"Too bad the Hawks don't get frequent flier miles.

They are about to embark on a five-city, nine-day road trip that will cover nearly 6,000 miles. It's one more oddity of the NBA's compacted schedule this season. The north-south alternating excursion begins in Milwaukee on Monday, goes to San Antonio, Detroit, New Orleans and ends in Toronto on Jan. 31. Three of the legs cover at least 1,000 miles.

"The way I'm looking at it, the one area where we've got to grow as a team is we have to be able to play out on the road under abnormal conditions," coach Larry Drew said. "Certainly, this schedule is very abnormal. We are not the only team that is faced with it. Every team is faced with it. It will give us the ability to grow and really find ourselves on the road." "