The hometown kid Trae Young was back in town fresh off the announcement that he will be starting in the All-Star Game. It was pretty much a storybook moment as he was able to share the announcement with family and friends in Norman, OK. Trae didn’t play the last game but fought through his injury to make sure he was able to play against his hometown OKC Thunder. The game didn’t start the way that Trae Young wanted as Lugentz Dort was able to defend him well. Billy Donovan put Dort on Trae Young early to try to get Trae off his game with the bigger defender. The Thunder defense was doing a great job on Trae Young and the defense set the tone in this game. Oklahoma City’s one of the best teams in the league when it comes to scoring off turnovers. The Thunder make other teams pay and it uses happens in the paint. Tonight the Thunder punished the Hawks in the paint as they scored 62 points and dominated in the pick & roll. When the Thunder gets the pick & roll it opens up for an easy alley-oop opportunity like they did tonight with Nerlens Noel. This OKC team was extremely balanced tonight as they had 7 players in double figures and they made the Hawks pay from downtown. On the night the Thunder shot for 56% from the 3 point line and at one point they hit 4 of them in a row. When the Thunder plays with this type of confidence and chemistry they’re a very scary team to go against. Chris Paul only played 28 minutes on the night as the Thunder were in command all night long. In those 28 minutes, CP3 finished with 18 points and 5 assists. It’s clear that Chris Paul’s leadership has been on full display and the players respect him because of the way they communicate on the court. When a player makes a mistake or a misread CP3 helps them with adjustments. The Thunder has young talent and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has taken full advantage of the spotlight. Some of the layups that Shai has been able to make and the angles he makes them at are impressive. On the night the Hawks didn’t know what to do with Shai when he went to the basket and played aggressively. On the night he finished with 24 points and he was able to get into the teeth of the defense anytime he wanted too. The other players that made a huge impact on the game were Dennis Schröder and Danilo Gallinari who finished with a combined 36 points on the night. Both Dennis and Danilo have an offensive game and they both were mismatches all night for the Hawks who couldn’t contain anything the Thunder did tonight. The Thunder were able to beat them up inside and outside while executing the gameplan to hold Trae Young in check if possible. Tonight was a complete effort from the Thunder as they were able to make things happen in all phases of the game as a unit.
The Hawks weren’t able to get anything going in that second half against the OKC Thunder. Atlanta does have some bright spots in their franchise as their 3 young studs stepped up tonight. On the game, John Collins had a game-high 28 points as he was punishing the rim and showed some range hitting 3’s. Another player that was able to shine tonight for the Hawks who has a bright future was Cam Reddish who finished with 20 points off the bench. Cam Reddish has shown some signs of playing like a true force and if he can continue to get his jumper at a consistent level this Hawks team can be special. Trae Young was able to get his game going in that second half as he was able to show why he’s an All-Star starter in Chicago this year. Trae was able to score 26 points on the night and he was doing what he always does. Trae was hitting his shots inside and outside but the Thunder were willing to live with it because of the difference in the score. The Thunder had a gameplan and that was to limit Trae and make the others step up and in the beginning, it looked like it wasn’t working until they pulled away. The future is bright in Atlanta and you can tell that this team is another All-Star away from really making some noise in the East.
The Thunder will be playing against the Minnesota Timberwolves tomorrow on the second end of the back to back. If the Thunder can continue to shoot at this rate they should be able to continue that climb in the playoff race.
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