10 February,2010 02:45 PM IST | | Agencies
The Denver Nuggets celebrated Carmelo Anthony's return from injury Tuesday with their biggest victory of the NBA season, a 127-91 rout of the Dallas Mavericks.
Anthony, the NBA's second-leading scorer, missed eight straight games with a sprained left ankle.
"The good thing is my first game back, I didn't have to do too much," Anthony said. "But the bad thing is, I already had been sitting out for two weeks. I wanted to play (more), but I'll take a 36-point win any day."
Although they welcomed him back, Denver were without Kenyon Martin, who sat out with tendinitis in his left knee.
The 36-point margin of victory surpassed the Nuggets' 28-point victories over Toronto and New Jersey, both in November.
Nene led Denver with 21 points, Chauncey Billups added 16 and Chris Andersen had 14 points and 10 rebounds as the Nuggets downed the team they ousted in the playoffs last season. The Nuggets led by 26 at halftime.
"We didn't expect to beat a good team like that by that amount of points, but we came out and played well from the beginning," Anthony said. "Everybody got involved. Everybody was on the same page. We knew in the back of our mind how important this game was."
Dirk Nowitzki led Dallas with 17 points on 5-of-17 shooting. Jason Terry had 16 points and Josh Howard added 14 for the Mavericks, who arrived in Denver on Tuesday morning after a victory over Golden State in Oakland, California, on Monday night.
"I'm disappointed, but it was a tough turnaround, difficult situation," Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said.
