Paul Millsap sat at his locker, an elbow and both ankles wrapped in ice, following the Hawks’ loss to the Nuggets on Thursday.
It was a quiet moment after all the questions had been asked about his 29-point, 10-rebound performance and a missed potential game-tying shot in the final seconds. Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer sat next to his power forward and simply asked “How are you?”
“I’m OK,” Millsap assured him.
Millsap has been bothered by a sore right elbow of late. A sore Achilles caused him to miss the Hawks’ final two exhibition games. Budenholzer’s concern was understandable.
The Hawks need Millsap.
He was brought to Atlanta — as Josh Smith left in free agency — for these moments. It’s not only his on-court production, but his role in rebuilding the franchise. The Hawks are learning to play together. They must figure out ways to win games such as Thursday’s, when they led by eight points with six minutes remaining and lost.
“He was really good,” Al Horford said. “He’s hurt, man. People don’t realize that, and he is playing like that. There is a lot of upside to our team, and we are going to get this right. We are going to get it rolling.”
It was Millsap who huddled his teammates together in the closing moments of Tuesday’s win at the Kings, their only win on the three-game West Coast trip against the last-second losses, as a large lead was slipping away.
Budenholzer acknowledged that Millsap is a “little banged up.” Millsap would have nothing of it.
“It’s OK,” was Millsap’s response to two direct inquires about the condition of his elbow.
Millsap wasn’t concerned with his individual numbers against the Nuggets, clearly his best game in a Hawks uniform early in this tenure in Atlanta.
“We lost, so it don’t matter if it was or it wasn’t,” Millsap said. “It’s an ‘L’ in the book right now.”
Millsap took one of two last-season shots against the Nuggets. Budenholzer drew up a final play with the Hawks trailing 109-107 with six seconds left. There were multiple options, but when Millsap got the ball on the block with Andre Miller defending, he took his step-back jumper. The shot missed, and Horford got the rebound and took a jumper that also missed and time ran out.
“There are always multiple options, but Paul Millsap getting it on the block against a smaller player, one-on-one, is a great opportunity for us,” Budenholzer said. “We feel good about the execution. We feel good about the shots. That’s basketball. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t. We’ll win them together. We’ll lose them together. We’ll go to Paul again, I can assure you.”
Through five games, Millsap is the Hawks’ leading scorer at 20.6 points per game, tied for 19th in the NBA. He has a .591 field-goal percentage and has averaged 7.6 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 1.6 steals and .8 blocks. Millsap has been effective from 3-point range, making 4 of 8 attempts. He made a fourth-quarter 3-pointer at the shot-clock buzzer in the win over the Kings.
“We still have to get better,” Millsap said of the 2-3 Hawks. “There are still a few things we have to work on, down-the-stretch-type stuff, but it will come.”
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