WOUNDED HAWKS

Al Horford isn’t the only one limping these days.

The Hawks limp off this week on a three-game Western Conference trip with three straight losses crammed in their carry-on luggage.

They are desperate to relocate the swagger that led them to one of the best records in the Eastern Conference through the first two months of the season. They’ll have to find themselves far away from the friendly confines of Philips Arena, where they’re 15-4 this season.

The trip begins tonight in Phoenix. Hawks guard Flip Murray said the team started its reclamation project minutes after Sunday’s humbling home loss to a 17-20 Philadelphia team.

“We know we’ve got a lot of patchwork to do around here, serious work,” Murray said after practice Monday. “Everybody tries to avoid these stretches during a season, the little slumps or losing streaks. But good teams always find a way to bounce back and turn things around.”

For the Hawks, that means tuning out all the noise around them and dialing in what got them to this point. With a 22-14 record, they remain in the thick of the chase for a top-four playoff seed.

“You got to put everything in there and use it,” Murray said. “The media, the fans and everybody [are] going against you now because you’re on a losing streak. They’re all talking dirty and bad about you. We have to come in here and stick by each other and stay united, because we know what we have to do.

“We’ve got three tough games ahead of us, but we’ve got three winnable games ahead of us. And we have to handle our business.”

The Hawks will have to do so without the services of Horford. The second-year center and anchor of the Hawks’ defense is out for at least 10 days with a bone bruise in his right knee.

His absence, coupled with the Hawks’ shaky 7-10 road record, will make this trip even tougher.

It will be an excruciating week for Horford, who will have to watch his team from afar. While the Hawks travel from Phoenix to Los Angeles (Wednesday vs. Clippers) and finally Golden State (Friday), Horford will remain in Atlanta for treatments.

“This is one of those deals where you don’t want three games to turn into four or five games,” Horford said. “That’s the way you want to think. But it’s one of those things where everybody has to get back to playing the right way. And that means defending and rebounding, especially on the road, where you already know it’s going to be tough to win.”

Hawks coach Mike Woodson conducted a training-camp style practice Monday in an effort to help refocus his team. It was a return to fundamentals, including a halfcourt drill of man-on-man defensive action. It resulted in plenty of hard fouls and hustle plays, two things that have been absent from the Hawks’ defensive effort the past three games.

“You have to go back to your fundamentals,” Woodson said. “It starts on the practice floor. We haven’t had a practice like this in a while, and nobody was moping and everybody worked. That’s the only way you’re going to get out of a rut is work your way out.

“We have to get out on this road and start thinking like a team again and muster up some wins.”

That was no problem as recently as two weeks ago. The Hawks finished 2008 on a roll, winning an NBA-best nine out of their final 10 games in December. Fueled by a 7-1 mark during an eight-game homestand, they marched to the best two-month start (21-11) the franchise had enjoyed in more than a decade.

Woodson feared then that his players might have become a bit smitten with themselves, but he wasn’t certain until they lost four of their next five games.

“It was a subconscious thing,” he said. “You just start feeling good. But we’ve got to play 82 games. And that’s where we have to be focused, on 82 games, not just the first 35 or 40 games.”

NEXT FOR HAWKS

> Who: at Suns

> When: 9 p.m. today

> TV; radio: SPSO; 790 AM