Trae Young gets honest about Quin Snyder, Hawks' roster amid slide: 'Our record is a**'

The Atlanta Hawks have dropped to 15-22 on the season but Trae Young isn’t wavering.

“We got to find a way,” Young told reporters after the game. “I've been down before and found a way to fight back, and that's just what it is. We're in a difficult situation right now. We just got to figure it out. We'll get through it and I ain't got no worry about it.”

Young’s rough three-point shooting in the new calendar year continued in the Hawks’ disappointing 127-99 loss to the woeful Washington Wizards.

Atlanta also had its streak of 100-point performances snapped at 94 games.

“If I knew the answers, we would have turned it around,” Young said. “We didn't have a quarter over 30 [points scored] tonight. That's just not like us. Not scoring over 100 is not like us. And it sucks saying, ‘It's just one of those nights.’ But it's one of those nights.

“We played last night and played against a fast team that runs a lot. And I guarantee [the Wizards] knew that and wanted to push the pace, and be physical, and just push it right back to us, and it worked to their advantage tonight. …You never want it to be on the losing end of a game like this tonight. But it's part of it and um that's what we got to learn.

“Eventually we can't have these types of games.”

Hawks' Trae Young: 'We can't have these types of games'

Young noted the need for more practice time to learn Head Coach Quin Snyder’s systems, something that is notably difficult to do during the NBA season with how games are scheduled.

“Quin is such a cerebral coach and cerebral person. He needs time, he needs people in there that are going to listen and just give the effort that he says. And it's a lot. It's a lot. But it can work. It can really work, and it just takes time and it's going to take us some time. The guys believe in him.

“Practice helps. And when you have back-to-backs, it's hard to put it in a practice and even after that, it's hard to get into practice because you play a couple days later. So I know it kind of frustrates him because he can't put in his imprint and instill it in our heads as much as he wants.

“We're a young team, so you're going to have mishaps and certain things because it is complicated.”

The Hawks are tied with the Wizards and New York Knicks for the 12th-youngest roster in the league, per HispanosNBA.

They are not exactly a team of rookies and second-year players, even though they have their fair share. But they are also far from being long in the tooth. That only adds to the disappointment with the inconsistency they have shown on the floor.

“It will work,” Young said. “I really believe that. He just – we just got to continue to get better and trust this process and understand it's going to start raining eventually.”

After shooting 42.2% from three in December, Young is shooting 30.8% in January. The six-game sample size is far from definitive. Young also began November shooting 30.2% from deep before finishing with a 37.7% mark in that month, and he shot 24.1% over the first four games of the season.

But he shot 31.6% from the floor, including 2-for-10 on threes versus the Wizards.

Young hasn’t hit more than two threes in a game since the Hawks’ win over the Wizards on New Year’s Eve. He has attempted fewer than eight threes just once in the last 16 games, though he has shot 36% in that entire span thanks to his strong showing in December.

Hawks must 'push through' poor shooting performances

He noted that it can be “deflating” when getting good looks that don’t fall like the Hawks were in the loss to Washington.

Young also talked about taking the approach of shooting through it.

“Just gotta push through,” Young said. “I'm constantly preaching to my teammates to keep shooting. Even when Saddiq will miss a couple early and we want him to keep shooting. We want Bogi to keep shooting, we want Jalen to shoot when he's open, and everybody to keep shooting.

“It's no different whenever I'm shooting. They're telling me to keep shooting … A couple of my shots have been going in and out, and this is part of it. And it'll be a time where they go back in and it'll be rolling again.”

As confident as Young is in the Hawks’ ability to turn things around offensively, and for as simple as his method for correcting course is on that end, defense might be a different story.

“I think it's multiple things [defensively],” Young said.

“We got to continue to be in the right spots, but also got to communicate if we're switching or certain things. And we got to continue to – it's not just one or two things. I think also turning the ball over live can hurt … We just can't do that. Stuff like that we can fix.”

Trae Young wants Hawks to 'communicate' more on defense

The Hawks rank 17th in turnovers this season. But they also rank 29th in transition points allowed, suggesting the latter is also an issue after made baskets.

Atlanta boasts the No. 8 offense entering play on January 14, but their defense ranks 27th.

“It's tough to communicate, especially out on the floor, new concepts," Young said. It's not like guys aren't trying to do certain things. Just, guys still don't know where they need to be. But we got to talk through it. And if we don't know where we need to be, then just continue to talk to each other and learn from each other.

“Nothing great happens overnight. So this is a process. And although our record is a** right now, we can be a lot better, and we'll be a lot better. This is a process so I'm not worried.”