INDIANAPOLIS — The expletives bounced off the locker-room walls like Denver’s shots had bounced off the rim.
At halftime Saturday, the Nuggets trailed the Indiana Pacers by 18 points, on the road, in Denver’s fourth game in five days. In the first 12 minutes alone, Denver allowed 46 points, a Pacers NBA franchise record for first-quarter points.
So, Nuggets coach George Karl looked at his weathered team and let them have it.
“Yeah, he cursed us out,” Carmelo Anthony said. “It worked.”
In the second half of Denver’s 113-106 win, the Nuggets epitomized grit. After the verbal berating, Karl and his staff implemented a zone defense, which “caught them off guard,” according to guard Allen Iverson. Indiana scored just 32 points in the second half. And the Nuggets rediscovered their stroke, making nine second-half 3-pointers, burying the Pacers (3-3) at Conseco Fieldhouse.
It was the second-largest second-half comeback in the Nuggets’ NBA history.
“During the season,” Iverson said, “the one thing you want to find out is the type of character you have on your team. … When you believe in the players, believe in the coaching staff, believe in yourself, you just don’t want to settle.”
The victory saved the road trip. Instead of going 1-3 on the trek east, Denver went 2-2 heading into four home games.
Anthony led all scorers with 32 points and Iverson had 27, but Anthony said the game ball should be shared by Yakhouba Diawara, the third-quarter spark plug, and Linas Kleiza, who scored 12 of his season-high 21 in the deciding fourth.
Denver (4-3) trailed by 16 points early in the third when Diawara scored eight consecutive points, including two 3-pointers in a row, to cut the lead to eight with 8:50 left.
Indiana got the lead back to 85-71, but the Nuggets made three straight 3-pointers – from three different players – and the deficit became five with 2:16 left in the quarter.
“We got our confidence back,” Kleiza said.
The previous night at Washington, Denver put the game away in the third. On Saturday in the third, they made it a game.
In the final quarter, Kleiza scored eight straight points. And, by the 7:49 mark, when Iverson splashed a 3-pointer, Denver took a 95-94 lead, its first since 3-2.
Down the stretch, Denver hit its free throws, Indiana didn’t, and Iverson’s 3-pointer with 26.5 seconds left gave Denver a 109-101 cushion.
“It was a game that very easily you could have given to Indiana and gone home,” Karl said. “And we didn’t. There are kind of games you remember in a season. This could be one of those games, if we have a special year, we’ll remember as something that kicked us into the right direction.”
Nuggets Recap
What you might have missed
Nuggets forward Kenyon Martin played a season-high 27 minutes. He scored just two points, but grabbed several tough second-half rebounds, finishing with seven.
Final thought
The fact that lethargic defense got the Nuggets into a 25-point hole to begin with is disconcerting, but their ability to bounce back, in the second back-to-back game in five days, was commendable.
Up next
vs. Cleveland, 7 p.m. Monday
Benjamin Hochman: 303-954-1294 or bhochman@denverpost.com
