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Nets take down Nuggets

Feb 1, 2011 - 4:44 AM Newark, NJ (Sports Network) - Brook Lopez scored 27 points while Travis Outlaw added 21 to spark New Jersey to a 115-99 victory over Denver at the Prudential Center.

Devin Harris scored nine points and handed out a career-high 18 assists while Kris Humphries provided 15 points and nine rebounds off the bench for the Nets, who halted a two-game slide.

"I'm proud of our guys," said New Jersey head coach Avery Johnson. "This team plays hard and is very coachable. We were playing against a veteran team that is really good offensively and we hung in there and got it done."

Carmelo Anthony poured in a game-high 37 points and pulled down nine boards in his lone trip to Newark less than two weeks after New Jersey owner Mikhail Prokhorov said his team had no further interest in trying to acquire the superstar forward in a trade.

"It was another game," Anthony said about all drama surrounding his appearance against the team that twice thought it was close to trading for him. "I wanted to come out and bounce back from the game last night in Philly. It didn't happen, I couldn't do it. We've lost two in a row and now we have to go home and bounce back again."

Chauncey Billups supplied 19 points and five assists and Nene chipped in with 16 points for the Nuggets, who lost the last two games of their just-concluded five-game road trip.

After trailing by double figures throughout most of the third quarter, two J.R. Smith foul shots trimmed the Nets lead to 82-78 with 53 ticks to go in the period before Anthony Morrow's right corner triple gave the Nets a seven- point edge. Smith then hit a three at the buzzer that was waved off after a review showed the stanza had ended before the shot left his hand.

Denver kept the deficit between four and seven points for most of the first half of the final quarter before the Nets embarked on a decisive 17-3 spurt to increase their lead to 115-96 on a Johan Petro jumper with a minute to go.

The hosts jumped out to a 19-7 lead halfway through the first stanza before Denver ripped off the next nine points. New Jersey grabbed a 31-21 lead after the first quarter behind 13 points from Outlaw.

New Jersey pushed its lead to as many as 18, 55-37, on a Lopez jumper with 3:19 to go in the half and took a 63-50 advantage at the intermission despite 23 points from Anthony.

The Nets connected on 25-of-40 shots from the floor in posting their highest scoring first half of the season.

Game Notes

Lopez drained 11-of-18 from the floor while Outlaw made 8-of-14 shots, including 3-of-7 from beyond the arc...Morrow connected on all six of his shots, including four from downtown, to finish with 18 points...New Jersey made 9-of-15 from long distance...The Nets 63 points were a first half season- high...Anthony hit 12-of-22 from the field and 11-of-13 at the line...Smith ended with 10 points for the Nuggets, who have allowed 100-or-more points in 15 straight road games...Denver is 2-13 when scoring less than 100 points... New York Yankees pitcher C.C. Sabathia was in attendance.