SAN ANTONIO -- The wrong team played like there was no tomorrow. The wrong team panicked. The wrong team choked.

David West and the Hornets lose their cool in the third quarter. (AP)

If anyone was going to wilt Thursday at the AT&T Center, it should have been San Antonio. Granted, home teams haven't done a lot of wilting this NBA postseason -- entering this game, home teams were 19-1 in the conference semifinals -- but San Antonio was facing a game unlike any of those first 20: The Spurs walked onto their home floor facing elimination. And they did so as the defending NBA champions.

Add that up, and throw in the fact that San Antonio's last elimination game had occurred in the 2006 postseason -- and the Spurs lost that game, to Dallas, in the conference semifinals -- and this had all the makings of a potential San Antonio panic attack.

But the Spurs were just fine.

It was the Hornets who swallowed their own tongue.

New Orleans point guard Chris Paul, the playoff MVP entering Thursday night, played with a bizarre chip on his shoulder -- mouthing off to various Spurs, forcing contact all over the court and then flopping like a boated fish. The officials caved in at first, protecting him like he was Michael Jordan or LeBron James, but by the third quarter, Paul was on his own.

He was whistled for two offensive fouls in transition, unnecessarily ramming into Bruce Bowen on consecutive plays with the Hornets trailing 60-55, to kill the Hornets' last chance. Soon it was 65-55. And then 78-63. And then garbage time.

"Wow. I don't know what to say. That third quarter was ugly," Paul said. "At some point, it was like, 'This game ... get over.'"

With Paul battling his own emotions, this game was all but over even earlier than that. The Hornets led 17-15 when he started ramming into Spurs and diving to the floor -- landing on his back on one flop, on his tailbone on another -- and trying to talk his way inside Spurs forward Robert Horry's head during breaks in the action.

By the end of the first quarter, San Antonio led 36-23. The Hornets came no closer than five points, at which point Paul committed those back-to-back offensive fouls.

Paul is so good that he still finished with 21 points and eight assists, and his assist total was severely undercut by David West's inability to hit jumpers. Time after time Paul drove into the lane, and when he wasn't lobbing to Tyson Chandler, he was finding West for open 15-footers. And West missed most of them, going 4-for-14 from the floor and finishing with 10 points and six rebounds. This, on the heels of his 38-point, 14-rebound extravaganza in Game 5.

Like Paul, West bubbled close to fury several times -- and finally bubbled over after disputing a foul early in the third quarter. Mad, he picked up two more fouls in the next 28 seconds and then chewed out two officials until one gave him a technical foul.

"Definitely, lost (my) composure a little bit," West said. "It was frustrating how the game was turning."

It turned because the Spurs played breezily, as if they were leading this series 3-0. Manu Ginobili hit six 3-pointers en route to his 25 points. Ime Udoka came off the bench for 13 points in 21 minutes. Most startling, Tim Duncan made six of his eight free throws. He finished with 20 points, 15 rebounds and six assists.

Almost every single Hornet, on the other hand, played frantically. Paul and West were shells of themselves. Peja Stojakovic scored nine points in a three-minute stretch to open the game -- and scored four points in the other 45 minutes. And the only Hornet who defended worse than Stojakovic was Morris Peterson, who was burned for many of Ginobili's and Udoka's nine combined 3-pointers.

Don't say the Hornets didn't want Game 6, though. They wanted it too much. Despite having Game 7 at home as an insurance policy, Chandler sat in the New Orleans locker room an hour before Game 6 and made Thursday sound like a do-or-die affair.

"To be honest with you, I don't even recognize Game 7," he said. "We have a great opportunity here, and we have to seize this moment."

Instead they seized -- and squeezed -- their own throats. Even coach Byron Scott. It was Scott who played Chandler and West for all 36 minutes of the first three quarters even though neither had practiced at full speed Wednesday after suffering Game 5 injuries. As for Paul, he received a break in those first 36 minutes -- for all of three seconds.

By the fourth quarter of Game 6, the exhausted Paul wasn't bringing the ball up the court, West reinjured his back after being screened from behind by Horry, and Chandler was having to soak his sore left foot in a bucket of ice. And his right foot. And both knees.

The Hornets left the AT&T Center a beaten-up basketball team. They have three days to heal physically before Monday's Game 7, but the mental pain won't mend so easily.

New Orleans poured everything it had into Game 6. And had absolutely no chance.

How do you recover from that?