Brutal playoff bruising left no apparent marks on Hornets

Byron Scott said he didn't hear it.

"I really didn't," the Hornets coach insisted.

Didn't hear the comments that his team quit in the playoffs.

"I didn't," Scott said. "But we didn't. We were outmanned. That's the bottom line. Our guys never quit."

All evidence to the contrary. So he was pressed.

The Hornets didn't roll over -- on themselves, on a city that had rallied behind them, on the season that began with such high expectations -- by no-showing in the 58-point loss in Game 4 of the first round against the Nuggets last season?

"Just got beat," Scott repeated. "Didn't quit. Just got beat by a better basketball team."

The coach, and the team's front office, didn't see the 121-63 debacle that became the banana peel into a 4-1 elimination as a flashing neon sign that the Hornets lacked a title contender's heart. And the players didn't try to flip it into motivation that would drive them to redemption in the 2009-10 response.

It happened, that's all. It's over.

"No," point guard Chris Paul quickly replied when asked if that bad of a loss in that critical of a situation says something about the will of a team. "It says that the Nuggets were good and we lost. But whatever happened last year has nothing to do with this year."

Some change has come since that wipeout. But the trade of Tyson Chandler -- the starting center for three seasons -- to the Bobcats for Emeka Okafor has strong evidence behind it that suggests that Chandler had an outbound ticket no matter what. The Hornets had already dealt him a few months earlier, only to have the move to Oklahoma City rescinded when Thunder doctors red-flagged the physical. Chandler to Charlotte was not fallout from the playoffs.

The other New Orleans moves were mostly either obviously coming (the Draft) or relatively minor. Darren Collison arrived with the 21st pick, Marcus Thornton with the 43rd via trade from Miami, Darius Songaila and Bobby Brown in a deal with the Timberwolves, and Ike Diogu as a free agent. Starting shooting guard Rasual Butler was traded to the Clippers for all of a conditional second-round selection in 2016.

This was not an organization frantically digging itself out from rubble.

The implosion of April 27, the Monday night that seemed to drag on for weeks inside New Orleans Arena, could have had a much different effect. It was that bad. The Hornets had pulled within 2-1 with a win in Game 3 as the best-of-seven series switched to Louisiana, had the chance to tie, had the home crowd ... and then got rolled. Denver led, 36-15, at the end of the first quarter. The banged-up Hornets never bothered to put up a fight. They scored 11 points in the third quarter and 13 in the fourth in what tied the mark for the most-lopsided playoff outcome in league history.

Two days later, back in Denver, the Nuggets stepped on them for good, 107-86.

"I wanted it to linger, not just Game 4, but the whole series," Scott said. "We were basically just bum-rushed. They just beat us down. That's the bottom line. They were a much better basketball team. You would hope that if you've got any guys in that room that have any competitive bones in their body that it would last a little while. Me, it lasted for about two weeks and then I had to start thinking, 'OK, how can we get better so it doesn't happen again?' "

Curious to gauge the mindset of players when they returned five months later for training camp, Scott was pleased to find an unhappy team with a chip on its shoulder.

"Which is good," he said. "I hope they keep it."

It has been choppy going ever since, injuries taking over too much of the preseason during the transition to Okafor as more of an offensive threat than Chandler. The Hornets are also trying to go more up-tempo after finishing 26th in the league in scoring. They're still very much a work in progress.

What the Hornets are not is prodded by Game 4 or the first round loss.

"We're a different basketball team," power forward David West said. "We've added pieces that are going to be instrumental in terms of our success. We're definitely not the same ballclub. Every year is a different year, every year is a different ballgame. You've just got to look at it that way."

Scott Howard-Cooper has covered the NBA since 1988. You can e-mail him here.

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