Insider’s report paints grim picture of Atlanta Hawks HC Nate McMillan

This was not how the Atlanta Hawks wanted their season to end. A 97-94 loss in Game 5 completed the gentleman’s sweep at the hands of the Miami Heat who got the closeout absent two of their top-three players in Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry. Much of the focus for the downfall has landed at the feet of Trae Young.

Understandably so given how the fourth-year point guard looked like a shell of himself in the postseason compared to a historic regular-season run.

He was not the only one to have the heat turned up on him, so to speak His head coach is under fire for the final play and the series as a whole which saw the Hawks’ sixth-highest scoring offense in the regular season reduced to 15th out of 16 playoff teams.

Now, it would seem as though Nate McMillan is on the brink of following in the wrong footsteps.

Nate McMillan’s hold on the Atlanta Hawks locker room could be in jeopardy

The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner did his postseason autopsy (subscription required) and the results were disturbing for a team coming off of a run to the Eastern Conference Finals. But the signs were there from the beginning when, two weeks into the season, Young spoke of finding the regular season more boring than the playoffs.

He said at the time that the key was approaching every game as if it were the postseason, and reiterated that stance later. But he still caught flack for it which started up again once the Hawks bowed out.

Kirschner details McMillan diagramming the last play of Game 5, specifically for Young, just for Young to be nowhere near the huddle and, instead, sitting alone at the end of the bench.

We all saw what unfolded next.

The most disturbing part about all of it is the revelation that some within the organization did not fully trust the Hawks head coach in this series specifically because of perceptions about his ability to adjust compared to his counterpart, Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra.

Aside from Spoelstra’s pedigree as a two-time NBA championship-winning head coach (with two more appearances), he is also a well-known master tactician.

McMillan’s over-reliance on Young, decisions about the rotation, and development of the team’s younger players are all points of contention within the organization which, as of now, has not indicated that a change is coming.

The Hawks replaced Lloyd Pierce with McMillan last season after a 14-20 start. They went 21-11 from March 1 on, the third-best record in the league. Atlanta won two more games while tallying eight more losses than last season as the NBA returned to an 82-game season this year.

But they ended the season in a very similar fashion to how they started it with very little to show in terms of growth. If that isn’t the most damning piece of evidence against him, then Kirschner reporting that questions of whether McMillan still had the locker room were met with something short of “yes” certainly is.