Anthony’s 37 sends Nuggets to sixth straight win

"Melo was 13-of-16 tonight and guys in our league just don’t do that anymore," said Nuggets coach George Karl.

Kenyon Martin added a double-double with 25 points and 12 boards before fouling out for the surging Nuggets, who extended their winning streak to a season-high six games. Earl Boykins chipped in 16 points off the bench in the win.

"I thought this was a mentally tough game and a mentally tough win," Karl said. " We keep improving and keep getting better."

Mike James tallied 22 points for the Raptors, who lost for the fourth time in their past five outings. Jalen Rose added 21 points while Chris Bosh had 18 along with seven boards for Toronto. Rookie Charlie Villanueva had 12 points off the bench in the loss.

"We talked about transition defense before the game," Toronto coach Sam Mitchell said. "If we would have turned our head we could have been hit a few times. It just has to improve."

The Raptors were trying to bounce back from one of the most amazing individual performances in NBA history, when Kobe Bryant dropped an eye-popping 81 points on them in the Lakers’ 122-104 victory on Sunday.

Bryant made 28-of-46 field-goal attempts, including 7-of-13 from beyond-the- arc, and drained 18-of-20 free throw tries to record the second-highest single-game point total the league has ever seen, trailing only Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain’s memorable 100-point outing with the Philadelphia Warriors against the New York Knicks on March 2, 1962.

Without Bryant to worry about the Raptors defense did improve, but still had a lot of trouble getting stops in key situations, especially against Anthony.

Holding onto a precarious one-point advantage in the third quarter, Denver went on a 14-4 run to gain some breathing room. Anthony capped the spurt with a dunk to give the Nuggets a 71-60 edge with under six minutes remaining in the period.

The Raptors showed some mettle, however, and cut Denver’s cushion to just four, 77-73, heading into the final frame.

However, the Nuggets continued to keep Toronto at arm’s length. A Boykins jumper from the right wing gave Denver a double-digit edge, 89-79, with under seven minutes left.

Denver continued to slowly separate themselves. A run-out dunk by Anthony extended the lead to 13, 98-85, with 3:05 left in the game.

Toronto answered with an 8-2 run ending with Rose’s fadeaway jumper that brought the Raptors to within 100-93, but only 1:33 remained.

The Nuggets struggled from the line late but managed to hold on for the win.

The Nuggets held a four-point edge, 26-22, after the first 12 minutes. Toronto fought back to take a slim two-point lead into intermission at 54-52.

James paced the Raptors with 11 points at the half while Anthony had 17 for Denver.

Game Notes

Denver had the edge off the glass, 42-37...Pape Sow had three blocked shots for Toronto...Denver is 15-8 as the host this season and the Nuggets have won four in a row at the Pepsi Center...The Raptors are 8-15 on the road this season...The home team has won eight of the last 10 meetings in this series.