The Atlanta Hawks are one step closer to securing a place in the NBA playoffs in 2022, after dominating the Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday night at the State Farm Arena with a score of 132-103. The Hawks were essentially ahead all night before really opening the game in the third quarter and creating a deficit that the Hornets just couldn’t get close to overcoming.
While Trey Young led the offensive line for the Hawks with 24 points and 11 assists, Atlanta contributed from the top and bottom of their roster as a total of six players scored double-digit points in the win. LaMelo Ball finished with the team’s 24 points for the Hornets, but in a rather inefficient way it took him 25 attempts to get there.
Now we’ll see which team can come out on top on Friday night when the Hawks and Cavaliers meet for the right to face the Miami Heat. Here are the three biggest excerpts from the game tonight.
1. Trae Young is resistant to protection
Trey Young shot 3 of 13 from the field in the first half. It was a kind of performance that could not be understood through a score. Although Young’s shots were still missing, Hawks continued to score. They were 60 in the first half because of all the extra attention Charlotte paid to Young. They picked him up on the half court and caught him off the screens, but because Young is such a dynamic passer and can shoot so far behind the line, all he did was use his tactics to open things up for his teammates. They delivered with a star half.
So the Hornets calmed down a bit in the second, switching more screens. Young baked the poor big ones that Charlotte put on the floor to hunt from there, this time beating them both as a goal scorer and as a passer. The Hawks scored 132 points in the match and won Young’s minutes with 27 points.
This is the level to which Young has risen in the big games. The Knicks, Bucks and Sixers saw him in last year’s playoffs. There is no defense you can use against him that does not constantly lead to a good attack for the Hawks. Release and he will hit you with a float after a float. Go down and it will go up for the 3s logo. Play too aggressively and he will accumulate free throws. Even Philadelphia, with Ben Simmons and Mathis Tiboul throwing him into more conventional defenses, couldn’t stop him.
This is the highest level of playoff attack, reserved only for the best creators of basketball shots. At a time, there are usually only three or four basketball players who are protected in this way. LeBron James and James Harden have been there for years. Stephen Curry can still be. Luka Doncic and Trey Young have risen to this point now and should have been there for a long time. If the Hawks can give Young the right teammates, there’s no reason they can’t score that way for years to come.
2. LaMelo LaBusts
A year ago, LaMelo Ball shot 4 out of 14 at a loss to the Pacers. He shot 7 out of 25 tonight in the Hawks’ playoff loss. This is a sample of two games. This doesn’t make much sense in the big scheme, and as the Hornets move forward and come up with the list around him, he will have many more big games to prove himself. It is too early to wonder how it fits into high leverage situations.
But what we can say much more emphatically is that Ball lacks Young’s indisputability. He is not the type of player who can look at any defense that an opponent throws at him and immediately have a counter. This is the All-Star, who scored single digits 16 times in his two seasons in the NBA. He is obviously not close to his heyday, but he is not the kind of unique creator that most teams tend to prefer from their star points. He’s more of a stream player, a killer in transition who can function in an attack, but he still hasn’t figured out how to own him the way Young does.
There is no reason to believe that it cannot. After all, he is only in his second season, and although he is not a smooth pick-and-roll operator like Young, he shares the incredible vision of passes and Young’s shooting range. The figures are there, but like his brother, he is a fickle finishing and middle operator who prefers to keep the ball moving. This is good in the regular season. This is something he will have to work on in the post-season if he is to be the type of player who can lead his team in deep running.
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3. Please, the Hornets will find a center?
At this point, we should all feel bad for James Borego. This man has been making his way in semi-decent defenses for years with nothing but 6-7 centers and disinterested guards, and in the end, this approach seems to have worked. Mason Plumley and Montresle Harel were unstoppable centers this year, but for the entire term of the Borego Hornets failed to provide him with a single adequate rim protector.
That killed them in that game, as it has for most of the season. The Hawks gained easy dribble penetration for most of the first half and used it to kick the ball to the scorers. When the Hornets stayed at home with these scorers in the second half, the Hawks got all the layups and dunks they wanted. This is preventable with the right big man. It’s high time the Hornets went out and found one.
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