Carmelo and the Nuggets Shed First Round Monkey

It took a while to finally get here for ‘Melo: “For five seasons, Carmelo Anthony led Denver to the first round, but never got to the second. Before this series began, he said he was on a mission. Mission accomplished after last night. Anthony scored a game-high 34 points and had four steals, and he took over in the second half when Denver pulled away from a 62-62 tie with a 14-0 run, with Melo scoring the final seven points of that stretch. He had 13 points in the third quarter. ‘I’m going to soak this moment up,’ Anthony said. ‘Hard work did pay off for us. But we still have a lot more work to do.'”