The Next Phase in Trae's Development

[tbhawksfan1]

There’s a fairly obvious solution to this:

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Yeah... bring in a competant coach

[shakes0]

There’s a fairly obvious solution to this:

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Yeah... bring in a competant coach

yep, I'm really getting tired of Pierce's in game lack of coaching and adjustments.

I'm starting to think it's no coincidence this team has had a recent history of getting killed in 3rd quarters of games. Other coaches are making half time adjustments and Pierce is too busy shoving his thumb up his rear end.

Last night his solution to Trae being denied the ball was to have Trae do nothing but hang back and try and get the ball. Never once did I see Trae sprint ahead and start working off of screens to get open. instead he would wait by mid court and try and get the ball as as trailer while there were still 2-3 defenders in the immediate area.

[tbhawksfan1]

There’s a fairly obvious solution to this:

Read on Twitter

Yeah... bring in a competant coach

yep, I'm really getting tired of Pierce's in game lack of coaching and adjustments.

I'm starting to think it's no coincidence this team has had a recent history of getting killed in 3rd quarters of games. Other coaches are making half time adjustments and Pierce is too busy shoving his thumb up his rear end.

Last night his solution to Trae being denied the ball was to have Trae do nothing but hang back and try and get the ball. Never once did I see Trae sprint ahead and start working off of screens to get open. instead he would wait by mid court and try and get the ball as as trailer while there were still 2-3 defenders in the immediate area.

I see Pierce as a rookie coach. He was brought in as a rookie and has done nothing to show that he's a main man.

Worst thing is that I think he has a very high opinion of himself and thinks he needs to show everybody something. He wants JC to develop something he isn't a facilitator; create his own shot guy. Wants Heurter to develop something he's mediocre at creator and Trae to be more of a distributor, off-ball shooter than super-star scoring / dishing PG.

I think that he is making guys over-think and not letting them settle into their strangths and play comfortable.

I also think that the Hawks stinking recent play is a direct result of the trouble started by JC calling out Trae. Pierce should have handled that and made it a non issue.

Pierce's dislike for Trae is going to be his down fall

[jayu70]

Pierce has to come up with a gameplan to counter this when Teams sell out on Trae:

As good as the Jazz were offensively in large stretches, the real headliner Friday night was their defense against Young. By the end of the night, the Hawks star point guard was 1-for-11 from the field with four points. He had no impact offensively, and his night offensively was somehow much better than his night defensively, because the Jazz hunted him without mercy in pick-and-roll action.

“We did a good job of showing hands, not fouling and not giving away anything easy,” Utah head coach Quin Snyder said. “We did a really good job of making him make contested shots.”

What the Jazz did against Young was layered, and involved both ends of the floor.

Utah made Young work on defense, involving him in the action as much as possible possession and running him through screens. It isn’t easy to do that, and be the focal point of the offense. But that’s the beauty of this Jazz team. Most teams have a guy Young can hide on. Everyone on the Jazz demands attention. Royce O’Neale handles the ball the least, but putting Young on him would have opened offensive rebound opportunities for the Jazz.

Defensively, the Jazz didn’t give Young much space. They blitzed a lot of his pick-and-roll action. They took away 3-point looks, and then funneled him to Rudy Gobert.

But here’s the context.

The Jazz sold out on Young, and were able to do so because there wasn’t another dynamic ballhandler on the floor capable of secondary creation off the dribble. Bogdan Bogdanovic would normally fit this role, but he was out on Friday night with injury. Ditto for Danilo Gallinari. So, Young was pretty much the only playmaker, and the Jazz took advantage. Other players hit some shots and made some plays. None of it was nearly enough.

https://theathletic.com/2326774/2021/01/16/jazz-keep-trae-young-under-wraps-as-they-roll-at-home/?amp#click=https://t.co/VJFOQePUez

[Jamaaliver]

The answer to all of this is to play Trae more in an off-ball role with him coming off multiple screens.

Reddish, Rondo or Huerter have to step up their ballhandling duties for this to work, though.

[Jamaaliver]

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[jayu70]

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“It works really well for me because I’m able to score so well off the pick-and-roll, and now with the people we’ve added this year, it’s hard to help off shooters,” Young said on Jan. 6. “The guy who is guarding me has to fight over the screen and can’t go under the screen. When you go over a screen, you have to fight quick and hard. There’s times when I get over a screen and get downhill, and there are times when our big man will slip out, and the defender will run right into me. That’s just something you learn with instincts over time.

“There’s times where I do it, and it’s just my instincts. When you feel the momentum of the defender fighting over screens — it’s hard for a fan to really realize how close the defender is to me on the screen. With his momentum, I can feel them moving forward. So, for me, it’s not that I’m jumping back. I’m really just stopping, playing where I’m at and going straight up, which is what I’m allowed to do. Their momentum carries into me, and that’s what happens.”

Young grew up watching video on some of the other smaller guards across the league, such as Chris Paul and Steve Nash, and studied what they did to draw contact and get to the line. Nash was never a big foul drawer, and Paul was always above average, particularly in his early years, but they had tricks they used to get to the line.

