--F Carmelo Anthony is on the biggest scoring roll of his career. Maybe he's had bigger runs during the regular season, but he's done nothing like this on such a big stage.
Anthony scored a game-high 34 points as the Nuggets beat the Lakers 106-103 in Thursday's Game 2 of the West final. Over his last five games, Anthony has averaged 34.8 points. He has exceeded 30 points in all of the games. "I tell everybody scoring is something I always can do," Anthony said. "That's what got me where I'm at now."
And that's what has gotten the Nuggets to where they are now at.
In addition, Anthony also played solid defense Thursday against Lakers star Kobe Bryant. Bryant did score 32 points, but that was eight less than he had in Game 1.
"I'm just trying to make it tough for him, trying to deny him the ball," Anthony said.
--After listening to WWE chairman Vince McMahon criticize the Nuggets and owner Stan Kroenke, the team fired back.
McMahon had been disappointed with the Nuggets for having Game 4 of the NBA West final against the Lakers booked Monday at the Pepsi Center after the arena already had a signed contract to have WWE on display that night.
The WWE eventually moved the event to the Staples Center in Los Angeles. This came after Pepsi Center officials believed they had an agreement for the event to be held Sunday at the Pepsi Center.
"We believed we had in deal in principle with Vince on Tuesday night," said Paul Andrews, executive vice president of Kroenke Sports Enterprises. "I was speaking to him myself. And (then) I see him going on TV announcing he's moving it to the Staples Center. I never received a call from him. Nobody did. We're shocked he moved it to the Staples Center because we believed we had a deal in place."
McMahon had said in an interview that Kroenke should be arrested for impersonating a businessman. Andrews laughed off the criticism.
"In this particular case, the WWE was using sensationalism and propaganda to gain media attention, and that's what they were able to get," Andrews said. "I was talking recently with (Kroenke), and we were laughing at the media manipulation that Vince enjoys. He enjoys sensationalism. It's laughable the statements that he made. So we laughed at it and got a kick out of it. He's very good at propaganda and media manipulation. We laughed."
The WWE also announced it is going back to Denver, but not to the Pepsi Center. The event is scheduled for Aug. 7 at the Denver Coliseum.
QUOTE TO NOTE: "We steal a lot of stuff from each other. I wouldn't say stealing. After practice in the summer, we worked on one-dribble pull-ups and two-dribble pull-ups." -- Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony, on really getting to know Lakers guard Kobe Bryant after the two regularly worked together last summer during the Olympics.
