2012 NBA Preseason: Hawks' preparation being slowed by injuries

The Atlanta Hawks began Saturday's game against Dallas with three players out with injury and a fourth joined the group before halftime. Jeff Teague, Zaza Pachulia and John Jenkins all missed Saturday's win over Dallas with various injuries. Al Horford joined them on the sidelines just before halftime on Saturday.

While none of the injuries is thought to be serious, they come at an inopportune time for Larry Drew and his staff. Drew has now used a different starting lineup in each of Atlanta's six preseason games. That was by design early but Drew hoped to settle on a lineup and some sort of rotation over the final exhibition games.

"Hopefully we can get everybody back so we can start putting this thing together and getting a good rotation. We really won't know until we get everybody back. The last thing I want to do, hopefully knock on wood, I don't want to limp into the regular season. I want to be healthy."

Before Saturday's game, Drew described Jeff Teague as day-to-day with an ankle injury. Teague indicated that he thought he might only miss "a couple of days" with the injury. Zaza Pachulia was held out for "precautionary reasons" and because he wanted to get a closer look at some other players.

Atlanta will hold their public scrimmage on Sunday but won't play the final preseason game until Friday. That will hopefully afford all of the walking wounded time to recover for one last tune up before the start of the regular season.