NEW ORLEANS – Kobe Bryant scored 29 points, making him the fifth player in NBA history to score 30,000, and the Los Angeles Lakers snapped a two-game skid with a 103-87 victory over the New Orleans Hornets on Wednesday night.

Bryant entered the game needing only 13 points to eclipse the scoring milestone and did so with a short jumper late in the first half that was perhaps the least spectacular of his baskets, which included the usual array of soaring dunks, demoralizing transition 3-pointers and turnaround, off-balance jumpers.

Knicks 100, Bobcats 98: At Charlotte, N.C., with Carmelo Anthony nursing a lacerated finger, New York turned to J.R. Smith for the last shot, and he delivered. Smith hit a fallaway jumper from the left wing as time expired to give the Knicks a victory over Charlotte.