It's been 19 years, but Carmelo Anthony is still a certified bucket-getter. The veteran forward put forth a monster display for the Los Angeles Lakers, scoring 28 points to help them get their first win of the season.

After the game, Carmelo spoke with Lakers beat reporter Mike Trudell about his thoughts on their huge win. (via Spectrum SportsNet)

“We know it's gonna be tough, especially early on in this part of the season. We told each other before the game we had to take this, we had to fight to get this one. But sometimes, you have to go win games like this to find some momentum. I thought we did a great job of just playing the game tonight. We had some lulls in the game, but for the most part we did what we could to win a basketball game and that's all I count.”

This win has to feel good for Lakers fans. After a much hyped off-season that saw them grab big names such as Melo, Russell Westbrook, and Dwight Howard, the team has stumbled, losing all of their pre-season games and the first two regular season games. It's been an incredibly bumpy ride, but Melo knows this is part of the growing pains of a new team.

Melo was brought in to be the team's bench scorer, and he did that and more for the Lakers, helping them get through some rough moments in the game. Anthony actually made history this night, as his performance allowed him to surpass Moses Malone in the all-time scoring list to move up to 9th.

We probably can't expect outbursts like this to come consistently for Melo at this stage of his career. However, he's still good for some solid bench scoring, and that's something the Lakers should be looking forward to getting from him.