Al Horford Out Four Games, the Bleeding Continues for the Hawks

It hasn't been a great week for Atlanta sports fans. The dreams of the Falcons were ended by the now-NFC-Championship-Game-bound Cardinals, then the Hawks started to slide, culminating in Friday night's massacre against Orlando. In that game, Al Horford wound up a little banged up, and scheduled an MRI.

Well, it turns out that the MRI revealed a bone bruise on the knee, holding out Horford today against Philadelphia (a game that the Hawks promptly proceeded to lose, their third in a row). Now word has come out that Horford will miss up to four weeks games with the injury. That's quite a significant amount of time for a team in a pretty tough decision, with Orlando streaking off into vapor trails and the Heat hanging tight, not to mention the fact that the Bobcats might actually be getting their stuff together.
Zaza Pachulia has been solid for the Hawks, but Horfor brings them an overall game that works to fill the void in between Joe Johnson and Josh Smith on both ends of the floor. Without him, the Hawks have to rely more and more on those two who are sure to be double-teamed, or else rely on Marvin Williams and Mike Bibby (who has admittedly been lights out this season).

The good news is they have a relatively easy portion of schedule coming up, with only three out of their next twelve games against teams over .500. The bad news? Seven of that dozen are on the road, all in the span of three weeks.

(HT: NBA.com via Peachtree Hoops)