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NBA: Nuggets win on dubious three

Ronald Murray, bottom left, and teammate Zaza Pachulia of the Atlanta Hawks wait for a rebound with Joe Smith, center right, and Anderson Varejao of the Cleveland Cavaliers during the second half of Game Three of their Eastern Conference semi-final playoff series in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday.

Carmelo Anthony sank a controversial 3-pointer with one second remaining to give the Denver Nuggets a 106-105 victory over Dallas on Saturday in the National Basketball Associaion playoffs.

Shaking off what appeared to be a foul by Dallas’ Antoine Wright that went uncalled, Anthony drained an off-balance shot from beyond the arc to give the Nuggets a 3-0 lead over the Mavericks in the best-of-seven second-round series.

“That’s why he’s one of the greatest players in the world. He made a great shot,” Denver’s Chauncey Billups said.

The Nuggets, led by 32 points from Billups and 31 from Anthony, could complete a Western Conference sweep by taking Game Four today at Dallas, where the Mavericks have lost only twice in two months, both times to Denver.

On the deciding sequence, Anthony moved to his right and appeared to be pushed by Wright, but no foul was whistled on the play.

The Mavericks, who had two fouls to make before the Nuggets would have been able to start shooting free throws, wanted to make the foul after Denver was in their play to eat time off the clock while denying the Nuggets a shot.

Instead, Dallas was undone when no foul was called and Anthony hit the shot.

“I knew they had a foul to give,” Billups said. “We set up an isolation play. [It was] just us staying with it. We knew the game was going to the fourth quarter. We kept our focus defensively and came up with a great win.”

Wright said he couldn’t have done more to provoke the foul call.

“What do you want me to do ... take him out and then I get a flagrant two late in the game?” Wright said. “I made a play on the ball like I was told in the huddle and the call wasn’t made.”

Joel Litvin, NBA president of League and Basketball Operations, issued a statement after the game saying officials got it wrong.

Litvin said: “At the end of the Dallas-Denver game this evening, the officials missed an intentional foul committed by Antoine Wright on Carmelo Anthony, just prior to Anthony’s three-point basket.”

But Dallas guard Jason Kidd said the blown call was not the ultimate reason for the defeat.

“The game didn’t come down to that last play,” Kidd said. “You’ve got to make plays down the stretch, and we just didn’t do that.”



■WESTERN CONFERENCE

AFP, ATLANTA, GEORGIA

Most Valuable Player LeBron James scored 47 points to put Cleveland on the verge of their second sweep of the playoffs on Saturday with a 97-82 victory over Atlanta.

The triumph gave the Cavaliers a commanding 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference semi-final series, which Cleveland reached with a four-game sweep of Detroit.

James improved on his previous high of 38 points in this postseason and was just one shy of his career playoff best of 48.

“The second half, we basically put the ball in LeBron’s hands,” Cleveland coach Mike Brown said. “He took the ball and put it in his hands, and he said he was going to score for us.”

“I said, ‘OK,’” Brown said. “I told everybody else, ‘Let’s defend.’”

The Hawks, routed in the first two games in Cleveland, battled hard but didn’t have enough to prevent the Cavs from notching their record-setting seventh straight double-digit playoff victory.

They had matched the record of six established by Indiana in 2004.

Atlanta trailed by just one point at halftime, and engineered a 13-0 scoring run in the third quarter that saw them take the lead.

They were hurt, however, by the ejection of Zaza Pachulia, for arguing a foul call.

“I thought it was an offensive foul,” Pachulia said. “Maybe I overreacted.”

Of course they were also hurt by James, whose running basket at the end of the third gave Cleveland a 72-65 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

In addition to his scoring, James handed out eight assists and had a game-high 12 rebounds.
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