With the Hawks trailing by four, it seemed Trae Young was driving to set up his favorite floater shot before wrapping a pass around 76ers center Joel Embiid and finding an open John Collins in the corner.
Off Young’s 18th assist of the game, Collins swished a 3-pointer with 3:15 to play, continuing the Hawks’ comeback efforts in their eventual 103-100 win vs. Philly in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals Monday. The series is now tied 2-2.
Young finished with 25 points and only two turnovers in addition to his career high-tying 18 assists.
At 22 years and 268 days old, he became the youngest player in NBA history to have 18 assists in a postseason game (the previous youngest was Spud Webb, who also played for the Hawks, in April 1986), and the youngest with a 20-point, 15-assist game in the NBA playoffs. His 18 assists tied the second-most in a playoff game in Hawks history (former Hawk and current 76ers coach Doc Rivers holds the record with 22, set on May 16, 1988 vs. Boston).
“I just read what the defense is giving me,” Young said of his passing, after the win. “They’re doing a lot of hedging and trapping. For me, that’s fine. That’s good. Now it’s all about making the right play, the open pass, so that’s really pretty much what they did. They were just forcing me to really pretty much give up the ball.”
Young is averaging 28.3 points and 10.7 assists per game in his first postseason run, with 3.1 turnovers (he averaged 4.1 per game in the regular season), helping the Hawks drastically overperform from the team’s preseason goal of simply making the playoffs. How Young ran the offense and called plays on his own in Game 4 stood out the most to interim coach Nate McMillan – it’s something he wants the team to build on moving forward.
“I thought he did a great job of just managing the team and running the team,” McMillan said Tuesday, with Game 5 set for 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in Philadelphia. “He called a lot of plays last night on his own, and we want to build off of that, giving him the freedom to call sets and get guys involved. He’s out there, and he has a feel for what’s going on, and I thought he really did a good job of calling sets last night, getting guys involved, taking advantage of their defensive coverage last night.”
As impressive as Young’s passing has been in the playoffs, especially considering this is his first time in the postseason, he and the Hawks limiting turnovers in Game 4 probably was the biggest reason why they were able to tie the series.
After suffering back-to-back blowout losses in games 2 and 3, they set themselves up for success by not giving Philly any easy baskets.
“Really, I think it starts on the offensive end of the floor, taking care of the ball,” McMillan said. “We only had four turnovers, so they weren’t able to get out into transition. I think they had six fast-break points. And we were able to keep them out of the paint. So just a great job by us (Monday).”
Because the Hawks won Game 4, they are guaranteed a Game 6, which will be in Atlanta at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
