WASHINGTON — Rookie Will Riley scored a season-high 18 points, including a go-ahead three-pointer with 2:07 left, and the Washington Wizards beat the Sacramento Kings 116-112 on Sunday night in a matchup of last-place teams.
AJ Johnson added 17 points and Bilal Coulibaly and Marvin Bagley III each scored 15 for the Wizards, who relied heavily on their reserves as they handed the Kings their ninth straight loss.
Washington has won three of four since a nine-game skid of its own. The Wizards began the night last in the Eastern Conference but moved one-half game ahead of Indiana.
Zach LaVine scored 35 points and DeMar DeRozan had 32 for the Kings, who are last in the West and concluded their season-long East Coast trip at 0-6.
Maxime Raynaud added 14 points for Sacramento, but no other Kings player had more than six. Washington led 61-20 in bench points, and the Wizards’ reserves also outscored their starters.
PISTONS 130, NETS 77
DETROIT — Jalen Duren had 21 points and 10 rebounds after being added to the All-Star Game on Sunday night as an Eastern Conference reserve, and the Detroit Pistons routed the Brooklyn Nets 130-77 in the most-lopsided victory in franchise history.
The 53-point margin topped the mark of 52 set in a 118-66 victory at Boston on Jan 31, 2003. The Nets had a 54-point loss — 120-66 — on Jan. 21 against New York.
Cade Cunningham, the Detroit star who was earlier selected an East All-Star starter, added 18 points, 12 assists and four steals. The Eastern Conference-leading Pistons improved to 36-12 with their second straight victory. They beat Golden State on Friday night to finish 2-1 on a three-game trip.
Cunningham had 13 points, 10 assists and four steals in the first half as the Pistons raced to a 67-44 lead. Ausar Thompson hit a half-court shot at the halftime buzzer.
Detroit outscored Brooklyn 33-18 in the third quarter to push it to 100-62. The Pistons’ largest lead was 55 points.
CELTICS 107, BUCKS 79
BOSTON — Jaylen Brown had 30 points and 13 rebounds, Anfernee Simons scored 27 points off the bench and Boston coasted to a victory over Milwaukee.
Derrick White added 17 points, eight assists and seven rebounds, and Neemias Queta had 14 points and eight boards as the Celtics won their second straight game after alternating wins and losses in their previous four. It was Brown’s third double-double this season.
Ryan Rollins led Milwaukee with 25 points and Kyle Kuzma scored 16.
With trade rumours swirling around their sidelined star Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Bucks didn’t miss a shot in the opening 2 1/2 minutes (5 for 5) and pulled ahead 12-0 before Boston sent them to their fifth straight loss.
The Celtics led 56-42 at halftime and Brown, who missed their easy win over Sacramento Friday with left hamstring tightness and a bruised right knee, scored 10 of their initial 12 points to start the second half, pushing them ahead 68-47.
Boston’s lead ballooned to 27 points on Brown’s three-pointer midway into the final quarter before coach Joe Mazzulla pulled his starters.
HEAT 134, BULLS 91
MIAMI — Bam Adebayo and Pelle Larsson each had 20 points, and Miami tied its third-biggest victory margin ever in a rout of Chicago.
The Heat led by as many as 54. Before Sunday, their biggest lead this season was 45 at Memphis on Oct. 24. It was Miami’s second-largest lead of the play-by-play era that dates to 1996 — the Heat beat Memphis by 60 on March 29, 2024.
The 54-point hole was Chicago’s biggest since a 58-point deficit against Boston on Dec. 8, 2018. The Bulls’ biggest deficits this season were a pair of 41-point games — one against Minnesota on Dec. 29, the other also against Miami on Nov. 21.
RAPTORS 107, JAZZ 100
TORONTO — RJ Barrett scored 21 points, Sandro Mamukelashvili added 20 and the Toronto Raptors beat the Utah Jazz 107-100 on Sunday night to open a five-game homestand.
Brandon Ingram added 19 points to help Toronto end a two-game losing streak. Immanuel Quickley had 17 points.
Lauri Markkanen had 27 points and 11 rebounds for Utah. Isaiah Collier added 19 points, and Jusuf Nurkic had 11 points and 13 rebounds.
