of Antetokounmpo and Beasley sparked Milwaukee in the second quarter as the Bucks built an advantage of eight points before leading 58-54 at the half.NETS 127, CLIPPERS 122, 2OTNEW YORK -- Sean Kilpatrick scored 31 of his career-high 38 points after the third quarter and Brooklyn stopped a seven-game losing streak with a double-overtime victory over Los Angeles.The Clippers started the game without Blake Griffin, ended it without the ejected coach Doc Rivers and dropped their third straight game by blowing an 18-point lead.Chris Paul had 26 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds for the Clippers, but the best guard on the floor in crunch time was Kilpatrick, who also had a career-best 14 rebounds.Brook Lopez added 27 points for the Nets.DeAndre Jordan had 21 points and 23 rebounds for the Clippers, who rested Griffin, their leading scorer.MAGIC 95, SPURS 83SAN ANTONIO -- Serge Ibaka had 18 points and Orlando took advantage of a sloppy night by San Antonio to snap the Spurs nine-game winning streak.San Antonio committed a season-high 19 turnovers in its worst scoring performance of the season. The Spurs have four home losses in the first two months of this season after falling just once at AT&T Center in 2015-16.Evan Fournier scored 13 points and Nikola Vucevic had 12 to help the Magic snap a four-game skid.Orlando entered having lost eight of 11, but they were looser and more fluid than San Antonio from the start.The Spurs turnovers resulted in 19 points for the Magic.Kawhi Leonard had 21 points for San Antonio and LaMarcus Aldridge added 16.PELICANS 105, LAKERS 88NEW ORLEANS -- Anthony Davis had 41 points and 16 rebounds, helping New Orleans dominate short-handed Los Angeles.Jrue Holiday scored 22 points in his first start this season and Omer Asik had 10 points and 11 assists while New Orleans snapped a two-game skid.The Lakers expected to be healthier with forward Julius Randle returning to the lineup following a three-game absence because of a hip injury, but about two minutes into the game, starting shooting guard Nick Young was carried off with a strained right Achilles tendon.Lou Williams scored 16 points for the Lakers and Randle finished with 12, but Los Angeles was in a 20-point hole by the second quarter.JAZZ 120, ROCKETS 101SALT LAKE CITY -- Gordon Hayward scored a season-high 31 points, helping Utah beat Houston for its season-best fourth straight win.Utah started strong en route to a season high for scoring. Rodney Hood had 10 points during a 20-5 first-quarter run after trailing 16-9, and Houston never led again. Hood finished with 19 points.Rudy Gobert recorded his 11th double-double of the season with 16 points, 14 rebounds and three blocks. Hayward had seven assists and five rebounds.James Harden scored 26 points but was an inefficient 8 for 23 from the field. He also had seven assists and five rebounds, while Eric Gordon scored 24 points off the bench.PISTONS 112, HORNETS 89CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Tobias Harris scored 24 points, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Marcus Morris each had 18 points and Detroit beat Charlotte for its third straight win.Ish Smith added 13 points whhile Detroit shot 49 percent from the field.Kemba Walker had 23 points for the Hornets, who were playing their fourth game in five nights.The Pistons hadnt played since Saturday and looked much fresher throughout the game in snapping Charlottes two-game winning streak.Detroit took a 10-point lead into the fourth quarter after Caldwell-Pope knocked down a pair of 3-pointers late in the third. Things got sloppy from there with the Hornets turning the ball over frequently on bad passes, and the game quickly turning into a blowout. In the afterglow of the London Olympics, Sport Englands funding allocation for the next four years was always going to be a tough one for cricket. The emphasis was on Olympic medals, legacies, and the importance of minority sports, which were suddenly held to be a vital part of the nations fabric.That the ECB emerged with some relief, with a reduced grant of ￡20m - and with a further ￡7.5m awarded to the Chance to Shine initiative to promote cricket in State schools - owed much to the boards strengthened commitment to engage with South Asian cricketing communities. Easy to say, difficult to make a real and lasting impact.That both professional and recreational cricket is becoming more multi-racial is undeniable. Integration is happening. But progress has been patchy, slowed variously by old-school league officials or clubs with little appetite for change, and by the itinerant nature of many cricketers with Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan antecedents, many of whom still play ad-hoc cricket in Sunday park leagues, where facilities are poor and pitches are rarely of a quality for players to progress.Sport Englands Director of Sport, Phil Smith, outlined the challenge when he told ESPNcricinfo: Participation in cricket has traditionally been very strong within South Asian communities. Over 40% of current regular cricketers in England are non-white, making cricket one of the most diverse sports already.Some individuals are playing regularly in informal settings or unaffiliated leagues outside the realm of formal cricket structures of the county cricket boards, so the challenge for the ECB is to bring this community into the mainstream of the game.The ECB has worked in the past with the traditional club sector, queasily aware that a vibrant yet informal Asian catchment was largely passing them by. Nick Marriner, policy and research manager at the ECB, said: Theres a massive untapped demand for more participation amongst the South Asian community. We know a lot of South Asians play cricket outside the traditional affiliated club network. Previously weve not really engaged in that way.The solution is both imaginative and unproven. With the help of the Club