Oakland, Calif. – The race for the Western Conference’s final three playoff spots could remain a mystery down to the final days of the season because none of the contenders are pulling away.
The Nuggets are in a fight for those spots with the Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers, Sacramento, New Orleans-Oklahoma City and Golden State. Despite being in the seventh position now, the Carmelo Anthony-less Nuggets didn’t help themselves Wednesday night with a 110-96 loss to Golden State at a sold-out Oracle Arena. Nuggets guard Allen Iverson scored a game-high 35 points on 12-of-25 shooting.
“We’re still in the hunt,” Golden State coach Don Nelson said. “I guess everybody is. Whoever goes on a spurt is going to get that spot.”
Anthony missed Wednesday’s game because of the birth of his son. The Nuggets are 7-9 this season in games Anthony has not played.
“When you have 30 points missing like tonight, everybody has a little bit more stress and a little bit more responsibility, and we came up short there in the second half,” Nuggets coach George Karl said.
Surprisingly starting in Anthony’s spot was guard DerMarr Johnson, who entered the game averaging 3.5 points in 30 games and made his sixth start of the season. He finished with 15 points on 6-of-16 shooting.
Nuggets guard J.R. Smith, who averages 15 points, missed his 16th game of the season because of concerns about his left knee. He is expected to play Friday against Detroit.
Iverson scored 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting in the first quarter, but Denver trailed 31-28 going into the second.
The Nuggets were up by as many as 12 points in the second quarter. But Golden State stormed back and took a 59-58 halftime lead after Baron Davis made three free throws after being fouled by Johnson while shooting a 3-pointer with 0.6 of a second left.
The Nuggets were outscored 22-11 in the third quarter after shooting 17.4 percent (4-of-23) from the field and missing 1-of-7 3-pointers. Denver’s 11-point third quarter was just one point shy of tying a season-low for a quarter; it scored 10 at San Antonio in the third quarter Feb. 20.
“Just offensively I thought we were poor in the third quarter,” Karl said. “We didn’t make shots.”
The lackluster performance on offense had Karl questioning how his team responded and suggested that a little teamwork could help.
“When we lose our confidence it gets frustrating. We gotta trust in each other a little more,” Karl said. “Tonight we didn’t do that very well.”
The Nuggets couldn’t recover against the Warriors, who are among the many threats still at the bottom of the West.
“I don’t know that they’re a team that I want to try to outshoot very often,” Karl said of the Warriors. “They can really shoot the ball and we gave them their strength way too often, giving them 3s, which they like to shoot.
“We didn’t cover that very well all night long.”
Staff writer Marc J. Spears can be reached at 303-954-1098 or mspears@denverpost.com.
