Iverson looking for a different game plan

DENVER -- They had to have done something different . . . right?

A Lakers tweak here or there, maybe? Some new defensive alignment that escaped a film session? Something new that held the offensively potent, but defensively challenged Nuggets in tow throughout Saturday?

Nope, says Allen Iverson.

His Nuggets scored only 84 points in Game 3, and they scored lower only twice during the regular season.

Yet, Iverson said, it was what the Nuggets did not do versus what the Lakers did that affected the outcome.

“They were getting things they wanted offensively and stopping us on defense,” he said. “We did nothing to change. We kept doing the same thing.”

Carmelo Anthony tossed up errant shot after errant shot. And Iverson slumped through his worst playoff performance since May 14, 2003 when he went five for 25 against the Detroit Pistons while still with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Thirteen playoff games had come and gone for Iverson until Saturday, when he ended with only 15 points and missed 11 of his 16 shots.

“When we play the next game, we won’t give up,” he said. “I’ve been in this league 12 years and I’ve never given up. Not in one game.”

That may, however, be all Denver has left in its season.

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When hard-nosed meets gritty, the results are often not too pretty.

That’s what happened in the second quarter when Nuggets forward Eduardo Najera, a floor-burn type of player, received a flagrant foul for contact with Sasha Vujacic.

The outcome left Najera disturbed.

“I did hit him, but he knows what he was doing,” he said. “He was holding me, grabbing my arm. They are trying to say I was the dirty one, but at the same time, he was being pretty dirty himself. When I hit him, he flopped more than I actually hit him and, being a little guy, he stayed on the ground and all that stuff and that’s why they called the flagrant foul.

“Nobody likes that. He’s trying to play that fake type of defense when he grabs and holds and then when you retaliate, he flops. That shows his game, but he got the call.”

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Saturday marked the fifth playoff game hosted by the Nuggets the past three seasons.

But it was the first played by Kenyon Martin, despite his being a member of the team.

Martin was suspended for the final three games of the 2006 playoffs and injured during last season’s.

He started strong, scoring eight points in the first quarter with an impressive dunk opening the game’s scoring. Then he tapered off, along with his team, and ended the game with 12 points.

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Nuggets forward Linas Kleiza logged 30 minutes despite sustaining a hyper-extended elbow in Game 2. He had 15 points, and he and Martin were the only Nuggets starters to make half their shots.

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jonathan.abrams@latimes.com