Paul's expression said it all (AP)
The dumbest cliché in the NBA is playoff series don’t really start until a team wins on the road. The Hornets-Nuggets series ended Monday night when Denver became the first team to win on the road.
The Nuggets still have to win one more time to close out New Orleans officially but they will. Easily. And everyone knows it.
Never mind what anyone said after Denver’s NBA playoff record-tying 58-point, 121-63 demolition of New Orleans, and the Nuggets were careful to pay proper respect to the Hornets. No one in either locker room believes the Hornets can win in Denver, come back and win in New Orleans and go back to Denver again and beat the Nuggets a second time.
It would not be unprecedented. The last team to fall behind 3-1 and win two games on the road to steal a series was Houston against Phoenix in the 1995 Western Conference semifinals. The Rockets went on to win the NBA championship for the second year in a row.
These Hornets aren’t those Rockets.
Having expended the last ounces of energy in its tank to win game 3 by two points after falling behind 22-6, New Orleans went into the tank on Monday after falling behind 23-8.
Paul, who played nearly 46 minutes on Saturday, was lifeless, finishing with four points on 2-of-7 shooting, six assists and six turnovers. He had scored in double figures in all 15 of his previous playoff games.
This one just got worse and worse before coach Byron Scott emptied his bench at the end of the third quarter with Denver leading 89-50. At that point, the Hornets were 14 of 45 from the floor and two of 12 from 3-point range while the Nuggets were 33 of 58 overall and six of 13 from long distance.
The Hornets set playoff lows in points, field goals (17), field goals attempted (54), assists (10) and second-half points (24). They had a franchise playoff-record 26 turnovers. They did not match Denver’s halftime total of 61 points until 1:07 was left in the game.
Reality set in for power forward David West, who scored a team-high 14 points in the debacle.
“They have a ton of options and a ton of weapons,” he said of the Nuggets. “As disciplined as they played tonight, we just did not have a shot.”
Two of Denver’s three most lopsided playoff victories have come in this series. Before Monday’s massacre, they won 113-84 in game 1, which was their second-largest playoff victory at the time.
“We have to work too hard to get a modest look at the goal,” West said. “They don’t have to work as hard. They overwhelmed us with their ability to score.”
The Hornets’ previous worst playoff loss was 96-64 to the Atlanta Hawks in a 1998 first-round series they actually won 3-1. With Paul apparently bothered by a minor knee injury he sustained Saturday – he insisted he was fine physically – they have a better chance of losing by 60 in Denver than winning three in a row.
The NBA record for the most lopsided loss in any game was 68, a Cleveland Cavaliers 148-80 mauling of the Miami Heat in 1991.
“I know Chris is banged up and hurt,” Denver point guard Chauncey Billups said. “I know he couldn’t really move like he would have liked to, and that hurt everybody on their team. When he’s doing the things he can do, he makes everybody better. When people get banged up, you have to try to take advantage when you can.”
The Nuggets will do exactly that on Wednesday. We’ll save the postmortem until then, but one thing is certain.
The Hornets will be dead on arrival.
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