Butler scores 27 points, Clippers overcome Anthony’s strong start to beat Nuggets

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Butler leads Clips to 106-99 win over Nuggets

LOS ANGELES — Reserve forward Rasual Butler scored 27 points, Al Thornton added 18 and the Los Angeles Clippers withstood an early scoring spree from Carmelo Anthony to beat the Denver Nuggets 106-99 on Friday night.

Chris Kaman had 13 points, seven rebounds and six assists for the Clippers.

The Nuggets, coming off one-sided victories over the Lakers and Toronto Raptors, lost to the Clippers for the first time since Nov. 11, 2007. They had won the previous seven meetings, including a four-game sweep last season. Anthony led Denver with 37 points and Nene had 18 points and 12 rebounds.

The Clippers, who set an ignominious franchise record last Friday by blowing a 22-point lead in a home loss to Toronto, led Denver by 19 with 3½ minutes left in the third quarter. The Nuggets opened the fourth with a 19-4 run that narrowed the gap to 92-90 with 6:10 to play and gave the crowd of 18,155 a sense of impending doom.

The Clippers missed six of seven shots during Denver’s rally, but grabbed the momentum back with 3-pointers by Butler and Baron Davis 32 seconds apart to take a 98-90 edge with 5:18 left. The Nuggets got as close as 104-99 on a 3-pointer by J.R. Smith with 1:09 left.

Anthony, who scored 17 points in the opening quarter, made his first six shots before Kaman blocked his attempted layup with 8.9 seconds left in the period. The rejection led to a 3-pointer by Butler at the other end with less than a second on the clock, slicing Denver’s lead to 26-21.

The Clippers took the lead for good at 28-26 on a layup by Sebastian Telfair with 9:50 left in the second quarter. Davis, who missed his first four shots, ended the drought on a 3-pointer with 1:20 left in the first half to increase Los Angeles’ margin to 53-42. Butler followed with a three-point play 28 seconds later to cap a 7-0 spurt.

NOTES: Clippers longtime play-by-play announcer Ralph Lawler and color analyst Michael Smith did not work Friday’s broadcast, after the Fox Sports Prime Ticket cable network suspended them for one game because of some off-the-cuff comments they made during Wednesday night’s telecast from Memphis about Iranian-born Grizzlies center Hamed Haddadi. The on-air banter offended one viewer who e-mailed Fox to complain. Michael Eaves and former NBA and UCLA player Don MacLean, who regularly serve as halftime and postgame analysts on the Clippers telecasts, substituted for Lawler and Smith at courtside. … Davis recorded his 5,000th regular-season assist in the NBA when he set up Kaman’s 15-foot jumper with 3:19 left in the first quarter. … Anthony has scored at least 30 points in eight of his first 12 games. He and Miami’s Dwyane Wade are the only players in the league who have had 20 or more in all of their teams’ games so far. … Denver coach George Karl got a technical foul from referee Marc Davis with 4:40 left in the third quarter after Anthony was called for a foul on Al Thornton with the Nuggets trailing 75-60.