DENVER - The snow-capped mountain peak that serves as the Denver Nuggets logo has been replaced by a man throwing in a towel.

The Quitters, as forward Carmelo Anthony and a couple of agreeable teammates depicted them Saturday, have one little problem. They still have another game to phone in tonight in their best-of-seven playoff series against the Lakers.

Or in Denver's case, worst-of-seven series.

Just the fact that the Nuggets are expected to show up and take their last spoonful of medicine, however, gives the Lakers pause.

"If they say they quit," Luke Walton said, "you know they'll play much harder (tonight)."

Common sense tells you they have to.

Nearly 20,000 people shelling out money for playoff tickets at the Pepsi Center couldn't have been happy with the awful game their team played Saturday, and couldn't have been too pleased, either, to hear afterward that their men claimed they clocked out early.

Think the Nuggets will hear about it tonight?

Think they'll have the luxury of going through the motions in front of those folks again?

As Walton suggested, the Lakers can't count on the "quit" thing holding over. Nor were the Lakers exactly shocked to hear the admissions. Players are human. They recognize when they are beaten. And they don't like to talk about it.

"In the heat of the moment, you're disappointed and you may say stuff like that," Lakers forward Pau Gasol said. "It just shows how frustrating it was to lose that game."

His frontcourt teammate, Lamar Odom, said he didn't know if the Nuggets really did give up, but conceded, "It happens. People on the outside don't understand the amount of emotion that players go through this time of year. They were on their home court. It was Game 3. It was really important to win."

Clearly, quitting is unacceptable, but there are many layers on that onion.

"There's a fine line to it," Lakers veteran guard Derek Fisher said Sunday, talking about an athlete's reaction to getting bullied in a contest. "You may step back, exhale and say, 'It's just not going to happen today.'

"But you don't reach this level by giving up. That's what separates the people who are here from the people who have talent but didn't make it.

"Those guys have already proven they aren't quitters."

Fisher said he didn't think there was anything unusual or different about the Nuggets' play Saturday, other than a normal loss of energy and desire when things aren't going your way.

"You always pay attention to where your opponent is, emotionally and physically," Fisher said, referring to the Nuggets' third-quarter meltdown. "We just saw it as an opportunity to crack (the game) open, to win a game on the road."

The Nuggets might have gotten away with lesser crimes -- crummy team play on offense and inadequate help on defense -- if Anthony hadn't opened his mouth and confessed that they didn't fight back when the Lakers kicked sand in their face.

There's a higher code that athletes are expected to embrace.

It's not supposed to matter if your superior opponent has stolen your lunch money, bought a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich with it and smushed it in your face.

You're supposed to lick it off, say you enjoyed it, and ask for more.

It's not supposed to matter what the score is, who's delivering the blows, or how little chance you have.

In fact, there is daily evidence that there is another reality at work. Athletes recognize lost causes and no-hopers every day. There is only so much energy you can spend, and there may be better times and places to give it your all.

Said Fisher of Anthony's admission: "It was not a totally irrational statement. It's the way he expressed his frustration and anger."

Nevertheless, sport is full of homilies promoting the ideal that giving your best effort at all times is the only way to go.

"It matters not who wins or loses, but how you play the game."

"When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

I wish I had a dollar for every time I stood with an open notebook in front of an athlete and wrote down this quote: "One thing about our team is that we never give up."

Or: "There's no quit in us."

But for someone to admit that his team's will had been broken by an opponent and his guys had raised a white flag, well, that was news.

Said Odom, going right to the bottom line Sunday: "As an athlete, you're expected to hustle no matter what."

Maybe the Nuggets are lucky. They've got one more game to not quit.

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