Steve Nash and Gilbert Arenas had the big finishes. For the Miami Heat, it was more misery right from the start.

Back home in Canada, Nash showed why he could be in the running for a third straight MVP award. He shook off a poor first three quarters to score eight of the Suns' final nine points in a 100-98 victory over the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday night.

Nash scored 13 of his 15 points in the fourth quarter and also had nine assists.

"He is the MVP, he does it all the time," Phoenix coach Mike D'Antoni said.

Arenas is reaching that level. The NBA's player of the month for December opened the new month by making a long 3-pointer at the buzzer, giving Washington a 108-105 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks.

Arenas' 32-footer ¡ª he turned and walked away after the shot, knowing it was good ¡ª gave him 32 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists.

"I don't know why this is a surprise to you guys now," he said.

Nash is looking like a much safer bet to repeat than Miami.

On a day when coach Pat Riley deactivated two forwards whose body-fat readings aren't within team parameters, then began an indefinite leave of absence because of knee and hip problems, the defending NBA champions continued their free-fall with a 110-95 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers.

In their first game under interim coach Ron Rothstein, the Heat (13-18) dropped their fourth straight and fell five games below .500 for the first time this season.

"It felt terrible out there," Heat center Michael Doleac said. "I got negative. I got down. And that's not right. You've got to fight that and stay positive as best you can and do whatever you can to win. Ridiculous. We're playing basketball. It's supposed to be fun, but the air around us is bad right now."

In other games, it was: Cleveland 107, Boston 104; Memphis 144, Golden State 135; Minnesota 103, San Antonio 101 in overtime; Houston 103, Seattle 96; Utah 98, Philadelphia 87; and New York 99, Portland 81.

In Miami, many of the Heat's important players were unavailable. Superstars Shaquille O'Neal and Dwyane Wade are injured, and forwards Antoine Walker and James Posey were deactivated over their failure to meet team body-fat standards.

Miami then went out and looked helpless, allowing Los Angeles to shoot 61 percent from the field. Elton Brand scored 28 points and Chris Kaman added 20.

"It wasn't a very good effort on our part," Rothstein said. "We can do better than that and we need to do better than that. We'll work hard to do better than that. That's not acceptable. Take nothing away from the Clippers, but you just can't let people shoot in your face all night."