With less than four minutes to go until the end of the game, the Hawks, who played at home, are still trailing the Heat 98-101.
Trae Young decided to take over the game.
Facing PJ Tucker, who is close to the body, and Bam Adebayo, who is ready to come to the bag next to him, the young All-Star point guard has taken full advantage of his dexterity, cheated his opponent with two consecutive hesitant steps, flashed half a position, raised his hand and threw it, and scored! Whistle! 2+1 hit, 101 draw!
This is just the beginning of the show. In the next three minutes or so, Trae Young, who was "hard in heaven", scored 7 consecutive points, including 2 minutes and 26 seconds before the final, a sudden cold arrow two meters away from the three-point line, 1 minute and 22 seconds, two free throws after breaking through the foul, and the last 4.4 seconds, the quasi-kill of the breakthrough throw in the middle!
Trailing 2-0 on aggregate, hitting 21-0 in the third quarter and falling behind by 16 points at one point, Trae Young once again hit back at all doubts with a brilliant performance. Make this once seemingly suspenseful series fun again!
Trae Young, 23, has only been in the league for just four years, but has already attracted countless "black fans". In addition to the New York fans see him as a thorn in the eye, NBA celebrity Skip Bayless also "cares deeply" for him.
Bayless publicly stated that Lamello Pol was a better defender than Trae Young before the playoffs between the Hawks and Hornets began, and although his assertion was soon slapped in the face (Trae Young led the Hawks to a 132-103 win over the Hornets with 24 points and 11 assists to knock out three goals), Trae Young's poor performance in the first two games of the series against the Heat gave him a new "black material".
In the first game against the Heat, Trae Young was extremely uncomfortable facing the aggressive defense of the other side, shooting only 1 of 12 in the whole game, including 7 of 0 from outside the three-point line, only 8 points, which was one of the worst performances of his career, and the Eagles also suffered a fiasco of 91-115.
In the second game that followed, the Hawks improved overall, although they eventually lost again by double digits (105-115), but the game was played until more than 1 minute to divide the winner, and Trae Young also recovered, scoring 25 points on 10-of-20 shooting. However, as the core of the team's ball possession, he made as many as 10 mistakes in the whole game and still bears the main responsibility for the loss.
So when Bayless was on the show yesterday and called Trae Young "grossly overrated" and that he was "even worse than Westbrook," he was right.
Bayless has never been bullish on Trae Young, and he once gave the skinny young defender the nickname "Mice Trae" (corresponding to "Ice Trae", mocking Trae Young like a little mouse). At that time, Trey Young was sneering, and also renamed "Skip Bayless" "Stiff Bayless" with a harmonic stem to describe his boring and annoying.
But this time, in the face of this "overrated" comment, he decided to speak with action.
Today's Trae Young is still the focus of the Heat' attention, but with the lessons of the first two games, he has played more calmly and more restrained than ever.
In the opening stage, his hand did not feel ideal, only 1 goal was hit in the first quarter of 4 shots, and even the two free throws on the free throw line were only one. So he reduced his barely attacking, only five shots in the next two quarters, and continued to walk to the free throw line by making fouls, scoring 14 points in the first three quarters.
The 14-point score actually lasted until the last 3 minutes and 33 seconds of the game, that is, the key three-point success described at the beginning of the article, and was refreshed again. Before that, it was Bogdan Bogdanovic who hit a back-to-back three-point shot to help the Hawks bite the score.
But as the game moves into the final tiebreakers, the Hawks are clear about who is their key sir. And Trae Young, too, lived up to expectations. In the last 3 minutes and 33 seconds, 10 of the 13 points the Hawks scored were from his own hands, in addition to his final 4.4 seconds of the quasi-kill, which became the fifth time in his career to score the team in the last 5 seconds of the game!
Throughout the game, Trae Young scored only 24 points, which is not even his personal season average, but everyone knows what his crucial 10-point shot in the final 3 minutes and 33 seconds means. He completed 8 assists in the whole game, but only 3 turnovers, which also proved his ability to correct mistakes and adjust himself.
When Bayless rattled off criticism of Trae Young, his colleague Shannon Sharpe objected, reminding him of how well Trae Young led the Hawks all the way to the East Finals in last year's playoffs. Perhaps it was precisely because of Trae Young and the Eagles' excellent performances last season that raised expectations, so when they barely squeezed into the playoffs through the playoffs as only ninth in the East this season, they raised more questions.
In fact, this season's Eagles have indeed struggled for various reasons, but Trae Young's personal performance is impeccable. In the case of the league's revision of the rules for a group of foul makers represented by him, Trae Young's average score per game has increased from 25.3 points last season to 28.4 points this season, while the number of assists has also increased from 9.4 to 9.7, the three-point shooting rate has increased from 34.3% to 38.2%, and even the number of errors per game has decreased from 4.1 last season to 4.0.
It's just Trae Young's bravery that can't solve all the Eagles' problems. Especially in the case of the inner defensive core Clint Capela injured knee injury can not play, they face the First Heat in the East, it is very difficult.
Despite this, Trae Young broke out just in time, pulling the team back from the edge of the cliff. If it weren't for his key ball performance, 0-3 behind, the Hawks would have been unable to escape the ghost gate.
There's an old NBA saying that when the away team wins, it's the real start of a series. The Hawks, who are 1-2 behind, the situation is still not optimistic, but at least the hope is still there.
And all this is due to the amazing energy contained in Trey Young's thin body, which is difficult to predict.