I believe it's a hamfisted way 2k tries to emulate real-life basketball's tendency at least in the NBA setting to have things tilt one way and then another in exciting or better matched games. The effect seemed to be less prevalent in 2k11 -- I'd regularly have games where I'd completely obliterate the AI. In 2k12 it seems they wanted to tone that down... but on the negative side, it causes there to be some strangely challenging battles of attrition. For instance I've had games against some really bad teams like the Cavaliers (no offense to any fans) or the T-wolves that just don't play out like they ought to.
2k is just in a weird spot right now I think where they don't know if they want to make their NBA series true simulation, or to let there be an element of "video-gameness" with pre-programmed variables like clutch and momentum...things that are normally decided in sports by emergent teamwork rather than a digital script saying "Ok I did mine now you do yours." which invariably becomes more and more transparent the longer you spend time with the game...to a point where you can basically predict when it's the computer's turn to score 12 uncontested points.
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