Los Angeles  - Nene provided the early and unlikely scoring punch before the bench came in down the stretch to complete the knockout.

The Brazilian scored a career-playoff-high 24 points, foul-plagued Carmelo Anthony added 23 and the Denver Nuggets rocked the Dallas Mavericks 109-95 Sunday in the opener of their Western Conference semi-final playoff series.

"We never expected Nene to have an All-Star-type playoff game," Nuggets coach George Karl said of his powerful centre. "He was great. He made shots. He made good decisions."

"It's a great feeling," Nene said. "We know they are a great shooting team, but we are a power team. We just used our advantage."

The Nuggets are to again host game two of the best-of-seven series at the Pepsi Centre, where they have won 14 in a row.

JR Smith scored 15, fellow reserve Anthony Carter had 12 while Chris "Birdman" Andersen collected 11 points, six rebounds and six blocked shots as Denver's substitutes outscored Dallas' reserves 38-24.

"The starters started off kind of slow tonight, so the bench mob had to go out and pick up the pace of the game," said Carter, who averaged 0.6 points in the first round. "So I told JR and Bird, we got to go in and play hard, change the pace, and we did it."

"Nene got us going, the rest of these guys came in, did their job and we took off from there," he added.

German Dirk Nowitzki led Dallas with 28 points and 10 rebounds. Jason Kidd, Josh Howard and Jason Terry contributed 15 each for the Mavericks, who committed 20 turnovers, while being outscored 25-9 at the free throw line.

"Twenty turnovers for 25 points is going to be a losing number on the road, and the free-throw line disparity was too much to overcome," Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said. "We're going to have to raise our level of aggression if that's what's going to take us to the free-throw line.

Although the Nuggets trailed by nine early and lost Anthony with his third foul midway through the second quarter, they still managed to lead 51-47 at halftime behind Nene's 18 points.

Denver built an 81-72 lead but watched it trimmed to 82-80 on a Terry three-pointer and a fade-away jumper by Nowitzki early in the final frame.

The Nuggets answered with a game-sealing 19-4 run behind Anthony's nine points. On the other end, the Mavs, made one of seven shots and committed eight turnovers.

Anderson and Anthony scored four points apiece to make it 90-82. Carter followed with a jumper and three-pointer before Anthony's dunk off a behind-the-back pass from Smith.

After two free throws by Nene, Smith brought the wildly cheering crowd to its feet with a power slam off a turnover, giving the hosts a comfortable 101-84 advantage at the 4:54 mark.

"In the first half, we were kind of soft," Anthony said. "That second-half, we buckled down on the defensive end. Everybody manned up, played team defence, got in the passing lane, and our bench did a good job giving us that spark."

Elsewhere: Atlanta Hawks 91, Miami Heat 77:

In an Eastern Conference series marked by lopsided victories, the Hawks came away with the final blowout.

Joe Johnson scored 27 points with six three-pointers, Josh Smith added 21 with nine rebounds and the Hawks beat the Heat in decisive game seven to advance to the second-round of the playoffs for the first time in a decade.

"It feel like the monkey's off Atlanta's back - not just the team's back but the whole city," Smith said.

As a reward, the Hawks are to travel to meet LeBron James and the well-rested Cleveland Cavaliers Tuesday in the opener of their semi-final. The top seeds swept the Detroit Pistons 4-0 in their first-round series.

Flip Murray scored 15 off the bench for Atlanta, which rebounded with a blowout of its own after getting embarrassed by 34 points by Boston in game seven of their first-round series last year.

"I look back to the Celtics series," Woodson added. "They taught us how to play playoff basketball. It was a nasty feeling leaving that floor, but the fact that they taught us how to play playoff basketball left a good feeling in our minds."

In each of the first six games, the teams took turns winning by an average of 20 points, and the blueprint was no different as the Hawks followed the script on their home court.

Atlanta led 20-18 after one quarter, and broke the game open in the second quarter with a combination of hot shooting and tight defence to build a 49-36 halftime bulge.

The Hawks carried a 68-52 cushion into the final frame and opened up their biggest at 85-56 on Murray's three-pointer. With both coaches emptying their benches, the Heat made the final score respectable.

Dwyane Wade led Miami with 31 points, and Michael Beasley had 17.

"I'm very encouraged by this season," Heat first-year coach Erik Spoelstra said. "The team that won 15 games last year came back to win 43 games this year and took Atlanta to seven games in the playoffs. We've got something to build on." (dpa)