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 3 1/2 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.