NBA Game Summary - San Antonio at Denver

03.23.2006

Denver, CO (Basketball News) - Carmelo Anthony scored a game-high 32 points, as the Denver Nuggets downed the San Antonio Spurs, 104-92, at the Pepsi Center.

Ruben Patterson sprang for 17 points, Andre Miller donated 15 points and dished out seven assists and Greg Buckner netted 13 points for Denver, which has won two straight and four of its last five games.

Marcus Camby tallied nine points and pulled down 21 rebounds in the victory. Denver outrebounded San Antonio, 58-27, including 16 offensive boards.

Manu Ginobili tallied 26 points and Tim Duncan donated 22 points for San Antonio, which had its five-game winning streak halted. Tony Parker contributed 14 points and Michael Finley netted 11 in the loss.

"I thought the Nuggets competed for 48 minutes. We made too many mistakes, turnovers and missed shots," Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich said.

The Nuggets jumped out to a double-digit lead during the second stanza. A 16-6 burst near the end of the period gave Denver some breathing room. Miller tallied five of the points, including an old-fashion three-point play, then the point guard threw a beautiful lob pass to Kenyon Martin, who converted a highlight reel slam dunk.

Anthony’s jumper, off another Miller assist, opened a 51-34 lead with 2:35 to play in the half. The Nuggets held a 55-41 lead at the break.

San Antonio showed why it is a championship-caliber club during the third stanza, reeling off 11 straight points to get back within one. Ginobili started the stretch with a trey and also drained a free throw after Buckner was whistled for a technical foul.

Parker then made a layup and drained a long-distance jumper and Duncan’s short turnaround jumper made the score 63-62 with 5:44 left in the period. The Nuggets maintained that one-point edge, 72-71, heading into the fourth.

San Antonio remained close during the early part of the quarter, but after Parker made 1-of-2 from the stripe to cut the deficit to 89-86, Anthony buried a jumper and Buckner converted a layup to push the lead to seven.

Duncan made 1-of-2 from the foul line to make the score 93-87, but Denver scored the next five points capped by Patterson’s layup to increase the lead to 98-87 with 2:12 left.

The Nuggets held on for the victory from there.

"I think we did a good of controlling Parker," Denver head coach George Karl said. "For most of the game our defense was good."

Denver improved to 22-12 at home...San Antonio dropped to 23-11 on the road...The Spurs made only 41.6 percent of their shots while the Nuggets shot 47 percent from the floor...Denver made 22-of-29 from the charity stripe...Martin had six points and three boards in the victory.

Post your comment:

No profanity or inaproppriate remarks. All i.p. addresses will be saved and abuse/hate posts will be reported to providers and authorities as part of the anti-spam act of 2003, thank you for posting comments on the articles only.