'Melo finished with 21 points Saturday night - seven below his playoff average - and only seven of those came over the last three quarters of Denver's 103-97 loss to Los Angeles in the Western Conference finals.

"Same shots," Anthony said. "It was just missing."

While his shots wouldn't fall, Kobe Bryant's did. He scored 41 to help the Lakers take a 2-1 lead in the series. LeBron James? Yes, we've all see his Shot - Friday night's game winner for Cleveland - a few hundred times by now.

Anthony seemed to be heading into that rare stratosphere after scoring 34 and 39 points in Denver's split at the Staples Center. He had broken 30 in five straight playoff games, the last two of which led many to believe that a) the Lakers didn't have anyone who could stop him and b) he might single-handedly ruin the Kobe-LeBron dream matchup in the finals.

The Nuggets may still ruin that matchup, but it's more of an uphill climb now, and Saturday's game showed how hard Anthony will have to work to knock out Bryant.

"I don't think you can compare players," Lakers forward Lamar Odom said. "It's not fair. It's not like they're out there playing one-on-one. Carmelo Anthony is one of the best scoring forwards, if not the best scoring forward, in the game today."

But not Saturday night.

Give a big dose of the credit to Trevor Ariza, the Lakers' lanky forward, who draped himself all over Denver's star for most of the last three quarters.

Give some more to the foul trouble Anthony found himself in from the second quarter on.

And give the Lakers credit for keeping the faith - for believing there really might be a solution for Anthony, whether it's them doing the stopping or Anthony simply stopping himself.

"I don't really think they did anything different tonight," he said. "But I missed some easy shots. Open shots. Some of them were tough. Some of them weren't."

Anthony played all 12 minutes in the first quarter, scored 14 points, and looked like he might have 30 by halftime.

Quickly, though, the long-range jumpers that fell so easily in the first two games stopped going in. He finished 1-for-7 from 3-point range. The Nuggets had trouble getting him the ball down low. Frustration - the kind that Anthony and this new, improved Nuggets team thought it had left behind - started setting in on offense.

"Other than physically beating him up better than (they) did first two games, they were more aware of him, there were more times with two people in front of him, more body contact with him," Nuggets coach George Karl said. "They got him off the rhythm of his game in the second half, and we didn't have an offensive leader."

After taking 10 free throws in the first half, Anthony got to the line only four more times in the second. He shot 53 percent from the floor in the first two games against the Lakers but went 4-for-13 in this one.

Fouls were also a killer. Anthony picked up his fourth with 5 minutes left in the third quarter, his fifth with 3 minutes left in the fourth and left the game after the Nuggets botched a late inbounds pass for the second time in three games. Kenyon Martin was trying to get the ball to Anthony, but Ariza stepped in front, made the steal, got fouled and hit two free throws to essentially ice the game.

"It was kind of funny, pretty much the same thing but just different players involved," said Ariza, who also made the steal in Game 1.

In Game 1, though, the Lakers didn't have an answer for Anthony. This time they did.

Lakers coach Phil Jackson said he'd need to look at the game tape to know exactly what changed.

His early guess was that they were picking him up more quickly when Denver went into its offense. Good guess. Melo averaged 25 shots a game in the first two. He barely got half that this time.

"It was getting in front of the picks he was coming off, knowing where he wanted to get the ball," Jackson said. "Some of those things were much better tonight."