A step slow here. A short shot there. Little energy. The Hornets looked very much like a team that has been on the road for a while.

Playing for the fifth time on a six-game, 12-day trip, that mix was too much for the Hornets on Sunday night. Running on empty much of the way, they paid for it with an 89-78 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers at Staples Center.

Now with a 9-11 record, the Hornets move on to Denver for a Tuesday night game against the Nuggets. They can only hope they'll have something left to energize them in that one. They didn't Sunday, particularly in the first quarter when the Clippers (10-10) ran them hard.

"They're very athletic and they play hard," Hornets coach Paul Silas said of the improving Clippers, traditionally a league doormat. "I thought that the first quarter was kind of our undoing. They really ran on us and they almost got 30 points.

"Then we settled down and played better. But I didn't think that our energy level was there."

Did the effects of all the recent travel - the Hornets left Charlotte on Nov.30 after a home game against Detroit - have a major bearing on their play?

"Sometimes when it's like this, you just have heavy legs," Silas said. "You try to prod them. You try to do whatever you can. But sometimes it's just like that (on an extended trip)."