DENVER — Late in the fourth quarter, with only garbage time left, the TNT cameras caught a grim-faced Erick Dampier sitting on the Dallas Mavericks bench, trying to wave off a fly buzzing around his face.

Flies do that to dead bodies, you know. They're attracted by the stench.

Besides, after the way the Muggers . . . I mean Nuggets . . . had buzzed around the Mavs all day, he should have been used to it.

I don't mean to overreact to Denver's 109-95 bludgeoning of the Mavs here Sunday afternoon. It is, after all, just one game in a best-of-seven series, and despite the rather gruesome and bloody result, the Mavs actually did some things right.

But we also need to be realistic here, boys and girls. This was a thrashing of the first order—and not just because of the final score—and if Jason Terry was right when he said the first game would set the tone for the series, then the Mavs are in a world of hurt already.

Strangely, as bad as this got in the third and fourth quarters, there were things about the Mavs' overall game plan that actually worked.

The Mavs kept Carmelo Anthony somewhat in check until he went off with 14 fourth-quarter points to finish with 23, and by then the game was pretty much decided. They didn't let Chauncey Billups, who averaged better than 22 points in the first round, beat them, holding him to six points and six assists.

But what they learned, as if they didn't know it already, is that defensively the Nuggets are more "handsy" than a 16-year-old boy with a date in the back seat of a car at the drive-in theater.

OK, that's a different era and you might not get it. Ask your grandpa for an explanation.

"We were good offensively," Denver coach George Karl said. "We were REALLY good defensively."

If the Nuggets were second-guessing themselves about putting just one defender on Dirk Nowitzki after he scored 13 points in the first quarter, their strategy was validated by game's end, when Dirk led all scorers with 28 points and the Mavs still lost by 14.

Of course, I'd love to hear David Stern's explanation to Mavs coach Rick Carlisle about why Dirk shot just five free throws (and one of those was after a technical) in the game. Nowitzki took more head shots, including a forearm across the nose at one point, than Ricky Hatton absorbed from Manny Pacquiao on Saturday night, which just goes to show that Dirk has a stronger jaw.

If the same ref who worked the fight had been on the floor here Sunday afternoon, he would have stopped this one early and ruled that the Mavs were victims of a brutal and vicious TKO.

Carlisle was obviously not happy that the Mavs were whistled for 29 fouls and the Nuggets shot 36 free throws, while Denver committed just 19 fouls and the Mavs shot only 13 free throws. No reason he should be.

It may have been a little fuzzy to the refs, but the respective identities of the mugger and muggee were quite obvious. All anyone had to do was look at the final score and the black and blue Mavs' bodies.

"It's hard for me to believe that we committed 29 fouls and they committed 19, but I'll look at the film, and if that's the case, we'll have to get a lot more aggressive," Carlisle said.

Now that's an interesting conclusion: Combat foul trouble by becoming more aggressive.

I like his attitude.

Staring at the stat sheet, Carlisle particularly wondered aloud how a bruised and battered Dirk could possibly wind up with just four free throws other than the technical.

"He's being played very physically," the Mavs coach said. "That's something we'll look at, and if there's a complaint to be made (to the league office), we'll make it."

Everyone knew this wasn't going to be a tea party, but the only thing the Nuggets didn't use on Dirk and the Mavs on Sunday was billy clubs and Tasers.

"(The Nuggets) push and shove, that's their nature," Carlisle said. "None of that surprised us. This is second-round playoff action. We're not looking to have calls given to us and Denver isn't either.

"This is not meant to be a bitch session about the officiating. But when you're a minus-23 in free throws and a plus-10 in fouls, it's something you have to look at."

The Mavs probably do have a legitimate gripe coming about the discrepancy in the fouls and free throws but some of that is beside the point, too.

That had little or nothing to do with the Mavs' 20 turnovers, leading to 25 Nuggets points (say hello, Jason Kidd), or that Denver dominated the paint, outscoring the Mavs 58-30 inside (somebody wake Dampier up), or the fact that in the critical battle of benches, the Nuggets' kicked the Jell-O out of the Mavs' reserves.

Kidd was downright awful with eight turnovers, including half a dozen in the third quarter when the game turned in the Nuggets' favor once and for all.

The Nuggets, in other words, came as advertised: aggressive, athletic, long, energetic, hungry.

Once Denver had survived the opening quarter, when Dirk hit his first five shots and Dallas had surged to a 24-16 lead, the Mavs had little answer for any of that.

They'd best find one and fast. The Nuggets are great frontrunners. When they're running and gunning, smashing bodies to the floor, throwing down dunks, swatting away shots, they're strutting and preening.

If the Mavs want to get back in this series, they have to put some doubt in the Nuggets' minds. Carlisle's right, they must answer aggression with aggression. They need to thug it up, just like the Nuggets like to do, slap for slap, elbow for elbow, strut for strut.

If they wait for the refs to balance things out, this series will be over and the Mavs will be exactly what that fly thought they were: dead meat.

I just don't know if they have it in them.