DENVER - Carmelo Anthony scored 25 points, Chauncey Billups had 22 and the Denver Nuggets used their biggest scoring first half of the season to pull away from the short-handed Golden State Warriors for a 135-107 victory Tuesday night.
Nene (18 points) and Chris Andersen (14) were among seven Denver players scoring in double figures, helping the Nuggets finish with a season high for points and rebound emphatically from Sunday's embarrassing loss to Minnesota. The Timberwolves snapped their 15-game losing streak at Denver's expense while putting an end to the Nuggets' 17-game home-winning streak.
It was the 11th win in the Nuggets' last 12 games at the Pepsi Center against the injury-depleted Warriors, who used only eight players in the game. Golden State split back-to-back games that began in Oakland with Monday night's 126-107 win over Indiana.
Anthony Morrow's 27 points led the Warriors. Vladimir Radmanovic added a season-high 17 for the Warriors, who fell to 2-8 on the road.
Up by 14 at halftime, the Nuggets extended their lead to 107-84 by the end of the third quarter, closing the period with a flourish on successive dunks by Andersen. The Warriors didn't get close enough to threaten the rest of the way.
Down by eight after Monta Ellis' three-point play late in the first quarter, the Nuggets gained control with a second-quarter surge that saw them match a season high for points in a quarter (44) and points in the first half (69) en route to a 69-55 lead at halftime.
They used a 10-2 spree capped by Anthony's 18-foot jumper to regain the lead 39-33, and later put together a 12-0 run punctuated by Anthony's three-point play to go up 60-42 with 3:10 left in the second quarter.
On the verge of getting blown out in the first half after Billups hit a 3-pointer that put the Nuggets up 67-45 with 1:36 left in the second, the Warriors closed the period by outscoring the Nuggets 10-2, including successive 3-pointers by Ellis and Stephen Curry to narrow the Nuggets' lead to 14 at the break.
