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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: NUGGETS v LAKERS

May 19, 2009

Carmelo Anthony

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Game One

Lakers Â– 105
Nuggets - 103

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. You pretty much didn't miss tonight. You had 70 percent from the field, 80 percent from the 3, 87 percent from the line. How were you able to do that?
CARMELO ANTHONY: Just letting the game come to me, take what the defense was giving me. Making shots. The way the Lakers played defense, they tilt the floor to you, bring all five guys over to you. Just be passing the ball trying to get everybody else involved early. Just taking what they was giving me.

Q. Melo, your Olympic teammate Kobe says your game's stepped up since the Olympics. What did you gain from the Olympic experience to help you this season?
CARMELO ANTHONY: Just patience. Just how to have patience out there on the court. This is a team game, not a one-man show. And I think we have proven that this season so far this is a team game.
And over there we were very team oriented. It was all 12 of us, we were one and that's something that I brung back to the Denver Nuggets.

Q. Carmelo, I was impressed on some levels, I don't remember seeing you defend quite so aggressively in the past. You took Kobe, he scored a lot of points tonight. Can you talk about how you've matured and grown as a defender?
CARMELO ANTHONY: We've got a much better defensive team. In my mind I always thought I could play defense. It's just the teams I've been on we wasn't very defensively good.
Now we've got a great defense team this season, and it's showing. Everybody's showing that it is up to individual responsibility to stop their man first but also guard the other guys out there at the whole.

Q. Melo, can you explain the first four games against the Lakers, that was like 14.5 points shot below 40 percent?
CARMELO ANTHONY: I was dabbling with injuries throughout the regular season. I tried not to think about what happened in the regular season. This is a new season. So I'm looking from this game forward. I'm not looking at the past.

Q. Do you feel like this is a game you guys should have won? You came in here jumped out to such a big lead. Missed free throws.
CARMELO ANTHONY: Of course. Of course. I'm sitting up here thinking that we had a lot of chances to win the basketball game. I know a lot of people think it came down to that steal and 30 seconds left. But us missing 12 free throws, 22 to 10 second chance points, that's a lot. You can't win no game like that.

Q. You said you were letting the game come to you tonight and maybe in the regular season you had injuries, but did you change your approach any tonight offensively from maybe what you had done in the previous games this season?
CARMELO ANTHONY: My approach was to just let the game come to me. Not try to go get the game, let it come to me, and that's what was happening tonight. Moving the ball, passing the ball and at the end of the play end up in my hand why I can end up making a play. I think that was the case tonight.

Q. Carmelo, did Kobe play you any differently in the fourth quarter than you've been played all night?
CARMELO ANTHONY: No, I don't think so. I think Phil did that. Phil did a hell of a job switching the matchups up, putting Trevor a bigger body on Chauncey and putting Kobe on me. So I think Phil did a great job at that.

Q. Your thoughts on Kobe? You played against him, played with him, just seeing him take the team on his shoulders in the fourth quarter.
CARMELO ANTHONY: He's tough. Everybody knows what Kobe can do. He's a tough player. He's a great player. In the fourth quarter in the situation where he thrived at. Any great player would love that moment to get the ball in their hands every play down the court and make something happen. If not for him, for his teammates, and that's something that he did tonight.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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