He responded with 18 of his 24 points, 12 in the final period when the Heat twice sliced the Knicks' 13-point lead to 2.

But after holding her serve in a marathon game, Williams was broken the next time to slice her lead to 4-3.

That basket sliced the Nets' lead to 106-101.

Yet she still looked like a threat when she sliced Mauresmo's 4-0 lead in the final set to 4-2.

The Hawks came back from a 19-point deficit to slice the Knights' lead to 82-75 with 1 minute 25 seconds left, but got no closer.

The Kings rallied to slice the Lakers' lead to 80-71 by the end of the quarter.

They were on the threshold of second place and had sliced the Cubs' lead over them to four and a half games.

Instead of slicing Villanova's lead to 3 points, Syracuse was stuck at 56-51 with seven minutes to play.

But when the Knicks sliced the 76ers' lead from 19 points to 91-86, he scored his team's next 9 points.

They had just rallied for three runs and sliced the Braves' lead to 5-3.