KNICKS 112, LAKERS 100
NEW YORK — OG Anunoby scored 25 points, Landry Shamet added 23 and New York beat Los Angeles to spoil LeBron James’ 32nd game at Madison Square Garden.
Josh Hart finished with 20 points and Jalen Brunson had 12 points and a season-high 13 assists for the Knicks, who matched a season high with their sixth straight win, most of them coming easily.
James finished with 22 points, six assists and five rebounds after being chosen as a reserve earlier Sunday for his NBA-record 22nd consecutive All-Star selection. He fell to 23-9 in the regular season at MSG, where he came into the game having averaged 28.2 points, 7.6 assists and 7.0 rebounds.
Luka Doncic had 30 points, 15 rebounds and eight assists. The game was exactly a year to the day of the Lakers’ last trip to New York, when shortly after their victory came word that they agreed to the blockbuster trade with Dallas that brought Doncic to Los Angeles.
CLIPPERS 117, SUNS 93
PHOENIX — Kawhi Leonard scored 25 points and Los Angeles, playing without James Harden, routed Phoenix.
Leonard, who was left off the Western Conference All-Star reserves announced earlier Sunday, had eight rebounds as well as his 27th consecutive game with 20 or more points. Ivica Zubac had 20 rebounds as the Clippers bounced back from a loss at Denver on Friday and dominated the inside, outrebounding Phoenix 63-35 and outscoring the Suns 64-18 in the paint.
Jordan Miller had 20 points, John Collins 16, Zubac 14 and Kobe Sanders 12 for the Clippers, who shot 51.8% from the field. Sanders started for Harden, who missed the game for personal reasons.
Since starting the season 6-21, the Clippers have won 17 of 21 and are just two games under .500. The Suns had won three straight before Sunday, and are still 15-7 since Dec. 21.
SPURS 112, MAGIC 103
SAN ANTONIO — Victor Wembanyama had 25 points, eight rebounds and five blocks and San Antonio beat Orlando in a game that started five hours late because of the Spurs’ travel woes.
The Spurs were scheduled to leave Charlotte following a 111-106 loss Saturday, but had to stay overnight because of the storm that dropped nearly a foot of snow. The team then had a mechanical issue on its flight.
Devin Vassell added 16 points for San Antonio. Dylan Harper had 15 points, and De’Aaron Fox had 14 points and 10 assists.
Desmond Bane scored 25 points for Orlando, and Paolo Banchero had 19 points and 10 rebounds. Orlando had won two in a row.
The Magic had been in San Antonio since Saturday after a 130-120 home victory over Toronto. The Spurs weren’t so lucky.
CAVALIERS 130, TRAIL BLAZERS 111
PORTLAND, Ore. — Jarrett Allen scored a career-high 40 points and grabbed 17 rebounds as Cleveland handed Portland their fifth straight loss with a victory.
Sam Merrill added 22 points, including six 3-pointers, and the Cavs rebounded from a loss to the Phoenix Suns on Friday night that snapped a five-game winning streak. Allen also contributed five assists and four blocks.
Caleb Love had 21 points for the Blazers, who struggled without top scorer Deni Avdija. He missed the game with a lower back strain.
Portland trailed by 24 but closed the gap in the final quarter, pulling to 106-96 with 7:32 left. The Cavaliers went up 118-104 on Merrill’s 3-pointer with 4:15 remaining, and fans streamed toward the exits.
THUNDER 121, NUGGETS 111
DENVER — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 34 points and Cason Wallace added a career-best 27, including seven 3-pointers, as Oklahoma City beat Denver.
Gilgeous-Alexander had 13 assists and the Thunder, who had lost three of four, sank 19 3-pointers. They went 8 of 13 from long range in the third quarter when Oklahoma City expanded a seven-point halftime cushion to 16.
Peyton Watson’s 29 points paced the Nuggets, who never led in the first of four games this season between the top two teams in the Western Conference. It was their first meeting since the Thunder beat Denver in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals last May on their way to winning the city’s first NBA championship.
The Nuggets’ pair of All-Stars had a rather quiet night.
Nikola Jokic scored 16 points but took only nine shots in his second game back from a knee injury that sidelined him for 16 games. Jamal Murray, who earned his first All-Star berth in his ninth NBA season Sunday, dished out 12 assists but scored just 12 points on 4-of-16 shooting — including 1 for 8 from 3-point range.
