NEW YORK — With occasional passing and defensive intensity, the Nuggets were haunted Tuesday by the ghost of Allen Iverson past. And, like the days with A.I., the Nuggets let a winnable game slip through their fingers, this time to the Knicks 109-104 at Madison Square Garden.
It was weird because Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups had monster scoring nights — Melo finished with a game-high 36 points; Billups, Mr. Big Shot, had 25, including 21 in the first half. But the Nuggets finished with just 15 assists — after tallying only 13 in the previous game, the similarly befuddling loss to the fatigued Bucks. And so, with the Mavericks looming, the Nuggets losing to the ready-to-rebuild Knicks was a tough one to swallow.
Anthony got into a heated trash-talking match with the Knicks’ Danilo Gallinari, who scored a team-high 28 points, including five 3-pointers.
Denver’s J.R. Smith hit a couple of big 3s, but he missed a boatload. For the night, the New Jersey native was 4-for-16 from the field (including 2-for-9 on 3-pointers).
As for the Nuggets, this one hurt on numerous fronts. A big one was because this was the first game of a five-game road trip, which includes a back-to-back set tonight at talented Boston, then a game at stingy Toronto, then an oh-my-goodness back-to-back set at Orlando and Dallas, the latter arguably the biggest game of the season.
