Taurean Prince looked at his right ring finger and shrugged.
What was there to really say?
“It’s a little sore,” Prince said. “But I’ll be ready (Monday).”
Prince dislocated the finger in the middle of the first quarter Sunday in the Hawks’ crushing 132-113 loss to the Lakers. At that time, the Hawks were up 15-12.
He had the finger treated in the locker room and re-entered the game at the 4:29 mark in the second quarter, the Hawks now down 50-36. A wave they could not handle was sweeping through the Hawks.
“I’m not too sure what happened in that time,” Prince said. “We just have to focus on (Monday). It’s a quick turnaround so we can’t get down on this too much.”
The Hawks immediately return to the scene of their biggest loss of the season Monday to play the injury-riddled Clippers.
They hope to have a healthy Prince available. His absence coinciding with the Lakers suddenly discovering their fastbreak game did not go unnoticed.
“No doubt that kind of hurt us,” Budenholzer said. “We got off to a good start and things kind of changed. Taurean going out, he’s a big part of what we do and just gives us some size on the wing.
“But when you’re down as many as we were, I don’t think it was because Taurean was injured.”
The forward said he was not exactly certain how he dislocated the finger on his shooting hand.
“I was going for a loose ball or a rebound, and it just popped out,” Prince said. “I’m not sure what I hit. I hit something.”
Prince missed his only shot attempt prior to the dislocation. He finished the night with seven rebounds and six points, hitting 2 of 7 shot attempts in 25 minutes.
He admitted his offense was somewhat inhibited by the sore finger.
“A little bit but you see when I came back, I didn’t take many shots,” he said. “I probably shot the ball two or three more times. I was really focused on rebounding and playing as much defense as I could.”
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