Defending Champs Fall in Conference Finals Rematch

DENVER -- Final four week turned into a flop of finalists.

Meetings of last season's conference finalists got started Wednesday when Cleveland took a huge lead and clobbered defending East champion Orlando 102-93. An even bigger dismantling occurred Friday night at the Pepsi Center.

The way the Nuggets demolished the Lakers, you'd have thought they tried to smuggle coke into the building.

The Nuggets got some revenge against the defending West and NBA champions 105-79. It wasn't even that close.

"Hopefully, this is a big message, not just to the Lakers but to the whole NBA. We're a legit team,'' said Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony, who scored a game-high 25 points and outscored Lakers star Kobe Bryant 18-0 in the second half (no, that's not a misprint).

The message sent by the Nuggets, who led by as many as 29 points, was as loud as one of those air-raid sirens cities like to blast on the first Tuesday of every month.

The Cavaliers had dispatched a similar such message on Wednesday when they had no trouble taking host Orlando apart.

It must be said the Magic was without star forward Rashard Lewis, serving the ninth game of a 10-game NBA suspension to start the season. But it's doubtful Lewis would have made that much of a difference against a Cleveland team that led by as many as 22 points.

On Friday, the Lakers were without star forward Pau Gasol, who has yet to play this season due to a hamstring problem, and they had played the night before at home against Phoenix. But the absence of Gasol and the heaviness of legs didn't make for a 26-point swing.

"No excuse,'' said Bryant, who finished with 19 points. "They beat the hell out of us. I don't know if we had Pau it would have made any difference. If we hadn't have played back-to-back, it wouldn't have made any difference. They played extremely well.''

It wasn't surprising since the Nuggets have been salivating like Pavlov's dogs for 5 ½ months. That's when the Lakers defeated Denver 4-2 in the West final.

"It sat with me for a long time because I feel that we had a real good chance of beating those guys,'' said Nuggets guard Chauncey Billups. "You don't get those opportunities all the time. We just wanted to try to get back to that spot and try again.''

Denver literally threw two playoff games away against the Lakers thanks to wayward inbound passes. Forward Kenyon Martin said after the series he believed his Nuggets were the better team, and he repeated that throughout the offseason.


With that in mind, one would think Martin would have been gloating more than anyone Friday. But Martin knows the teams have three more regular-season meetings.

"It's just one win, that's all,'' Martin said. "Everybody is making a big deal about it. We needed to get a win after the road trip (that the Nuggets went 3-3 on, closing with an embarrassing loss at Milwaukee).''

Nevertheless, revenge can be powerful motivation. Consider how the Cavaliers steamed about their 4-2 East finals loss to the Magic all summer, and went out and got center Shaquille O'Neal to muscle with Orlando big man Dwight Howard.

However, the Nuggets, confident they had what it takes to battle the Lakers, didn't make any major moves. Well, check that. The draft-day trade that landed rookie point guard Ty Lawson is starting to look pretty major.

Lawson scored 13 points and handed out six assists in 22 minutes Friday. The 5-foot-11 Lawson had the highlight of the night in the second half when he threw down a dunk over Lakers 7-foot center D.J. Mbenga.

"By far,'' Lawson said of it being his best-ever dunk. "I'd dunked over a 6-10 guy before but never a 7-footer.''

Don't expect his Lakers teammates to be getting on Mbenga. Everybody on the team was embarrassed Friday.

Bryant, checked closely by Arron Afflalo, shot 0-of-4 while playing the entire third quarter and didn't play a second in the fourth. The game was over after the Nuggets unbelievably outscored the Lakers 29-8 in the third to break away from a 58-56 halftime lead.

"That was ugly,'' said Lakers center Andrew Bynum. "That was pretty bad basketball on our behalf.''

But Bynum still wasn't impressed enough to dub the Nuggets a rival. Before the game, Lakers coach Phil Jackson had said the same thing.

"I don't feel like it's a rivalry at all,'' Bynum said.

Bryant, though, was saying all the right things. He told the media afterward this series is indeed becoming a rivalry, and he congratulated Anthony on the court for his showing.

Anthony shot 11-of-20 and overcame foul trouble, which limited him to just 12 first-half minutes. The Lakers put defensive specialist Ron Artest on Anthony, who responded with a yawn.

"It's impossible to have a Melo stopper,'' said Anthony, who said before the game no player in the NBA has as much emphasis placed on slowing him down as he does. "That's just my confidence. When I'm out there on the court, you've got to feel like nobody can stop me one-on-one.''

The Lakers in the third quarter would have had a hard time stopping Joel Anthony, let alone Carmelo Anthony. In addition to the Denver star scoring 12 points, Nuggets reserve guard J.R. Smith scored eight of his 20 points.

"(The Lakers) are at the top of the mountain and we have to figure out how to get ready for the opportunity in May or June to try and knock them off the top of the mountain,'' said Nuggets coach George Karl.

Last anybody checked, the NBA wasn't handing out any championships in November. Now, it's time for Magic and Lakers players to start plotting their revenge.

The Lakers play host to Denver on Feb. 5 and Orlando travels to Cleveland on Feb. 11. So once again the NBA will have a final four week.

After what happened the first time around, it will be finalists fight back week.

Chris Tomasson can be reached at tomasson@fanhouse.com and on Twitter @christomasson.