The Bad
Trae’s Turnovers
Over the course of the first two games of the preseason, Ice Trae has piled up a titanic 17 turnovers. That is an average of 8.5 per game through two contests. Not great from the wunderkind youngster. Young knows he’s hurting his team with those turns, and he was quite succinct and candid in his post-game comments per Kevin Chouinard of NBA.com:
Trae Young: “As far as turnovers, I’ve been playing like shit.” Said the offense would settle down with more time.
— Kevin Chouinard (@KLChouinard) October 10, 2019
Of course, the Atlanta Hawks’ offense nearly falls apart when Young is out of the game, so all those turnovers are only due to Young trying to do too much.
Since it’s only the preseason, expect these kinks to be ironed out once the regular season begins in earnest.
Three-Point Shooting
The success of the Atlanta Hawks on offense hinges on the team’s ability to attempt a lot of three-pointers and also hit them at a fairly high clip. In this game? Not so much.
Though the Magic only shot 29.4 percent from downtown, the Hawks somehow did worse by producing a 27.5 percent clip by shooting 11 of 40 from deep. Sure, some of the team’s young big men looked quite good on their deep tries, 27.5 percent is certainly not going to cut it once the season begins in earnest.