On Sunday afternoon, Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks had one final chance to tune up this regular season on the road vs the Indiana Pacers before hitting the road to take on the Chicago Bulls in a do or die Play-In game Wednesday evening. The effort the Hawks put up on Sunday was not exactly encouraging for fans, as Young and his teammates gave up a whopping 157 points en route to a 42-point defeat, although it should be noted that the game was (relatively) closer at the time that head coach Quin Snyder pulled his starters from the contest.
Despite the frustrating result, Young did reach a franchise milestone on the afternoon, as the All-Star passed up former Hawks point guard and current Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers to become the team’s all-time assist leader.
After the game, Young gave his one hundred percent honest reaction to breaking the record.
“It’s a blessing to be a part of it,” said Young, per Bally Sports: Hawks on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter. “Assists are not just me. I’ve had some really good teammates over the years to be able to break this type of record so quick.”
Young also took the time to address how he is feeling physically after just recently returning from surgery on his finger.
“I feel good. I used these three games to kind of get my wind under me. Coach played me a lot today, even in the first quarter, and I think in the third, he extended my minutes to try to get my wind under me, and it was more about that and just playing through it,” said Young.
A frustrating season in Atlanta
Despite Young continuing to put up historic numbers on a nightly basis, the Hawks didn’t find much on-court success in the 2023-24 season, at least relative to pre-season expectations, as many fans hoped that a full offseason under Quin Snyder would allow the Hawks to start much stronger this year.
Not to be.
Atlanta has been in the lower half of the Eastern Conference playoff bracket virtually all season, continuing to be among the bottom five defensive teams in the NBA, which perhaps should have been a bit predictable considering the team was in that area code last year and did virtually nothing to address the issue in the 2023 offseason.
Assuming that the Hawks don’t win two road elimination games and then knock off the 64-win Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs (which is a very, very safe assumption), Atlanta will be faced with a 2024 offseason filled with many more questions than answers, including what the team brass will choose to do about the backcourt pairing of Young and Dejounte Murray, who have provided more than enough evidence of their lack of cohesion over the last two years.
In any case, the Hawks have at least one more game to play in 2023-24 as they hit the road to take on the Bulls on Wednesday evening, with an unusually late start time at 9:30 PM ET due to an arena scheduling conflict in the Heat vs 76ers matchup.
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