It was a perfect exclamation point for a 119-108 win that, frankly, wasn't that close for most of Monday night — an active, springy, endlessly energetic member of the Denver Nuggets leaping up and over a tired, lethargic-looking member of the Los Angeles Lakers to provide a spectacular at-the-rim finish to a play set up by quick, decisive actions and passes, and, as Benjamin Hochman of the Denver Post wrote, boundless confidence: Andre Iguodala didn't even look. He just knew, because, darn it, it was that kind of night. With his back to the basket near the paint, he received a pass and, like a hockey one-timer, flung the thing toward the basket. So what if Dwight Howard was there? Kenneth Faried soared above the 7-footer and unleashed a slam, a sixth-sense assist for Iguodala. "Andre just had belief in me and I was like, 'You know what? I'm just going to throw it,'" Faried said. "And Dwight did get a hand on it. I was kind of nervous, but I was able to secure it with two hands and just finish it." It was no surprise, too, that Faried was the beneficiary and Howard the victim; the sophomore power forward's perpetual motion can be, and has been, an absolute nightmare for the bigger and — whether due to injury, fatigue, lack of engagement or all of the above — step-or-two-slower Howard. That was the case back in December, when L.A. entered Denver's thin air on the second night of a back-to-back, the Nuggets beat the Lakers by 12 , and Howard took out his frustration by laying a third-quarter flagrant foul on Faried that led to an ejection and a $35,000 fine . After that game, Faried told Kevin Ding of the Orange County Register that Howard lashed out because "he was just mad [...] I was getting in his head, and he couldn't get the rebound. He wanted to, but I kept getting every rebound. It's not like I said anything or talked to him." Well, their last interaction on Monday — capping a 12-point, 10-rebound, three-block, two-steal night for "The Manimal" — spoke pretty loudly for itself.
More...
More...