The Atlanta Hawks were in a bad place back in March when the decision was made to let Lloyd Pierce go and bring in Nate McMillan as the interim head coach.
The Hawks were one of the worst teams in the NBA in point differential in the fourth quarter. Late in games, it just seemed like the Hawks did not know what to do to close out games.
Wednesday's Game 5 comeback was exactly the opposite.
Atlanta was down 87-69 after three quarters. No one could have predicted the Hawks' 40-19 fourth-quarter run to win 109-106 and put the Hawks up 3-2 in this best-of-seven series.
When McMillan took over, it was pretty clear that they made the right move by getting rid of Pierce. Lionel Hollins, former NBA head coach, put it in to words perfectly when explaining how the Hawks have been able to turn things around.
“He’s given them an identity of toughness, an identity of togetherness, and those types of things are all a part of trying to win,” Hollins said.
There are plenty of factors to point to, that can describe how the Hawks got here, but Nate McMillan is the one that has to be in that explanation.
