Nugs nail Mavs, 127-91 Daniel Williams, DDN Staff Writer Wednesday, February 10, 2010
NENE TO THE HOOP — Nene, right, of the Denver Nuggets goes in for a layup against Dallas Mavericks guard Jason Kidd during the second quarter at the Pepsi Center yesterday evening. Denver Daily News photo by Hector Acevedo.

Even though the Denver Nuggets are quite banged up and without their defensive leader in Kenyon Martin, it didn’t matter. 

Because Carmelo Anthony was finally back last night and he fueled the white hot Nuggets to a 127-91 victory over the Dallas Mavericks yesterday at the Pepsi Center.

“I almost ran out of suits to wear on the bench,” Melo joked postgame. “I am just glad to be back.”

And even though the Nuggets were surging without Melo, he worked himself back onto the court without disruption, and his six assists helped his teammates have huge scoring efforts.

Seven different Nuggets had at least 12 points, and 11 different players all scored for Denver Ń on an evening where the club shot 60 percent as a team. On the flip side, the Mavericks’ top scorer, Dirk Nowitzki, a well-known Nuggets killer, was held to only 17 points on the night to lead his team, which was down 26 points at halftime.

Nene shined with 21 points and eight rebounds, and Chauncey Billups added 16 and six assists. Chris “Birdman” Andersen had 14 points and 10 rebounds. 

Martin sat out because of because of tendinitis in his left knee and is day-to-day. But the rarely used Malik Allen played well in his place.

Also on hand last night at the Pepsi Center was John Elway, who watched the game from a courtside seat.

But most importantly Melo looked sharp in his first action since injuring his left ankle on Jan. 23. He missed the last eight games with a sprained left ankle suffered against New Orleans and Denver went 5-3 in his absence.

The 34-17 Nuggets, which sit comfortably in second place in the West, have today off before hosting the San Antonio Spurs tomorrow night at 8:30 at the Pepsi Center.

Add a new comment... Spammers: links do not work and our site gets monitored for spam daily and your comments will be removed -- please do not spam our site!

Your Name:

Your Email:

Title:

Comments:

Please copy the characters from this image into the box below. All characters are either numbers 1-9 (not zero) or letters (upper and lowercase). If you cannot read this image, you can click it to try a different image (most browsers). Otherwise, submit the page anyway and try again.

Image Text: