Carmelo Anthony scored at will in the first two games of the Conference Finals, but the Lakers limited him in their Game 3 victory on Saturday night.

Anthony finished the game with 21 points, with 14 of those coming in the first quarter.

"Other than physically beating him up better than they did in the first two games ... They were more aware of him, two people in front of him, more body contact with him," Nuggets coach George Karl said. "We've had Melo being our horse for about seven straight games now, and tonight he had it going in the first quarter but never really regrouped it."

Anthony shot 4-for-13 from the field, including 1-for-7 from three-point land. He came into the game averaging 36 points per game in the Western Conference Finals.

"A couple of jump shots were contested," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "He had a pretty good first half, but in the second, obviously, he didn't play a lot of minutes because of foul trouble. But I did think our identification was better on when he was going to be coming, the picks he was going to be coming off, where he wants the ball, some of those things."

Anthony didn't give Los Angeles credit for their defense, instead blaming his own shot.

"I missed a couple shots that I was making earlier on in the first two games of this series," Anthony said. "Same shots, it was just missing. They continued doing the same thing they've been doing, shifting the defense all over.

"I don't really think they did anything different tonight. But I missed some easy shots. Open shots. Some of them were tough. Some of them weren't. I'm continuing to take them same shots. It's not something that the Lakers did, or anybody did on the team."

Via Denver Post

Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Lakers

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