Anthony leads Nuggets to 128-112 victory in China Games
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Carmelo Anthony scored 45 points to lead the Denver Nuggets to a 128-112 victory over the Indiana Pacers in Sunday's second meeting of the 2009 NBA China Games in Beijing.
Anthony was 14-out-of-19 in the field and missed once in 17 free-throws in 24.29 minutes before he was took off midway in the third quarter for the rest of the game.
The NBA oversea game was supposed to be a star show, but Sunday's game witnessed seven technical fouls and Pacers' forward Danny Granger was ejected for a pair of technicals only 4:12 minutes into the second quarter.
After losing the first of the two-stop China tour 126-104 on Thursday at Chinese Taipei, the Nuggets showed their eager for the revenge as they kept most of the starters in the game until leading as many as 23 points in the third quarter.
Anthony had 19 points in the second quarter and 17 in the third. He grabbed nine rebounds as well.
"I felt good. After losing the first game in Taiwan, we wanted to win today. We kind of redeemed ourselves. In the game in Taiwan we're not really ourselves. Today we came all out in the way we know how to play," Anthony said.
"Not many coaches had the previlige having such a great player as Carmelo who can take the control of the game. We had better control of the game today. After the loss in Taiwan we played more unselfish and tough-minded," Nuggets' coach George Carl said.
The Nuggets stepped onto the line for 55 times and scored 43 points on free-throws, while the Pacers were 27-out-of-36 on the line.
"The exhibition season is alway difficult to be called. The teams are not ready, but I think today's referees were Okey. They're gonna to get better and we'll get better too," Carl said.
"We fouled and they called," said Pacers' coach Jim O'Brien on the referees. "Losing an All-Star player always has impact on the court. We didn't stay focus throughout the 48 minutes. So losing Danny had no major impact to us."
Roy Hibbert of the Pacers continued his good start of his second season in the NBA as he had 21 points and nine rebounds.
"In the second half i didn't dominate in the court as I did in the first half. I still need to improve," Hibbert said.
Nene had 21 points and Kenyon Martin added 12 for the Nuggets.
