DENVER-
Phil Jackson got fined $50,000 for accusing the league of having a vendetta against Kobe Bryant and then lost a seventh straight game for the first time in his 16-year coaching career Thursday night when the Los Angeles Lakers fell to the Denver Nuggets 113-86.
Linas Kleiza scored a career-high 29 points and Carmelo Anthony had 26 as the Nuggets handed the Lakers their 13th loss in 16 games.
Allen Iverson added 14 points and 13 assists and Marcus Camby had 11 points and 14 boards for the Nuggets, who moved into a tie with the Lakers for the sixth spot in the Western Conference playoff race.
Bryant’s 25 points led the free-falling Lakers, who couldn’t capitalize on the return of Luke Walton and Lamar Odom despite building a double-digit lead in a mostly stellar first half.
Anthony scored 10 points in a 24-10 that Denver used to close the third quarter and take an 87-72 lead and turn the game into a blowout. Even the Nuggets, who have lost 10 games in which they led after three quarters, couldn’t blow that big of a lead.
Camby’s alley-oop dunk made it 92-72 and the Nuggets enjoyed a rare blowout at the Pepsi Center, where they are just 18-17.
Earlier in the day, Jackson and the Lakers were fined $50,000 apiece by the NBA after the coach said the league was conducting a “witch hunt” against Bryant.
“I thought you only get fined for criticizing the officiating,” Jackson said before tip-off. “They’re the sacred cows. But I find out somebody else has a sacred cow somewhere else.”
Bryant recently received two one-game suspensions this season for striking players in the face after taking a shot. The league retroactively assessed Bryant with a flagrant foul for an elbow to Philadelphia’s Kyle Korver last week, a play that didn’t even draw a foul.
Bryant picked up three fouls in a 90-second span in the third quarter Thursday night while the Nuggets, who closed the first half on a 13-2 run, were pulling away.
With Brian Cook (ankle) not making the trip, both Walton and Odom returned to the Lakers’ lineup. Odom hadn’t played since tearing the labrum in his left shoulder March 2 and Walton had been sidelined since spraining his right ankle Jan. 26.
They started along with Kwame Brown, who missed 27 games with a sprained ankle before returning March 2. He replaced 19-year-old Andrew Bynum at center.
Nuggets coach George Karl said the Lakers will soon be much more formidable with those two back.
“Their big kids will fit in better and stronger, and their whole bench will be stronger, too,” Karl said. “When you get guys to do too much, that’s where failure happens. When you push role players to be 30-minute players, and 30-minute players to be star players, they fail. Whereas if you slide the guys in who get paid to do that, they start functioning very well. Their team can do that in a very quick amount of time.”
Not fast enough to keep their coach from feeling the sting of a seventh straight loss.
Notes:@ Cook is expected to miss two more games. … Karl on the firing of friend Terry Stotts as Bucks coach: “I don’t think he has done a bad job, he has been dealt bad cards.” … Kleiza, whose previous career best was 24 points set against Sacramento on Sunday, was 5-of-6 from the arc.
