Houston 94, Phoenix 82: Fight! Matt Barnes, seemingly angry that he was getting abused by T-Mac (27 points), took his frustration out on little Rafer Alston. Alston tried to set a screen on Barnes, who just shoved him out of the way. Alston got up in Barnes’s face and as the pile converged, Alston got shoved to the ground. Then Shaq, like the superhero that he is, showed up and dropped everybody.

LA Lakers 93, New Orleans 86: The only unbeaten team left in the league maintained a huge lead until the Hornets made a late run, but this one was never in doubt. Kobe and D Fish split 40; CP3 had 30 points and 13 assists.

Atlanta 102, Boston 103: Tremendous back-and-forth game that ended with a clutch Paul Pierce 20-foot jumper with less than a second left. The Hawks, who suffered their first loss, hit 13 triples (59 percent) and Joe Johnson scored 28. Pierce had 34.

Utah 87, Washington 95: Thanks to 20 from Butler and Jamison in the fourth, there are no more winless teams. Nick Young and Javale McGee were on the court at game’s end, perhaps the sign of things to come.

Portland 104, Miami 96: We had planned to do a lot with Greg Oden re-do on his career debut … but he only played 16 minutes and had a dunk and a block. D Wade was as incredible to watch (36 points) as he was in Beijing, but so was Rudy Fernandez (career-high 25 points).