Watch out Doc, Trae is closing.
Fast.
Doc Rivers is the Hawks’ all-time assists leader. The former point guard and current Philadelphia 76ers head coach compiled 3,866 assists in eight seasons with the Hawks. That’s tops for the entirety of the franchise, in both St. Louis and Atlanta.
In only three seasons, Trae Young has 1,807 assists, almost half of Rivers’ total. That puts him 16th in franchise history, 12th since the move to Atlanta in 1968.
The two assists aficionados will face off in their NBA’s Eastern Conference semifinals series. Game 1 is Sunday afternoon in Philadelphia.
“He can play basketball. I just threw it to Dominique (Wilkins). That would be the biggest difference,” Rivers joked of Young and the assists race.
Young actually ranks first in franchise history with an average of 8.9 assists per game. Rivers is third with 6.8.
Rivers knows his team will have its hands full trying to slow Young, who proved in the Hawks’ series victory over the New York Knicks that he can do it all. Young averaged 29.2 points and 9.8 assists in his first five playoff games.
“What makes him a great passer is that he’s a great scorer, and he understands that so well,” Rivers said Friday. “He knows that there is so much attention to him to try to take the ball out of his hands, to try to trap him. The fact that he is still finding guys wide open is amazing. … (Early in his career) I actually made the comment that he is a better passer than he is a scorer. Now, his scoring has caught up, and he has continued to be a great passer.”
The 76ers enter as the No. 1 seed in the East and dispatched the Washington Wizards in five games. They easily moved on against one of the top backcourts in the NBA in Russell Westbrook and Bradley Beal. While Young can expect to face a number of different defensive looks, the 76ers know you can’t take it all way. Rivers said that with Young’s ability to find the open man, it will be difficult to simply run a trap, as he did against the Wizards.
“You want to take away Trae’s 3′s, his penetration,” the 76ers’ veteran guard Danny Green said. “He obviously makes plays at the rim, his floaters. You can’t take away all three of them. He is very good at it. He’s very crafty for a reason. So, the approach is try to take away his touches, throw different looks at him. Try to make him play to his weaknesses, which is not many things.”
In other words, easier said than done.
The 76ers can use many players to slow Young – including the 6-foot-11 Ben Simmons.
The Sixers won the season series, 2-1. Rivers said throw those games out. The Hawks won 112-94 on Jan. 11, but that was before the Hawks fired Lloyd Pierce and replaced him with Nate McMillan, a move that led to a remarkable turnaround. The Sixers won back-to-back games, 127-83 on April 28 and 126-104 on April 30, but the Hawks were without starters Bogdan Bogdanovic and DeAndre Hunter. Those are two key players for Young to find when pressed this time around.
“It’s hard,” Rivers said. “He’s good for a reason. I’ve always said, guys like Trae and all the great scorers, if you can slow them down easily, they wouldn’t be great scorers. They are going to make it difficult, or he will. He has so many other guys that he can pass to. They have ton of shooting on the floor and a ton of playmakers on the floor. That’s what makes him so much more difficult.”
About the Author
