NBA Scores & More: Kobe Bryant Leads Lakers Over Celtics, Clippers Fall Short (Again), Knicks Slide Continues

New York kept it close throughout the first half -- evening leading for a while, actually -- but fell down by two on Williams’ buzzer-beating, fall-away jumper. From halftime forward, things fell apart. The Sixers bolted ahead to start the third, then turned to Williams for a preposterous quarter-ending run. He had 12 points in just three and a half minutes to close the period, putting Philadelphia ahead by 16 and well out of reach.

The Knicks, as they do, made a bit of a run (though no real threat) in the fourth quarter, which was only interesting because it came from a lineup without Anthony or Stoudemire. Mike D’Antoni let a semi-bench lineup play a full-court press and cut into the lead a bit, then just let that group finish the rest of the game. This was perhaps a response to criticisms that he’d been abandoning successful lineups in favor of appeasing his stars, but, well, it didn’t work, anyway.

The Lakers had as much as a 15-point lead in the first half, but when the Celtics had the opportunity to land a punch, they did it well, holding the Lakers to seven points over the last eight minutes of the first half while scoring 20 points of their own to get the lead down to two at halftime.

The basket by Bynum was out of a timeout and a rare time where the ball didn’t end up in Kobe’s hands in clutch time. In fact, it was the first time that Bynum had taken that shot with the score within a point either way and the time under 20 seconds left to go in the game.

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