Hawks’ Blaylock Suffers Broken Finger

Atlanta Hawk guard Mookie Blaylock broke his left ring finger during during practice in Savannah, Ga.

Blaylock’s status was not known. A specialist will examine the injury today, Hawk spokesman Arthur Triche said.

Blaylock, entering his ninth pro season, averaged 17.4 points, 5.9 assists and 5.3 rebounds for the Hawks last season.

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Forward Armon Gilliam has been a no-show at the Milwaukee Buck camp, team officials said.

General Manager Bob Weinhauer said he had not spoken with Gilliam as of Sunday night, although Gilliam had left two messages for Weinhauer earlier Sunday.

“He did not call back,” Weinhauer said. “I will have nothing more to say until I talk to him.”

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Jermaine O’Neal learned something about garbage time with the Portland Trail Blazers last season, and even more along the highways of South Carolina last summer.

Now, only a few days shy of his 19th birthday, he says he’s ready for prime time.

“I’m, like, 10 times better than I was last year,” O’Neal said in McMinnville, Ore. “That’s how much harder I worked this summer.”

Some of that work occurred along the highways around O’Neal’s hometown of Columbia, S.C., where he served 100 hours of community service picking up litter after being sentenced for missing a court date over an altercation with sheriff’s deputies.

New Coach Mike Dunleavy was impressed with what he saw of O’Neal in the summer league and is committed to playing him.

“I thought he was the best player there,” he said of a league that included Kobe Bryant, who like O’Neal made the jump from high school to the NBA, and Tim Duncan, this year’s No. 1 pick.

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Larry Bird is feeling his way through his first training camp as the new coach of the Indiana Pacers in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

Practices are demanding, designed to push players physically without wearing them down mentally, and Bird allows assistants Dick Harter and Rick Carlisle to do a lot of the teaching.

Bird, conceding that it felt a little unusual, liked what he saw.

“Training camp’s tough,” he said. “If guys are having fun here, they should have a good time during the season because we expect to win.”

The Pacers are counting on it after failing to make the playoffs for the first time since 1989 in their last season under Larry Brown.