Denver Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony (right) passes the ball in front of New Orleans Hornets forward Peja Stojakovic after a steal in Monday's 121-63 rout of the Hornets in New Orleans.
NEW ORLEANS – George Karl scanned two decades of NBA coaching memories and failed to find an instance when one of his teams played as well, from start to finish, as his Denver Nuggets did in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series against New Orleans.
But then, no one has seen a playoff whipping as bad as the Nuggets put on the Hornets in more than half a century.
Carmelo Anthony scored all of his 26 points in the first three quarters, and Denver thoroughly dismantled New Orleans 121-63 on Monday night to take a commanding 3-1 series lead.
“Every coach talks about playing a playoff game, every possession having value, every possession having intensity to it,” Karl began. “I thought my team, probably in my career, I’ve never seen a team probably do that on every possession – do what they were supposed to do and play the game the right way – as much as they did tonight.”
The New Orleans Arena was mostly empty by the end of the third quarter, when Denver led 89-50 on its way to matching the most lopsided victory in NBA playoff history. The Minneapolis Lakers beat the St. Louis Hawks 133-75 in 1956.
Looking twice as quick as New Orleans on both ends of the court, the Nuggets stifled Hornets All-Star Chris Paul, whose four points and six assists amounted to one of the worst games of his career.
The Nuggets can close out the series at home in Game 5 on Wednesday night. They will if they play as well as they did in Game 4, when they led by 20 early in the second quarter and by a lot more most of the second half.
It was the first time Paul, who did not play in the fourth quarter, scored fewer than 14 points in a playoff game.
“I’m pretty sure Chris Paul is not 100 percent,” Karl said. “He doesn’t have that slippery quickness he usually has.”
Paul, who played 46 minutes and fell hard a few times in the Hornets’ Game 3 win, insisted he was fine.
“Other than that whooping we just took,” he said.
Lakers wrap up series
LOS ANGELES – Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers ran away from the Utah Jazz on Monday night, winning 107-96 to finish the opening-round series in five games.
Bryant scored 31 points and Lamar Odom had 26 points and 15 rebounds for the Lakers, who earned several days of rest before meeting the winner of the Portland-Houston series.
Paul Millsap led Utah with 16 points while Andrei Kirilenko and Deron Williams had 14 apiece.
Pau Gasol had 17 points and 11 rebounds, and Trevor Ariza 12 points for the Lakers.
Hawks tie Heat at 2-2
MIAMI – Zaza Pachulia had 12 points and 18 rebounds, and Atlanta raced out to a huge first-half lead and frustrated Dwyane Wade endlessly in tying its first-round Eastern Conference playoff series against Miami at two games apiece.
Ex-Arizona Wildcat Mike Bibby scored 15 points, Joe Johnson added 14 and Josh Smith 13 for the Hawks.
Wade scored 22 points, doing so on 9-for-26 shooting and wincing at times from a back injury.
It was Atlanta’s first road postseason win in nearly 12 years, a stretch spanning 13 games.
Atlanta Hawks forward Josh Smith (left) tries to block a shot by Miami Heat forward Michael Beasley during Game 4 in the first-round Eastern Conference playoffs in Miami on Monday.