The Atlanta Hawks have evened the Eastern Conference Finals after a gutsy 110-88 Game 4 win over the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday night. And it was all without star point-guard Trae Young.
About an hour before tip-off, the Hawks learned Young would miss the game with a bone bruise in his right foot. That's when head coach Nate McMillan handed the ball to longtime sixth-man Lou Williams to start the game.
Williams scored a game-high 21 points on 7-of-9 shooting allowing only one steal. But it was a collective group effort mixed with new rotations by McMillan that through coach Mike Budenholzer and the Bucks off.
Bogdan Bogdanovic was hitting three's (6) with 20-points, Cam Reddish was hitting three's (2 of 3), in the second game he's played since February, and gave you 12-points off the bench. Six different Hawks gave you double-digits.
Reddish and Kris Dunn were the first players off the bench, something that hasn't been done all postseason. Who was the real star of Game 4?
"I'm going to go with coach because of the rotations, the timeouts when you needed it. There was so many different things that Nate was doing throughout the game, and knowing when to put a guy in," Randy McMichael said. And Andy agreed.
"To have the guts to have Cam Reddish and Kris Dunn be the first two guys off your bench...and put a lineup on the floor in the first quarter of an Eastern Conference Finals game that has never played before? That's impressive," Andy added.