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Anthony, Iverson overshadow James as Nuggets top Cavaliers

Mar 26, 2007 - 4:21 AM CLEVELAND (Ticker) -- Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson trumped LeBron James to bounce back from a disappointing performance.

Anthony scored 27 points and Iverson added 18 and 12 assists as the Denver Nuggets snapped a two-game skid with a 105-93 victory over James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Nene collected 21 points and nine rebounds for the Nuggets, who had reeled off a five-game winning streak before dropping back-to-back road contests against Chicago and Toronto this week.

"We, as men, have a lot of pride in our basketball, and to get beat like that the way we did (at Toronto), we wanted to come in and prove to ourselves that that was out of our system and leave that game in Toronto," Iverson said.

Denver's All-Star duo of Anthony and Iverson combined to shoot just 6-of-27 from the field in Friday's loss to the Raptors. Anthony, the league's second-leading scorer at 29.3 points per game entering Sunday's contest, managed a season-low 10 points.

Anthony and Iverson turned things around Sunday, combining to shoot 19-of-32 from the floor. Anthony teamed with J.R. Smith down the stretch to score 16 points in a decisive 22-10 run over the final nine minutes.

"The more games we play, the better our chemistry is going to get, the better we start to get to know each other on the court," Anthony said. "It just took some games."

Overmatched by the Nuggets' onslaught, James scored just 18 points on 8-of-19 shooting. James was guarded by good friend - and fellow Team USA star - Anthony, who held the superstar swingman scoreless in the final period.

"My emphasis the whole night was, 'We're better offensively than they are, if we keep control of LeBron,'" Nuggets coach George Karl said. "And most of the night, we kept control of LeBron. I think conceptually and physically, (Anthony) did a good job (defending James)."

James admitted that his squad got sucked into Denver's style of play.

"They came into our building and scored 32 fast-break points," James said. "It seems like when we play these types of teams - Phoenix, Dallas to a certain degree, Washington, (Denver) - they want to open it up and get into a transition game. We kind of do the same, and we run out of gas because we don't play that style of basketball."

Zydrunas Ilgauskas had 18 points and nine rebounds and Drew Gooden collected 12 points and 10 boards for the Cavaliers (42-27), who are two games behind Detroit (44-25) for first place in the Central Division and the top spot in the Eastern Conference.

"We have a five-game road trip, so we're going to need to figure this out quickly because it's definitely getting close to playoff time," James said. "They have a lot of guys that can dribble penetrate, and we weren't able to stop them."