Atlanta Hawks: 3 Takeaways As Blazers Complete 2nd Half Comeback

Trae Young is more Chris Paul than Steph Curry

All night Trae Young was carving up the Trail Blazers defense. He was beating any and everyone off the dribble, and then occasionally leveraging his offensive gravity to get his teammates wide open looks.

Young—as a rookie—has already gotten quite good at holding his dribble an extra second or two to get the opposing big man to commit to stopping him. His floater has been his most consistent offensive weapon. But throughout the season Young has been improving at freezing the opposing big off the dribble on the pick-and-roll, and then sneaking a quick layup over their outstretched arms.

Ice Trae’s shot chart was a thing of beauty, as he all of his field goal attempts on the night were at the rim, 3-pointers or free throws. Per ESPN.com, Young was 6/7 in the paint against a Portland team that has the massive 6-foot-11, 275 lb Jusuf Nurkic lurking in the paint.

In the last five games, his 3-point shooting is back to slumping (29.4 percent)  but he has good shooting nights, as always. He went 4/9 from the 3-point in a win over the Thunder and 3/6 from the 3-point line in Saturday’s loss to the Trail Blazers.

The most important thing is whether or not Young’s 3-point shot is falling, he is scoring and setting up his teammates in a high-usage role. After last night’s 30-point, 8-assist game, Young is averaging 19.2 PPG and 8.8 APG over his last five games on 45.9 percent shooting.