HOUSTON - Nate McMillan is certainly glad Sunday wasn't the end of the line for his team, but next year the coach hopes his Atlanta Hawks aren't clawing for a spot in the NBA's play-in tournament during the last few days of the regular season.
Trae Young had 28 points and 11 assists as the Hawks beat the Houston Rockets 130-114, a victory that didn't improve their postseason position. The Hawks finished ninth in the Eastern Conference and will host the 10th-seeded Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday night in the first round of the play-in tournament.
"This feeling of what we are going through right now is not the feeling I expect next season. ... Next year we don't want to experience this," McMillan said. "Next year the mindset - I want it to be different."
Atlanta entered the day in ninth place and had already clinched a spot in the play-in tournament but played its starters against the lowly Rockets with a chance to improve its spot in the standings with a win and a loss by the Cleveland Cavalier. But the Cavs handily beat the Milwaukee Brewers, who were resting their starters, to secure the eighth seed and leave the Hawks at No. 9.
Jalen Green, the second overall pick in last year's draft, had a season-high 41 points for the Rockets, who lost their seventh straight game to finish 20-62, giving them the NBA's worst record for a second straight season.
Houston cut the lead to seven on two free throws by Green with about nine minutes to go, but Atlanta scored the next 16 points, fueled by four 3-pointers, to make it 120-97 midway through the fourth quarter.
Bogdan Bogdanovic had two 3s in that stretch and Danilo Gallinari and De'Andre Hunter had one each to help the Hawks pull away. McMillan was proud of the way his team responded.
"We just have to finish games," he said. "It wasn't so much what I needed to say - it had already been said, and we needed to close that quarter and close that game."
Gallinari scored 26 points with six 3-pointers, Hunter had 22 points and Clint Capela added 18 with 13 rebounds for the Hawks, who finished the regular season 43-39. Young made four 3s to give him 233 this season, passing Mookie Blaylock (231 in 1995-96) for the franchise's single-season record.
Now the Hawks, who made a surprising run as a low seed last year to the Eastern Conference title round, will begin a push for the playoffs on their own court.
"We get a home game," McMillan said. "It doesn't guarantee anything, but we've been pretty good at home."