“I saw that it blew up and everyone was talking about it,” Young said of Nash’s comments. “I bet if I was playing for Steve, he’d be happy. It’s something in the midst of competition that he was wanting to win, and I was wanting to win, and I’m gonna do whatever it takes. I think him wanting to get in the refs’ ears a little bit was just trying to help him. I learned a lot about drawing fouls from him. If he says it’s not basketball, he must’ve been saying it about himself because he’s done it a couple of times throughout his career and was so successful.”

[Jamaaliver]

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[Jamaaliver]

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[Spud2nique]

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I AND 1 anything that kicks Curry to the side. He’s a role player. There I said it. For the future too, you dump on Curry, automatic AND 1 from me. That’s how we gone do it.

[Jamaaliver]

Meh. We still have work to do on closing out games. But he came up big this night.

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[Jamaaliver]

This is...encouraging.

Exposing the NBA's Worst Defenders

Honorable Exemptions



A few youngsters are also getting the benefit of the doubt with early 2020-21 returns. Had this topic been explored before the start of the season, Collin Sexton and Trae Young likely would've been prime candidates. Both seem to be making positive strides, though. Their teams' defenses are better with them on the floor. Young is actually holding opponents below their expected field-goal percentage. And they both look more aware on defense.

Bleacher Report

[jayu70]

This is...encouraging.

Exposing the NBA's Worst Defenders

Honorable Exemptions


A few youngsters are also getting the benefit of the doubt with early 2020-21 returns. Had this topic been explored before the start of the season, Collin Sexton and Trae Young likely would've been prime candidates. Both seem to be making positive strides, though. Their teams' defenses are better with them on the floor. Young is actually holding opponents below their expected field-goal percentage. And they both look more aware on defense.

Bleacher Report

Baby steps. All I need is for him to be better than last season, have some consistency with his effort and I'll be happy. He's never gonna be a world beater but he can be pesky.

[jayu70]

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[jayu70]

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For Young, the Hawks being more competitive this season is what matters most, not whether he’s an All-Star again. With his numbers, though, he will have an extremely strong case if this pace continues, as they’re not far from what qualified him as a starter last year (he was averaging 29.2 points and 8.6 assists per game at the time of the final vote last season).

As of Saturday evening, Young ranks No. 10 in the league in scoring (27.0 points per game) and No. 4 in assists (8.6 per game).

“It obviously would mean a lot to me to be an All-Star again,” Young said. “But at the same time, like I’ve said since the beginning of this year, winning is my main focus, and it’s been better this year; we’ve been winning more, and I think that’s what people have been wanting to see.

“So, we’ve been doing that, and that’s been my main focus is doing that, and I know everything else will take care of itself, which I hope it does.”

[Jamaaliver]

This is what will happen to us in the playoffs. Trae has to embrace moving without the ball.

The sooner the better.

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[Spud2nique]

Mayday mayday!!! People are attacking Trae because he can draw fouls. I’m sorry I can’t stop laughing right now because the person who started is a Jeremy Lin fan.
That’s pure comedy.

Trae has officially made it! Non Hawks fans hate his guts, that’s when you know you’ve arrived. Keep it coming haters we are just getting started.

Threezus, I’m very passionate I’m not crazy.

[VCfor3]

Dunc'd On had a segment where I guess someone had emailed in and asked about a swap Simmons and Trae. The hosts basically said Trae is significantly more valuable and went into quite a bit of detail as to why. Basically they preferred everything about Trae other than defense while pointing out that everything he brings on the offensive end does so much more for winning that what Simmons would provide on defense. I realize you guys already know how good Trae is, but it is nice when others with a voice praise your young star. (At least I feel that way when Ja gets some love)

Trae's foul drawing may not be fun to watch for opposing fans, but dang is it effective. Can't fault a guy for being smart and using the rules to help win.

[Jamaaliver]

Dunc'd On had a segment where I guess someone had emailed in and asked about a swap Simmons and Trae. The hosts basically said Trae is significantly more valuable and went into quite a bit of detail as to why. Basically they preferred everything about Trae other than defense while pointing out that everything he brings on the offensive end does so much more for winning that what Simmons would provide on defense.

Thanks for this. It gets exhausting having to defend our best player and his many (many) flaws in spite of his incredibly impressive production. It's nice to hear an unbiased league observer's take on Trae and what he means to our franchise.

He ain't Luka...or Ja for that matter. But he's still really good. Even if he is also incredibly flawed.

[jayu70]

The audacity of Trae Young

To the surprise and consternation of the players, Young was at it again the very next day, jockeying to the front. Young insists this is how his journey needed to unfold.

"When you're my size, it's how you have to roll to be respected," Young says. "Whenever I played with older guys, I wanted to fit in. And, once I did that, I wanted to stand out.

"To do that, sometimes you need to do things that are uncomfortable."

Young has demonstrated adeptness in such moments. The 22-year-old supernova for the Atlanta Hawks unabashedly orchestrates the game he loves with his own flair, be it a lefty, 20-foot no-look bounce pass in transition, or one of those 38-foot bombs he unleashes just after he crosses half court. These flashes of brilliance -- and presumption -- are rooted in his insatiable thirst to prove he belongs, delighting some and infuriating others.

"That chip," says Atlanta Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce. "Trae carries it everywhere. You have to take the good with the bad. I was with Joel Embiid when he was the same way. For both of those guys, everything is some form of competition."

http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=30871006

https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/30847551/the-audacity-trae-young