Trae Young won his ‘chess match’ and the game for the Atlanta Hawks

Things got sketchy for the Atlanta Hawks until Trae Young proved once again that he is a true superstar in this league-leading his team to a 111-110 victory over the Miami Heat. The Hawks were in a back-and-forth affair at halftime but still led 61-54. Miami came out firing in the third quarter, outscoring Atlanta 31-16.

Then came the fourth quarter and, ultimately, Young took over down the stretch.

Before that, though, the Heat stretched their lead to 14 points before the Hawks could mount their comeback.

Young scored 10 points on 3-of-5 shooting getting three more points at the free-throw line. He was accompanied by Bogdan Bogdanovic who scored nine of his 18 points in the final 12 minutes of action.

The Atlanta Hawks staved off the impossible with a big win over the Heat in Game 3

After struggling to just 10 points in the first half on 28.6% shooting, Young only scored four points in the third quarter hitting 1-of-2 shots and getting the rest at the stripe. He was hounded by a ferocious and varied Heat defense that set out to make things as difficult as possible for a player they knew was fully capable of doing what he did.

The Hawks withstood a 21-0 third-quarter run as well as a 7-3 Heat advantage to begin the fourth.

They outscored Miami 31-16, the same margin of the third quarter, from that point on.

Bogdanovic, Onyeka Okongwu, and Delon Wright took turns digging the Hawks out of the hole they dug themselves into. This was after De’Andre Hunter got tagged with his fourth foul of the evening.

Okongwu had seven points and three boards in the frame, none bigger than this one among three Heat players that he put back up to give the Hawks a two-point lead with just 1:41 to go.

"We just didn’t give up. We didn’t stop fighting… They made their run in that third quarter and got going, and it was about our time to make a run, too. – via Sarah K. Spencer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution"

Wright was all over the place, notching five points and a pair of boards in the stretch while Bogdanovic was hitting three triples for his points and grabbing four rebounds.

That is when Young went to work. He checked in about three minutes into the frame and didn’t take his first shot until the 4:17-mark. His first make came shortly thereafter on a tough floater through contact to tie the game up at 101-all.

Miami’s Max Strus staked them to a brief 104-101 lead before Young drew them even again on a logo three.

The Hawks played the offense-defense game swapping out Young and Hunter over the final 1:03 but made sure their superstar was on the floor to hit that dagger floater driving against a shuffling P.J. Tucker and an out-of-position Jimmy Butler.

Young had struggled in the first two games, scoring just eight points on 1-of-12 shooting in Game 1 and turning the ball over 10 times in Game 2.

He called this his “most fun and challenging series” because of the “chess match” with Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra to which the coach responded, “He’s a great player…He has our full respect”, per Hawks.com’s Kevin Chouinard.

On Friday, in front of the home crowd, Young managed a disruptive Miami defense with just three giveaways in Game 3 – critical with a 3-0 hole proving to be insurmountable historically. This series is far from over.