The Atlanta Hawks got a much-needed win to close out the weekend and enter the final four games of the regular season. They downed a downtrodden Utah Jazz team. But for a Hawks squad that is 2-5 in its last seven games, a win is a win.
Young had 23 points, 15 assists (to 3 turnovers), 5 rebounds, 1 block, and 1 steal in the Hawks’ 147-134 victory on Sunday.
The Hawks are already locked into the Play-In Tournament, but that is not enough for Young.
“We keep bringing up the postseason, but we not even there yet, you know what I’m saying? And, obviously, when you get to the Play-In, you’re still not even technically part of the postseason. In some people’s eyes, you may be. But for me, it’s not. It’s the playoffs. So I don’t even want to think about the postseason,” Young told reporters on April 6.
“We’re locked into the Play-In, but we still got to win some games there. So we got to figure out how to get ourselves in a good position when we get into the Play-In to get a win and move on to the postseason. So that’s all I want to see, is just us continue to get better, take it one game at a time in these next three, or four, however many left we have in the season and put ourselves in a good spot to end.”
Young has averaged 24.4 points, 12.4 assists, and shot 41.8% from downtown over his last 10 appearances. The Hawks have managed to go 5-5 in that span, underscoring just how tenuous their postseason outlook may be.
Trae Young: Hawks must 'figure out' bigger matchups
Young offered telling comments about Hawks center Onyeka Okongwu, who poured in 27 points and 12 boards versus the Jazz after a 6-5 showing against the New York Knicks on Saturday.
“Different teams bring different style fights and different matchups,” Young said. “Tonight, they’re a smaller team, so you can really feel O’s dominance whenever there’s a smaller big out there. He can shoot floaters over them and things like that. And he has good touch around the rim, so you can really see what he does, especially whenever they’re a smaller team, when they go to smaller lineups. But when they go bigger, we just got to figure out how to give him that same type of feeling and same type of encouragement too.”
The Hawks are 15-22 with Okongwu as the starter.
Okongwu, listed at 6-foot-9 until this season when he shot up to 6-foot-10 on the team’s website, was the smaller starting pivot in the vast majority of those games. He faces a similar outlook in the postseason, where the Knicks, Cleveland Cavaliers, and other all loom large.
The Hawks’ poor perimeter defense only compounds the potential issues that Young’s comments acknowledge.
How the Hawks handle it could determine far more than if they make the playoffs.