The Los Angeles Lakers were riding a five-game winning streak coming into Wednesday’s matchup against the Denver Nuggets at the Pepsi Center. Even though the Lakers appeared to be coming together with two solid wins over the Golden State Warriors and New York Knicks in Steve Nash’s return, Dwight Howard and company took a backseat defensively against the Nuggets giving up 126 points in the loss.
Denver came out firing from distance hitting 12 three-pointers with Corey Brewer leading the way off the bench for the Nuggets with a team-high 27 points and 18 of those points from beyond the arc.
The Lakers began to chip away at the Nuggets’ lead in the second half, but the moment they began to build some momentum, Howard was ejected from the game with 5:02 left in the third quarter for a hard foul on Kenneth Faried. The refs charged Howard with flagrant foul 2 resulting in the ejection.
Before his ejection, Howard scored 12 points while hitting 4-9 from the charity stripe and ripped down seven rebounds.
Howard’s ejection for the flagrant foul 2 committed on Faried may result in a suspension by the league. The foul didn’t appear to be overly violent or something that would permit the NBA to pursue further disciplinary action, but league officials may see it differently and penalize Howard with a one-game suspension.
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