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Asked to play TV analyst and break down the Eastern Conference playoff race, Tim Floyd ran down the list of Team To Beat candidates.

The Pacers: "I don't see how you can leave Indiana out because they've played so consistently and been so good defensively." The two-time defending champion Nets: "I don't see how you can leave them out of the equation, either." The Pistons: "Detroit is the unknown factor now, with Rasheed (Wallace)."

And your New Orleans Hornets, coach?

"We'd love to be considered in the mix," Floyd said. "... We're not on the top of everybody's mind right now when you're talking about teams coming out (of the East).

On paper, the Hornets belong among the East's elite. They have one of the few rosters in the East that's capable of matching up with the big boys out west. But on the court, New Orleans has slipped so badly in the second half that it's in danger of losing home-court advantage for the playoffs' first round. Thursday night's loss at Houston -- without injured No. 2 scorer Jamal Mashburn -- dropped the Hornets to 34-31 and into fifth place behind surprising Milwaukee.

Owner George Shinn, noticing the dip in fan support from the growing number of empty seats at New Orleans Arena, got to the bottom of the team's poor play in a pre-practice meeting on Tuesday. The players, asked to explain their lack of actions in an uninspired eight-point loss at Toronto, pointed fingers -- but directed the blame at themselves.

Floyd, as well as his four assistants, were spared getting the third degree from Shinn. But come April 14, Floyd's excused absence ends.

That's when this irregular season in New Orleans finally comes to an end and when all questions regarding the team's performance will be dumped into his in-box.

Because Floyd instantly became the coach of a playoff team the day Shinn threw him a life preserver and brought him back to the NBA's head coaching ranks after suffering one of the more hideous coaching stints ever: a 49-190 stay with the post-Jordan Bulls that stained his reputation as a hot-shot, up-and-coming college coach from Iowa State.

In New Orleans, Floyd hasn't been forced to teach kids how to walk in the triangle offense before they could run its plays. He is expected to lead an underachieving veteran team into May and, hopefully, June.

"(Making the playoffs) was a given by our ownership and management going in," Floyd said. "So we need to accomplish something while we're there."

Denying that he ever failed in Chicago because "you have to have the tools to be successful," Floyd has discovered that coaching experienced players isn't as easy as he had hoped. The players are still trying to grasp his motion offense and they'll have to work in Mashburn again once he returns from a sore knee, the same knee that kept him out the first 44 games of the season.

"It's a process," Baron Davis said shrugging his shoulders. "We're still learning."

There has been a frustrating ebb and flow to the Hornets' performance. They've won three or more consecutive games six times and lost three or more games in a row on four occasions. Their inconsistency wasn't demonstrated any better than, after a dominating win over East-leading Indiana the week before, a demoralizing collapse from a 25-point lead in a March 5 defeat at Cleveland.

Like his predecessor, Paul Silas, Floyd has been unable to instill a commitment to defense in the Hornets, who rank 17th in the league in defensive field-goal percentage at .439. Last year, New Orleans ranked 14th at .438.

"Defensively, we need a higher level of consistency," Floyd said. "When you look at Indiana, Detroit and Jersey, they're holding teams to 85, 84 (points), and we're capable of doing that."

"The thing that we have going for us is that we have experience and that the team has been held together," he added. "I think that's our intangible."

Davis' absence at a pregame breakfast on Sunday was the first public sign that the ranks might be starting to break under Floyd. Shinn made it clear Tuesday that he doesn't want a "soap opera," but if the losing starts to hurt Shinn in the pocketbook -- the Hornets drew their lowest crowd of the season (11,036) in Wednesday's win over Miami -- and the team gets bounced in the first round again, changes will surely be made.

For now, such discussions don't involve Floyd. But it's worth noting that Shinn watched his Hornets go down in defeat in person Thursday at Houston's Toyota Center.

It's the first time he's seen the team on the road all season long.

Joe Lago is the NBA editor at ESPN.com.