Hawks Trae Young gets honest about uncalled foul in loss to Nets

The Atlanta Hawks fell to 9-11 on the season with a 114-113 loss to the Brooklyn Nets. Instead of the story being solely about the hard-fought battle, it turned on its ear when Nets swingman Mikal Bridges appeared to make contact with Trae Young’s arm while swiping at the ball.

With no whistle blown, Young missed the shot and the game came to an end. He tried to downplay the letdown in the aftermath.

“I've played a lot of games in this league so far, and I understand that it's just one game and you got to try to flush it,” Young said via the team after the game. “As terrible as a end result as it is, you just got to flush it and try to learn from the things you made mistakes on and try to be better from them. But move on. We got a game in two days so you can't dwell on it too long.”

Head coach Quin Snyder was heated in the moment. He praised the Hawks defensive effort.

“It's tough to lose the game on the final possession,” Snyder said. “I thought that we played as well defensively as we have in a while, and would like that effort to be rewarded with a win. But that wasn't the case.”

The loss is the Hawks’ fourth in their last five games, and they are 3-7 over their last 10 contests.

Whereas Snyder pointed to late-game execution before, he could not tonight.

“I thought that our previous game we didn't execute the last five minutes of the game,” Snyder said. “I don't know that was the case tonight. Someone making a shot and not getting a call, it's hard to pin that on execution. When you got the ball in the player’s hands you wanted in and, [we] can debate the last possession. But looked to me like he got pushed.”

Snyder had good reason to want the ball in Young’s hands. The sixth-year guard is tied with Bridges for the third-most total clutch points this season, per NBA.com. He is tied with Damian Lillard of the Milwaukee Bucks for the league lead in clutch points per game.

Young finished with 30 points, nine assists, two blocks, and one rebound. He wasn’t terribly efficient (45.8% FG, 33.3% 3P). But he did make several defensive plays.

In addition to drawing another charge, Young continues to show sticky hands on defense.

The Nets shot 40% on 11-for-27 shooting from beyond the arc for the game. But they were just 5-for-18 from deep after the first quarter, including 2-for-7 (28.6%) in the fourth quarter. Atlanta also reversed their fortunes, going 5-for-10 from outside in the final frame after going 7-for-21 through the first three quarters.

“It's tough you don't get to see a better result for the way we played defense tonight,” Young said.