INQUIRER Sports

NEW YORK - Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups will lead the Denver Nuggets against the Indiana Pacers in an October exhibition that will be the first National Basketball Association game ever played in Taiwan.

The league announced on Friday that the Nuggets, who lost to the eventual NBA champions Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference finals, will face the Pacers on October 8 at the 12,874-seat Taipei Arena.

Taipei will become the seventh Asian city to host an NBA game, following Tokyo, Beijing, Macao, Yokohama, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

"October 8 will be an historic day for the NBA and for the millions of basketball fans in Taiwan," said NBA Greater China chief executive Tim Chen. "Taiwan fans are very passionate about the game."

The pre-season game is the fourth announced by the NBA outside its US and Canada home nations for this year.

Chicago and Utah will meet in London on October 6. Utah will face Real Madrid in Madrid on October 8. Philadelphia and Phoenix will meet October 18 in Monterrey, Mexico.

The NBA to date has staged 93 games outside US-Canada cities in 16 nations.