Cricket Conference, the ECB will focus on five target cities: London, Birmingham, Leicester, Leeds and Bradford, where research has shown there is most potential for progress.Paul Bedford, head of non-first-class cricket at the ECB, said: There was the highest level of latent demand for playing cricket in the South Asian community than in any other group. In a high proportion of cases, we werent as close to [tapping that demand] as we should have been. We have also identified the cities where people wanted to play cricket more than anywhere else.The Club Cricket Conference is little known outside the Home Counties, but a programme of fixtures and tours against Affiliate and Associate nations has recently shown it has an appetite for regaining its influence of half a century ago, when it would produce representative sides to face touring teams.Two years from its centenary, the Club Cricket Conference has the chance to re-establish itself as a driving force in Englands club network. It has been asked to act as a catalyst to persuade South Asian park cricket to become more mainstream and to awaken the county boards, run largely by well-meaning elderly white middle-class men, to the untapped potential on their doorstep.The county boards responsible for the five cities chosen have until October 1 to prove themselves fit for investment. Good things are happening in Leicester already, according to Bedford, and they need to be, because, strikingly, the Leicestershire Premier League does not include one club from the city itself.Land in Birmingham has been identified that can be developed, but Yorkshires passive approach at amateur level has yet to show the foresight of the county club itself, which in the past 15 years has made giant strides in terms of minority ethnic communities. Announcing that you are from the ECB in Yorkshire league circles is not always a passport to popularity; heaven knows what they will make of the Club Cricket Conference.ddddddddddddThe task is to win over hearts and minds, to find community leaders who can instil the right virtues, and to prove to the traditional clubs and the tens of thousands of informal South Asian cricketers that the pace of integration will be quickened. For a body with only a handful of full-time paid employees, it is an onerous task.Gulfraz Riaz, the conferences development manager, says eight leagues representing 2300 cricketers have been persuaded to affiliate in the past eight months. We are not saying it is a takeover, he said. We are saying there are certain guidelines that must be followed for the good of cricket.Representatives of communities need to understand their responsibilities. There is the need for a player pathway, there are welfare issues, there is the need for child protection and first-aid training, there are constitutional issues, insurance, community cohesion, player registration, coaching opportunities. That is where the conference, under the umbrella of the ECB, can provide guidance.The conference is most recognised these days as a fixture bureau, helping clubs arrange friendly games outside the normal league structure. It can also offer representative cricket for men and women against county 2nd X1s and a developmental U-21 side, and is building links with university cricket, all of which offers opportunities for the best players from park leagues who are willing to embrace a more integrated future. The next task is simple but potentially hugely beneficial. They plan to develop an online ground-sharing scheme in which traditional clubs, which tend to play league cricket on a Saturday, will hire out their grounds on a Sunday to South Asian cricketers seeking better facilities either because council upkeep of their squares has deteriorated, because their grounds have been closed, or simply because the thriving parks cricket scene is simply outgrowing the facilities available. Ground shares are already happening, but the possibilities are much greater. Ground shares are the first stage to a sense of belonging and, for the best players, a pathway to a first professional contract.Asian guys will be able to play on better grounds, traditional clubs will get a bit of revenue, and equally importantly, we will encourage integration, Riaz said. Some players will say, We would like to be part of this club and still have our own identity on a Sunday.We see traditional English clubs struggling financially and we have these thriving cricket communities looking to better themselves. Ground shares can be the first stage in closer relationships. Once you get junior members from an Asian background involved in traditional clubs then change quickens. Parents want to sit on the committee. They say, I might not drink alcohol but I can help organise a barbeque with halal food, I can support fund-raising events. The knock-on effects are potentially huge.My club in Watford has about 20% Asian membership. At the time of the Pakistan floods we raised ￡4000 in an afternoon of cricket, food, auctions and raffles and collected donations of 150 bags of clothes. Times are changing and we are working together. The sense of a cricketing family is absolutely vital. It is about the right people from the right communities saying the right things at the right time.Riaz accepts the argument that many South Asian cricketers have been too itinerant for their own good. Players do tend to join and leave clubs in fours and fives. Thats disruptive and thats a fact, he said. Our brief is to achieve sustained integration, which will provide a pathway for park cricketers and will help to sustain traditional English clubs. In some places the mindset hasnt changed from 30 years ago. In wanting to be recognised, sometimes you have to meet halfway.Tomorrow in our series on engaging with South Asian communities in England: Tim Wigmores profile of Shiv Thakor, the exciting young Leicestershire allrounder and England U-19 captain ' ' '