"This Is Trae Young": Hawks Pick Apart Nuggets Behind Young's Brilliance
It’s the nature of a young team to realize its potential in fits and starts. They show glimpses of fully realized promise with increasing regularity until, eventually, they consistently play up to that level. The Hawks are not yet fully formed, and are therefore prone to lapses in execution and effort often plague up-and-coming teams. But in certain games, like Tuesday’s 125-121 win over the Nuggets, they offer fleeting glimpses of the vision the team has for itself and a path toward realizing it.
More than Atlanta’s shot-making, what jumped out was the kinds of looks it generated. Throughout the game, the Hawks found easier shots and made them at a higher rate than the Nuggets. Roughly 80 percent of the Hawks’ attempts came at the rim or from beyond the arc, per Cleaning the Glass, and the team shot 34 free throws for the game. That sort of distribution inherently lends itself to efficient offense and increases a team’s margin for error, even when shots don’t go in at a high rate. All a team in Atlanta’s position can really do is find the best looks it can and live with the results. On this night, the results were kind to the Hawks, who shot 15-of-34 on 3-pointers and 74 percent at the rim. They assisted on 30 of its 44 makes and cut out some of their turnover-induced empty possessions, which helped lift the offense over 1.27 points per possession.
At the forefront of it all was Trae Young, who finished with a season-high 42 points and 11 assists on 13-of-21 shooting. Excluding an injury-shortened outing in Miami and a dud against the Bulls, Young has notched at least 25 points and nine assists in every game this season. At times, he’s been his team’s sole source of offense. He tied a career-high Tuesday with eight 3-pointers, and by the time he began pulling up from the logo of the Pepsi Center in the third quarter, there was little the Nuggets could do to take him out of his rhythm. “Tonight wasn’t an aberration,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “This is Trae Young.”
What separates Young from most high-scoring guards is how naturally he reads the game and how easy he makes it for others. He pulls defenders toward him no matter where he is on the floor and might already be the most creative passing point guard in the NBA. With that offensive ingenuity comes a clarity of purpose for his teammates. Cut hard to the rim and Young will find you; provide him with proper floor spacing, and he’ll reward you with open 3s.
Against Denver, Atlanta demonstrated how lethal he can be when surrounded by players capable of exploiting the advantages he creates. The constant pressure Young applied to the Nuggets’ defense produced seams for other Hawks to attack. Alex Len, previously mired in a brutal slump, rolled toward a season-high 17 points on just eight shots. Jabari Parker continued his scoring rampage with another 20 points while Damian Jones had his best game as a Hawk. De’Andre Hunter gave his second strong effort in a row while playing primarily as a backup power forward, and Kevin Huerter sunk his first four shots before exiting with a shoulder injury.
Those sorts of complementary players had been the missing links for Atlanta this year, and Young has consequently shouldered more responsibility than nearly any player in the NBA. Should his teammates start to provide real, consistent production, it could meaningfully recalibrate Atlanta’s short-term trajectory. Still, Tuesday’s victory is no panacea to the Hawks’ larger issues. They gave up over 1.2 points per possession even while benefitting from poor opponent shooting, and their own hot shooting won’t sustain from game to game. Atlanta was the NBA’s second-worst 3-point shooting team and third-worst offense through its first nine games, and its propensity for turnovers hasn’t gone anywhere.
Injuries and variance have played roles in the slow start, and games like Tuesday’s offer hope that those trends might reverse. That will be a gradual process, but the ideal result grows increasingly evident. We’ve seen what these Hawks can become, it’s now a matter of how quickly they’ll get there.
