So much for those rumors that Nate McMillan’s job was in trouble. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Indiana Pacers coach, who was about to enter the final year of his contract, has agreed to an unspecified extension, leaving outside rumors about his place with the team in the playoffs quelle.
Beginning in his first season, when a squad of eight players who were no longer in the NBA two years later managed to earn a spot in the playoffs, McMillan soon proved his mate as a floor-to-floor and has continued to do so with each passing year of his tenure, navigating blockbuster trades, season-ending injuries, and non-stop lineup changes amid many roster changes all while establishing a culture of accountability.
Simply put: there is rarely a question that a Nate McMillan coach team will play hard and express every last available ounce of regular season wins. What follows, however, when opponents also place increased value on each possession and their defensive-minded pick loses some of its luster is more of an unknown. On the one hand, few would have expected the 2017-18 team to even be in the playoffs, let alone send the LeBron Cavs to a Game 7; and yet there were definite areas where it seemed like McMillan’s system, like some dubious coaching decisions, limited its ceiling.
Appreciating the openness of shoes above all else, while barely getting on the line, made for some tough math when the undisputed midfield looked like they were hitting a top league in the regular season (47.7 percent) suddenly stopped falling amid the pressure of the playoffs (41.0 percent) – especially with Victor Oladipo struggling against heightened, and only slightly milder, defensive attention.
At the micro level, there were also several small moments – such as pulling Sabonis in Game 4, trying to rest in Rest 7, and keeping a time-out and a foul while letting the incoming pass loose on the game-winner of LeBron Defend Game 5 – that was suspected when it happened and certainly regretted in retrospect. Still, considering the overall development of that team and the number of individuals who had career-best seasons; of Oladipo named an All-Star and Sabonis who flourished as a five after Bogdanovic competed at the defensive end and Darren Collison flirted with a 50-40-90 effort, it’s also clear that McMillan’s coaching is much more was as usual a silent partner in how she managed to remove her February projection for the season for profit.
“I could not be smarter to work alongside a man like this,” Kevin Pritchard said of the 2017-18 season, while he was underwhelmed by the press of the team at the end of the year. “I saw another Nate this year. I challenge him every week to try to enjoy, for lack of a better word, of the process, and to develop the madness from this team. ”
From there, after receiving that glowing review, which seems to make today’s announcement the only possible outcome, while also highlighting the benefit of organizational synergy as coaches and executives take a step together in striving after a strong team culture, McMillan did not have the advantage of his star player in the last postseason and will probably not have the advantage of his other star player this postseason.
Sure, touching pinch lice. Putting Bogdanovic in the position of playing heroic ball without a hero was crippling-inducing against the Boston substitutes, and the refusal to turn to experimenting with the coupling of Turner-Sabonis, once Oladipo fell down, was short-sighted; however, even with the guaranteed criticism that McMillan could stand to look a little further into the future, while also focusing on the here and now, a roster short on shot creation and spaces at the four position was unlikely to be competitive to stay against team that actively handles defensive assignments.
Now, with the rise of TJ Warren increasing the team’s flexibility to adapt to modern times, McMillan deserves a chance to grow with his team in an expansion he rightly deserves, but the ceiling can not continue. with the elevated floor.
Otherwise, treating every game of the regular season like the playoffs, without a clear means of finding an extra gear, leaves the playoffs feeling too much like a short continuation of the regular season.
