Marcus Camby figured his night
was over.Big lead, fourth
quarter, road game in Houston
the next night. Camby was all
set to kick back and watch the
final quarter of the Denver
Nuggets' 110-99 win over the
Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday
night.But when Cleveland
sliced Denver's 25-point lead
to 13 with 7:23 remaining in
the game
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Marcus Camby figured his night
was over.Big lead, fourth
quarter, road game in Houston
the next night. Camby was all
set to kick back and watch the
final quarter of the Denver
Nuggets' 110-99 win over the
Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday
night.But when Cleveland
sliced Denver's 25-point lead
to 13 with 7:23 remaining in
the game, Camby was sent back
in. He scored four of his
season-high 26 points in the
final quarter and grabbed six
of his 17 rebounds.'It's
always in the backs of our
minds about blowing leads,'
Camby said. 'The guys stepped
up down the stretch.'Denver
needed to the way LeBron James
was playing. James finished
with his first triple-double
of the season -- 30 points, 10
assists and 10 rebounds -- and
10th of his career.'We
contained him,' said Allen
Iverson, who finished with 25
points and nine assists.
'That's all you can do with
players like that. You can't
play this game scared.'The
Cavaliers cut Denver's cushion
to 103-98 on Damon Jones'
3-pointer with 3:15 left in
the game. But Denver closed
the game out with a 7-1
run.The struggling Cavaliers
have now lost four of their
last five and dropped into a
first-place tie with
Washington for the best record
in the Eastern
Conference.'We've just got to
regroup,' James said.The
Cavaliers received a scare
when Denver's J.R. Smith fell
on James' right ankle when
both were scrambling for a
loose ball late in the fourth
quarter. James sat out all of
8 seconds before checking back
in.'It's been better,' James
said of the ankle.Carmelo
Anthony said earlier in the
week this was a painful game
to miss. He was looking
forward to going up against
his good friend James. The two
will always be linked as James
went first overall in the 2003
NBA draft and Anthony was
picked third.Anthony said he'd
watch from his living room as
he served his second-to-last
game for the suspension he
received for his role in a
fight with the New York
Knicks. Anthony's 15-game
suspension will be done after
he sits out the game Saturday
night. He'll be back Monday
night as Denver hosts
Memphis.James wasn't the least
bit sorry that Anthony didn't
suit up.'Nah, he ain't my
teammate -- no way,' James
said. 'They already killed us
on the offensive end, it ain't
going to help it. As a
competitor, of course I miss
him, but not on the court.
They definitely are going to
be a dangerous team.'Smith was
suffering from the flu and
missed the Friday morning
shootaround. He didn't come
out onto the court until 6:56
remaining in the first quarter
yet he finished with 14
points, the most he's scored
since coming off his 10-game
suspension earlier this
month.'I feel better,' he
said.The Nuggets were gushing
over Camby's play after the
game.'I've never seen him
score like that,' Smith
said.'He played like an
All-Star center for us,' coach
George Karl said.The Nuggets
have watched third quarter
leads slip away in five home
games this season. But not on
Friday night.'We'll take it,'
Iverson said. 'By 50 points or
a point, we'll take it. If
we'd have lost, it would have
been bad. I like the results
we had.'Cavaliers coach Mike
Brown certainly wasn't
pleased. He was clearly
frustrated after the game.'I
don't know what it is yet, but
I'm definitely going to find
out,' he said. 'We keep
thinking offensively we're
bad, offensively we're bad,
offensively we're bad. Yes, we
will be bad offensively if we
come down and take the first
shot, if we come down and take
a jump shot without moving the
basketball, if we come down
and take a shot after one
pass. That's what we did
tonight. That's the way the
Denver Nuggets play. That's
the way the Seattle
SuperSonics play. That's how
teams out West play. They want
to get out and run the floor
and if we fall into that trap,
we will get beat every single
time on the floor. ... We
don't play a rat race. We
don't play a high-tempo
basketball game.'

Category Sports

Tags allen, iverson, kobe, bryant, lebron, james, dwadne, wade, o'neal, NBA, michael, jordan, garnett, duncan, vince, carter, tracy, mcgrady