Celtics 87, Lakers 86

Derek Fisher missed a hurried jump shot from 20 feet as the final buzzer sounded and the Boston Celtics held on to beat the Lakers tonight at Staples Center, ending their four-game winning streak without an injured Kobe Bryant. Fisher scored only three points on 1-for-9 shooting. Pau Gasol led the Lakers with 22 points. Ray Allen had 24 points on 10-for-15 shooting for the Celtics. Rajon Rondo added 14 points, including the go-ahead runner over the outstretched arm of Lamar Odom (13 points and 14 rebounds).

So, what happened on the final play?

"Well, they had a foul to give," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said of the Celtics. "Fish broke off his cut. He was supposed to open the floor up and we were supposed to have an option there. It didn't work. We had another timeout to use in case it didn't work."

The Lakers didn't use that timeout, however.

What's more, they scored only two points after taking an 84-80 lead with 7:14 remaining.

What happened there?

"We had some wide-open shots," Jackson said. "Shannon (Brown) had a couple of wide-open shots. Pau had some opportunities. He opted to pass the second-to-last one. I still haven't looked at that sequence. I have to look at that to understand it."

Gasol had what looked like an open jumper along the baseline, but passed to Brown who failed to handle it cleanly and lost the ball out of bounds with 31.3 seconds left.