Cavaliers Appear Ripe for the Kill in Game 6 : NBA playoffs: Daugherty and Price are hurting going into tonight against the Bulls.

Like a shark following wounded prey, the Chicago Bulls can smell blood in the NBA Eastern Conference finals.

Center Brad Daugherty and Mark Price, the Cavaliers’ leading scorers, were injured during Cleveland’s 23-point blowout loss at Chicago in Game 5 Wednesday and won’t be at full strength in Game 6 tonight at the Richfield Coliseum.

Daugherty dislocated the middle finger on his right hand--his shooting hand--when he caught it on the rim in the first quarter. Price sprained his left ankle at the start of the fourth quarter.

“When you see blood you’ve got to attack,” the Bulls’ Michael Jordan said. “Both of those guys are injured, and we’ve got to attack them in that area and make those guys respond, and if they can’t respond then you lay the punch in. That’s the killer instinct.”

The Bulls, who hold a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series, can advance to the NBA finals for the second consecutive season with a victory tonight or in Game 7 on Sunday at Chicago.

Daugherty, who averaged a team-high 20.8 points and 10 rebounds in the first four games of the series, missed nine of 10 shots after injuring his hand.

“He got his finger hooked on the edge of the rim and then got pushed forward, and that forced his finger back at the big knuckle,” Cavalier trainer Gary Briggs said. “It partially slid out of joint, but went back in on its own. We treat it like a sprain. We started last night working on pain management.

“He has the strength to grip, but the pain can limit his gripping. Obviously, with the experience Brad had playing on a sore ankle in the Boston series, he can play with pain.”

Daugherty views the injury as a challenge.

“No doubt about it, it wouldn’t be any fun if you didn’t have a bigger challenge than trying to stop Michael Jordan,” Daugherty quipped. “We’ve got a great opportunity before us, and we want to capture it. So you just have to push all those things aside and play hard, do the best you can.”

Price, who scored 16 of his team-high 24 points in the third quarter, sprained his ankle as he was bringing the ball upcourt at the start of the fourth quarter. The Cavaliers collapsed after Price was injured, the Bulls outscoring them, 15-0, in the first 5 1/2 minutes of the final quarter.

“I was just dribbling up the court and kind of heard something pop in my foot and had to pull up,” Price said. “It really wasn’t right after that.”

Price, who made 10 of 17 shots in the first three quarters, didn’t shoot in the final period, playing only four minutes.

“Brad was hurt and I was hurt in the fourth quarter,” he said. “We were only two down after three, but we really didn’t have all our guns going into the fourth quarter. That really makes it tough.”

Jordan criticized the Bulls’ reserves after Cleveland reserve forward John (Hot Rod) Williams outscored the Chicago replacements, 18-15, in the Cavaliers’ 14-point victory in Game 4.

Apparently motivated by Jordan’s words, the Bull reserves outscored the Cavalier reserves Wednesday, 38-26, as guard B.J. Armstrong, forward Cliff Levingston and center Scott Williams scored 12 points each.

Armstrong and Levingston each scored 10 in the fourth quarter.

The Bulls’ Stacey King was fined $5,000 by the NBA for his flagrant foul against Cleveland’s Danny Ferry Wednesday night.