The Atlanta Hawks are venturing into their first playoff series since 2017 with Interim head coach Nate McMillan leading the charge. On Friday, he joined Dukes & Bell to discuss the upcoming series with the Knicks.
A lot can be said about the season McMillan has had to this point. Before he took over, this Hawks team had struggled to a 14-20 record, fallen apart time and again in the 4th quarter, and there were rumors of serious locker room issues. All McMillan has done since is lead the Hawks to a 27-11 record since March 1st (tied for third best in the NBA) and that team that seemed to falter consistently down the stretch was one of the past.
This 38-game relationship has been a pleasant one for the Hawks player and fan alike, but all of that is in the past. Now we push into the playoffs, a place that has given Nate McMillan fits in the past.
The most cited issue of McMillan-led squads is the inability to get out of the first round - he has failed to advance in nine of his ten appearances. It doesn't help that the sole victory came all the way back in 2005 when he was head coach of the Seattle Supersonics. Since that series, he is 11-32 in playoff games and was 3-16 at his last stop in Indiana.
Does it matter?
"It doesn't," McMillan told Dukes & Bell on Friday, "It really doesn't in the sense that this is a different team... Like anything else, you have some success and sometimes you don't get to that point in your career that you want to... there are a lot of guys that are great players and never won a championship. So I don't look back at that. My focus is on this team and winning this series against the Knicks."
He's right. Each team is different, and that record fails to account for who his teams faced in those playoff series (often a LeBron led team). He hasn't lost a playoff game for the Hawks yet, and its unfair to judge him as if he has. We have plenty of reasons to believe that the 27-11 coach is closer to the guy we will see in this upcoming series with the Knicks.
He'll have the opportunity to prove it on Sunday evening.
