NEW ORLEANS — His left elbow digging into his left thigh, and his chin digging into his left knuckles, Chauncey Billups sat like the statue of “The Thinker” in the Nuggets’ locker room, lost in his team’s stinging loss.
“I was just rewinding the last three to four minutes of the game,” Billups said after Denver’s 95-93 defeat in New Orleans on Saturday. “What happened, and what could have happened.”
What happened was the Nuggets made a furious comeback — trailing by eight points with 1:33 left — and what could have happened was a talk-about-it-for-years game-winner by Carmelo Anthony with less than five seconds left.
Now New Orleans trails Denver 2-1 in the best-of- seven series, which resumes here Monday (6:30 p.m. MDT).
Billups said a series doesn’t start until the home team loses, and so far the home team is 3-for-3.
“If we play with the intensity we played with in the fourth quarter in all four quarters, we should be where we want to be at,” Billups said.
Anthony battled through a right-elbow contusion — X-rays were negative, he’s probable for Monday — and he Pied-Pipered the Denver comeback.
After hitting a 3-pointer at the 1:23 mark, and then making a steal with 23.9 seconds left on an out-of-bounds play, Melo again had the ball in his hands with Denver down 94-93 and 17.1 seconds left. Anthony’s initial option was to look for Billups, but Chris Paul and Rasual Butler plugged the passing line.
“So, at that point in time, my thing was just to attack the rim,” said Anthony, who spotted Kenyon Martin open under the basket. But Sean Marks tipped the pass, and for a moment, no one knew where it would go. Anthony scooped up the ball and heaved a turnaround 14-footer that bounced off the rim. James Posey grabbed the rebound and Martin grabbed Posey and threw him to the ground with 3.2 seconds left.
“It looked like (Anthony) rushed it a little bit, but it was a pretty good look,” Denver coach George Karl said.
Posey made his first free throw, missed his second and Melo launched a desperation buzzer-beater from near half court that careened off the left side of the rim.
And so, the Nuggets are answering questions about what went wrong for a team that did so much right in the first two games. After making 12 3-pointers in the first two games, Billups made just three field goals in Game 3, missing seven, and finished with 16 points.
Karl said the Hornets spent more time and more effort defending Billups, and, perhaps more important, kept Billups from drawing fouls in the paint, like he did with ease back at the Pepsi Center.
Anthony finished with 25 points, but the Nuggets didn’t capitalize on the double teams that Melo faced. The double teams were more “alert and aggressive,” Karl said, and the Nuggets didn’t work the ball around the perimeter with the same zip and confidence as they did at home. Karl also said the Nuggets settled for 3-pointers. While they made nine, they missed 12.
As for Paul, he was Paul at his best. The point guard attacked Denver’s mountains in the post without fear, getting to the line (where he was 8-for-9) and making tough shots with tough resolve (11-for-20 from the field). Oh, and he also had 12 assists, twice as many as the top Nugget (Billups).
And just like the games at the Pepsi Center, Game 3 was as heated as a Louisiana summer. Two technical fouls were called and three flagrants were whistled. Anthony even got into a shouting match with hip-hop superstar Lil Wayne, a New Orleans native sitting baseline.
Instead of this series being all but over, the fun has just begun.
Benjamin Hochman: 303-954-1294 or bhochman@denverpost.com
