According to the Eagles official report, the team has officially fired its head coach Lloyd Pierce. At the same time, Nate McMillan, who coached the Pacers last season, will take over as the interim head coach.
“The main player Trae Young is quite dissatisfied with the team’s current losing streak, and even has some emotional reactions in the lounge.”
Last season, the Hawks only scored 20 wins and 47 losses. The mid-term losing streak also made Trae Young, a young rookie in the team desperate to train, feel very dissatisfied, and jumped out to hope that the top can do something.
In order to appease the new young owner, the Hawks also actively made reinforcements and recruited the penalty zone center Clint Capela. Before this season, they signed Danilo Gallinari, Bogdan Bogdanovic, and Rajon Rondo. The overall lineup requires experience and experience. , To have the potential and potential, the momentum of the playoffs in the Eastern Division should be pointed out. After the start of the season, there was indeed a record of the first division of the Eastern Division, but the follow-up was still beaten back to its original shape.
Why is there such a gap? The author believes that there are two reasons.
The first point is injuries
I have to say that the injury has affected the eagle’s wingspan. Bogdanovic has only played 9 games so far this season. Gallinari has played 9 games at the beginning of the season, not to mention that Kris Dunn, who signed the pre-season, has lost all games. Did not play.
Potential flanks Cam Reddish and De’Andre Hunter are also facing injuries, which to a certain extent also weakened the Hawks’ combat power. Hunter’s defense is very important to the Hawks’ flanks; while the second-year Reddish has some problems this season. Hit the wall, but the offensive end is still the eagle’s indispensable bench combat power, coupled with the recent addition of Kevin Huerter on the daily watch list, so that the eagle’s available soldiers are stretched.
The second point is the coach
The Eagles drive high and low, head coach Pierce must bear a lot of responsibility. In the 183 games he coached, his record was 63 wins and 120 losses, and he did not make the playoffs.
Although in the first two years of his tenure, he did establish a good system to help young players grow, but in order to appease Trae Young and speed up the reconstruction process, the team changed its strategy to fulfill the potential. When Win Now, Pierce was clearly lacking.
It can be seen from the game that he lacks a clear tactical positioning for the players. The Hawks currently rely on Young’s judgment for a large number of tactics, except that he has always been unable to find a way to cooperate with John Collins, a striker that Young and another team focused on training. , Gallinari, Bogdanovic and Kevin Huerter who were already in the formation are actually players with a certain transmission ability, but Pierce still allocates a lot of ball rights to Young, letting them only do the work of receiving and shooting.
This would be a matter of judgment of ball control, but Young is actually only a third grader. Although he has top organization and field control skills, he still lacks experience, so he often appears on the court and does not know himself. The picture of what to do. At this time, if there is no good coach to set the tactical system, then the team’s offensive rhythm will be chaotic, and this is the problem with the Hawks now.
(If you want a deeper understanding of this aspect, you can refer to the Podcast “Waganda Play One”, at 27:30 there is a discussion of the current Pierce problem.Apple Podcasts；Spotify)
Lloyd Pierce can’t do it, can Nate McMillan do it?
“Thanks to Pierce for his contribution to the Hawks, he has a positive impact on the city.”
“But in view of the fact that the team still has higher expectations for the record.”
“I hope this change will allow the Eagles to achieve better results in the second half of the season.”
Extensive reinforcement, but no expected effect, then the head coach’s dismissal is an inevitable trend, but is the replacement assistant Nate McMillan able to lead the team to the next level?
In the past few seasons, McMillan helped Domantas Sabonis and Victor Oladipo grow into All-Stars. Among them, Sabonis was put in the right position. But from the perspective of past coaching style, McMillan emphasizes the pick-and-roll between guards and strikers, which may allow Collins to have more offensive opportunities, but at the same time McMillan lacks in the configuration of peripheral shooting, which may be more of the peripheral wing shooters. The eagle is a bad news.
Next, the style of Pao Horse has greatly liberated Sabonis’ support ability, but the current Eagles may lack the same high-level support points as Sabonis in the lineup. At present, it seems that only Gallinari can be used in this way, but the same Can a set of tactical system of the Eagles be copied? How many ball possessions is Trae Young willing to release? This is suspicious.
Finally, it can be seen in the previous video of the Pioneer and Pacer game that although McMillan is a coach who has a certain understanding of tactics, he has a slow on-the-spot judgment on the sidelines. Will this cause the current Eagles? What about the impact? And whether the current Eagles are short of soldiers due to injuries, will it also affect McMillan’s scheduling? This is also a point that can be observed.
In summary, McMillan’s top priority may be to deal with the role positioning first, design more tactical moves, establish second passing points, and don’t let Trae Young handle the game alone, but the author currently reserves the right to improve the coaching record. Attitude, after all, there is still a lack of players in the lineup that McMillan will use, but I still hope that he can smoothly let the Eagles take off.
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