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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: NUGGETS v LAKERS

May 25, 2009

Carmelo Anthony

DENVER, COLORADO: Game Four

Denver Â– 120
Los Angeles - 101

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Carmelo, how are you feeling with your sickness and what's worse, your sickness or your ankle?
CARMELO ANTHONY: I think my sickness. But I'll be okay. Caught a little stomach virus right before the game in the locker room, had to get a couple of IVs and I wound up twisting my ankle out there.
Even before me twisting my ankle with the stomach thing, I don't think I had my legs early in the game and felt like I didn't have any energy.
So them IVs was a must. It helped a little bit for the time being. But I'll be good for Wednesday.

Q. Melo, was there a moment before the game that you thought you might not be able to play?
CARMELO ANTHONY: No, no, no, never that. Never that. No, never that.

Q. And do you know what caused the stomach issues?
CARMELO ANTHONY: Not at all. Not at all. I stuck to my regular routine today. When I left my house I was fine, it's just when I got here to the gym for some reason my stomach started hurting.

Q. We talked all playoffs what your bench has been to this team. With you feeling the way you were tonight, were they even more important?
CARMELO ANTHONY: Yeah, it was important for everybody to step up. We had a bunch of guys step up today. I know in the past two, three games our bench hasn't been as productive as they was throughout the season, throughout the playoffs. But tonight all of them stepped up.
J.R. stepped up tonight big. Linas Kleiza came, hit some big shots. And Birdman, he was phenomenal out there.

Q. Melo, how much more satisfying is it that your team won after you went through what you had to and battled through the illness and the ankle?
CARMELO ANTHONY: It's satisfying. It's very satisfying to win a game knowing I wasn't 100 percent out there tonight. But most importantly I was able to be there for my team. My presence alone was big for our team in these wins.

Q. Carmelo, what do you have to do better in LA to take care of business?
CARMELO ANTHONY: We just have to match their intensity. As the series progresses and goes on, we know everything they're going to do. They know everything we're going to do.
We know Kobe, what he gotta do. We just gotta match their intensity. The little things help us win the game tonight. Rebounding, loose balls, diving on the floor. So we just gotta do the same thing on the road.

Q. Melo, this game, this performance as a team effort, does it kind of exemplify the group of just kind of scrappers? Seems like everyone on the roster has gone through adversity in their careers, ups and downs.
CARMELO ANTHONY: Right now it's fun times for us. I don't think it's any adversity with the this team right now. We're playing basketball, we're playing good basketball, we're winning games, we lost games. But we overcame a lot of stuff.
We lost Game 3 here on our home court. We came back tonight and did what we had to do. And so Game 5 will be even harder than tonight's game.

Q. Carmelo, Chauncey was talking about as much as everyone talks about what he's done for this team he feels like you young guys have done a lot to rejuvenate him a little bit in his career. Has he expressed that to you at any point in the year that he felt that way?
CARMELO ANTHONY: No, not really. He probably told you guys that. I know we make him feel young again. I know that (laughter). Just the way we play, for him to come in and take that role and put the ball in his hands, sometimes he play like that.
Sometimes he pull me aside and say, We gotta slow down; I can't keep up with you guys, man. But that's a good thing. When A.C. come in the game, the pace is up-tempo. When Chauncey's in the game, we execute and do what we gotta do. He's enjoying it.

Q. Despite what it might seem looking from the outside in, what people want from the NBA Finals, do you guys feel like the better team in this series?
CARMELO ANTHONY: Yeah, I mean, we feel like we're one of the better teams. I don't want to say we feel we're better than the Lakers. We've got to prove that. I can sit here and tell you that all night. But we have to prove that. We haven't proved that yet until this series is over.

Q. Melo, you spent a lot of time with Kobe, and you've checked him some in this series. Talk about the challenge Dahntay has taken on. Is it a good thing to irritate Kobe or not?
CARMELO ANTHONY: I don't see why not (laughter). He's another basketball player. We are competing against him. Dahntay is Dahntay. That's what he's been doing. That's why he's in the starting lineup. That's why we've got him. He's here to do that type of stuff.
If Kobe get mad, he get mad. We know what Kobe's going to do. We can't overreact to Kobe making shots. We know he's going to make tough shots. That's just the great player that they are. Gotta continue to defend him like we've been doing.

Q. Melo, how important is this next game going to be?
CARMELO ANTHONY: It's very important. We went out there and won Game 2. Should have won Game 1, but that's neither here or there. We won Game 2 our confidence is sky high on the road. We feel that we can go in and get Game 5. But we play the way we know how to play.

Q. From a chippiness standpoint, though, are you expecting the next few games to be even more than what it was tonight?
CARMELO ANTHONY: Yeah, because the window of opportunity is closing. It's getting smaller and smaller, for both teams. So it's going to be chippy out there. There's going to be times when we have to step back and keep our composure and times when they have to do the same thing. We've just got to be prepared for that.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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