How the Heat woke up Trae Young, forcing him into his worst habits at the worst time

If Trae Young thought the ease with which he waltzed in his first postseason was going to be the norm, strolling and bowing inside Madison Square Garden like he owned the place, he just to receive a reality check courtesy of the Miami Heat. They made Young’s life hell before happily completing a five-game sweep against the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday.

Beyond averaging just 15.4 points while being held in single digits in two of five games, Young’s serial numbers look abysmal.

• 30 turnovers against 22 shots made
• 18% 3 point shooting
• 31% total shots

Young finished the series with 19 points on 3-for-24 shooting, including 0 for 12 of 3 and 12 turnovers in Games 1 and 5. He posted 10 turnovers in Game 2 and never went over eight assists in any game. For all intents and purposes, he was erased, a credit to Miami’s defense, but also a stark reminder that Young is not yet the kind of superstar who can thrive on his own terms.

He must be able to enter the paint. He must be covered defensively. Miami stopped him from doing the latter, and they chased him at every opportunity they got defensively. Young’s math is simple: he has to create a ton of points to come out as a plus when you subtract all the points he’s responsible for giving up, directly or indirectly. He was minus-58 for the series.

After the Game 5 loss, Young said the Heat’s defense was “hands down” the best he had ever faced. “The numbers would tell,” he said. “I didn’t shoot well. I couldn’t get to some places I normally go. »

This place, again, is painting. When he can’t get there, like James Harden, he begins to become overly reliant on 3-point shooting, which contrary to popular belief hasn’t always been Young’s strength.

At the start of last season, I wrote an article in which I argued that Young has been, and has been for a long time, an average shooter disguised as a great. Young shot 36% from Form 3 in his only college season, 32% his rookie season, 36% his second season and 34% last season.

Do I realize his numbers are compromised due to his tough shooting profile? And it’s. Do I also think that he choose take a lot of hard shots? And it’s. You can talk about shooting talent all you want, and there’s no denying Young’s talent, just as there’s no denying the impact that the mere threat of his shot, whether he makes them or not, has on the defenses that must stretch and bend everywhere. the place in an almost futile effort to contain it.

This season, Young has put on a terrific shooting campaign, taking his 3-point tally to 38.2 percent on eight attempts per game with true shooting north of 60, which is pretty elite territory. He didn’t improve as a shooter (he always had a sniper knack), he just took better shots, or at least less bad ones.

I loved Young’s increased focus on the midrange, where he made 52 percent of his shots from 14 feet to the 3-point line, a 96th percentile mark, according to Cleaning the Glass. His float remains butter, as evidenced by his Game 3 winner. This is when Young is at his best, spraying a variety of shots and doing damage as a scorer and passer from the outside to inside. Miami knew this and planned the game to force Young into his worst habit, which is falling deeply in love with 3-ball, the operative term being deep.

After Game 1, when Young hit 10 of his 11 shots from beyond the arc, almost all of which were somewhere between heavily contested and downright misguided, Young said this: “If you watch the game, you see having five people in the paint when I have the ball. They do a great job showing help and not letting me into the paint. If I try to get past someone, they send a brace and force me to kick my teammates. »

For starters, let’s be clear: Miami obviously didn’t have five people in the paint when Young had the ball. At least one defender was keeping him on the ball 20-25 feet from the basket. Usually two or three were taken out high for coverage and pick-and-roll traps, and the other help defenders can’t just stand in the paintball, it’s illegal. Hyperbole aside, Young’s point is that every defender was either one paint step away or on his way to the paint, and they were all ready to converge on him the moment he went down.

Examining the scene before him, he saw, in some variations, much of this:

Young has all five pairs of defensive eyes focused on him. That’s what happens when you’re a superstar and you always have the ball. You are easy to follow; not necessarily easy to defend, but easy to follow. Hawks president Travis Schlenk has spoken to me several times about his and the coaches’ efforts to get Young to see the value of moving more without the ball, where following him becomes a more difficult prospect. It’s something he still needs to commit to and work on, but it also requires the Hawks fielding enough capable playmakers that Young can be released to leave the ball.

Schlenk tried to build his roster with that in mind. From Kevin Huerter to Bogdan Bogdanovic and DeAndre Hunter, who didn’t have a great season but evolved as a self-creator, you can see the idea of ​​multiple managers on the pitch. But the gap between these guys and Young is so big that it’s hard to get away from Young creating everything when the offense ranks among the elites and the defense gives you no wiggle room.

As built, the Hawks rely almost entirely on Young’s magic.

In the regular season he was, and it still only earned them the No. 9 seed, needing to win two playoff games to even qualify for the playoffs. Young led the league in total points and assists. He has a case for the All-NBA First Team. But playoff play is different. Young was awesome in the playoffs last year, but there were and still are some qualifiers to note.

The Knicks were about as weak as a No. 4 seed you’ll find in the playoffs, and the Sixers, while boasting a strong defense with Ben Simmons on the perimeter and Joel Embiid anchoring the line of bottom, always had weaker defenders to hunt. He still shot just 31 percent from 3 in his first playoff, but he hit enough big ones and exploited the other holes.

With the Heat, there are no defensive holes. There’s little, if any, stall through their perimeter defenders. Young could start with PJ Tucker or Kyle Lowry harassing him, call a screen, then swing Jimmy Butler or Bam Adebayo on him. Maybe two of these guys are ganging up. Max Strus stayed with him. Young was appreciative of Gabe Vincent’s defense. All of these guys managed to contain Young one-on-one. This is the key.

Despite all the talk about Young seeing multiple defenders congregated in his general vicinity, for most of the series he wasn’t beating the one directly in front of him. Yes, the Heat set up traps and helped with their wings, but for the overwhelming majority of the series, Young just wasn’t beating the first guy. They all stayed in front of him. They all occupied his space. They all got physical with him. And the bottom line is that Young, from the very first quarter of the series, gave in to that frustration all too easily. He said to hell with the hassle and started hoisting 3s.

Again, I did 18 percent. Over two playoff series, Young has made 30% of his 3s. The numbers don’t lie. So now he can’t get into the paint and the 3’s don’t fall, so he starts pressing to shake things up against a defense bigger and stronger than him. And that’s how it spirals with turnover. It was how the Heat took one of the most indefensible weapons of the regular season and turned it into a postseason product of its worst habits.

it’s not really a knock on Young; this is just a reality check. These elite defenses are relentless. The Boston Celtics just put Kevin Durant in a torture chamber. The Toronto Raptors are equipped with wall-to-wall wings that can change everything, and James Harden can’t find an inch to score inside the arc.

Presumably, Young is going to find himself in a lot of these post-season games going forward, and if he continues to function mostly on the ball, he’s going to have to find ways to access his money points even when everyone knows where he is going, or where he is trying to go.

That’s what makes Chris Paul great. He never sped up, never operates on someone else’s terms, never prepares for bad moves. Being off the ball just as dangerous is what makes Stephen Curry great. Whatever development Young leans on and whatever roster moves the Hawks are able to make this summer, it has to be with this series in mind.

Trae needs help, but he also needs to make better decisions, shoot better, defend better, cheek better. Her first post-season was a love story. His second was a horror show. A good player would attribute such struggles to the defense he faced, but great players don’t have that excuse. That’s what makes them great. They might find sledding difficult, they might struggle, but they won’t be turned down, at least not to that degree, for a whole run. They will find success, however deep it may hide. Bring couldn’t do it. He was checked at every turn. It was a wake-up call. Time will tell if he has an answer.