The Atlanta Hawks got clutch performances from Bogdan Bogdanovic, De’Andre Hunter, Danilo Gallinari, Onyeka Okongwu, Delon Wright, and of course when you need him the most, Trae Young. Ice Trae hit the game-winning floater in transition with 4.5 seconds left on the clock, and then De’Andre Hunter secured the lead and the win with a great contest of Jimmy Butler’s shot as time expired. However, this is about the Hawks’ offense not the Hawks’ defense. In the first two games it seemed as if the Miami Heat had Trae Young’s number. In game one the Heat held Young to a playoff career low eight points where Trae shot a miserable 1-12 from the field and put up a goose egg from three point land as he went 0-7 from behind the arc. In game two, Trae was better shooting wise going 10-20 from the field and 2-10 from three instead of 0-7 from three, but he had ten turnovers that was the difference in a ten point game. However, in the Hawks’ win last night Trae Young had an efficient 24 points shooting 6-14 from the field, 2-6 from the three point line, eight assists, and most importantly, only three turnovers. With all that being said, have the Atlanta Hawks and Trae Young figured out this Miami Heat defense? Atlanta Hawks beat writer for the AJC, Sarah Spencer, joined The Nick Kayal Show earlier today, and she thinks slowly but surely these Hawks are figuring things out against the Miami Heat.
The first stat that supports that statement is the most obvious one. The Atlanta Hawks have scored more points in every game this series up to this point. In game one the Hawks scored 91 points, game two 105 points, and in game three the Atlanta Hawks put 111 points in a victory. Sarah says “You’re up against the one seed, you’re the eight seed, the first game was a mess from both Trae and the Hawks perspective, second game a better showing but a ton of turnovers. I mean ten turnovers is far too many, and then in game three, no shot aren’t falling from three for him yet, I think he’s 4-23 from three against the Heat, so his three point shot still isn’t falling, but only three turnovers from him in game three, so that was a big turnaround. It seems that Trae has figured out what he has to do to be successful against this stout Miami Heat defense, and he actually talked about that very subject with Sarah Spencer in a recent piece by Sarah in the AJC where Trae said “ I felt like maybe I was trying to be too creative and trying to get the ball in certain creases and things like that,” Young also said “They do play good defense, and you can get behind the defense sometimes, but I’ve just got to be a little bit more solid and just making the easy play and not try to do it all sometimes.”
Interpret that how you would like, but to me it sounds like Trae Young has settled in and come to terms with taking what the defense gives him, and that seemed to be the case in game three. If we see that and a performance built upon his game three performance tomorrow night, the Hawks just might take down the number one seed in the Eastern Conference for the second straight year. The next step to doing that happens tomorrow night as the Hawks will try to tie the series at two games a piece in State Farm Arena.