Trae Young opens up about why season opener was ’embarrassing’

ATLANTA, Georgia – The Atlanta Hawks didn’t start the season the way they wanted, losing their opener 138-118 to the Toronto Raptors. From tip-off to the end of the game, c The Hawks dominated in the paintin transition, and on the boards. To add to that, they were never able to find a rhythm offensively, and it doomed them for most of the game.

Trae Young was honest about the team’s performance and didn’t have much to look at when it came to the positives of the loss.

“I don’t think there’s too many positives you take from tonight,” Young said after the game. “Obviously, the result was what it was, and it’s a shame the way we started it.”

The Hawks were outscored 86-56 in points and 34-11 in rushing. They still look like a team trying to figure out how to play with each other with the new pieces they’ve added, and it turns out they haven’t played together much before this.

“A lot of it comes from carrying over the preseason,” Young said. “We didn’t really play, all five of us, and you can tell by the continuity we have outside, and it wasn’t right. It’s part of the NBA: the cream always rises to the top. We have time to catch up and we have to go.”

It also didn’t help matters that their best defender, Dyson Daniels, was in foul trouble all game, which affected the Hawks’ play on both sides of the ball, especially on the defensive end.

“Obviously, it’s not just one guy that has to guard everybody, but obviously, when Deason is out there, that’s a big factor for us defensively,” Young said. “It’s frustrating when the refs call two different ways, especially when they’re doing the same thing they’re calling Dyson for.”

The Hawks are outscored by the Raptors in the season opener

The one the bright spot for the Hawks was Jaylen Johnsonwho played his first regular season game since January of this year. Johnson came out of the gate playing aggressively, and kept the Hawks afloat for most of the first half. He finished the game with 22 points, seven rebounds and eight assists, but he also knows that the Hawks need to be better, especially in transition defense.

“The rotations have to be better,” Johnson said. “We don’t have to think too much or anything; it’s simple things we have to clean up. We just have to be better than we were tonight.”

“Transition defense is on us. I know coach wants us to crash, but that has to be the focus for us,” Young said. “That’s on us, not the coach. We have to be better as a team and understand that’s what the scouting report is. Teams think they can get a lot of transition points from us, and even when we score, they grab the ball and throw it all over the court. If we miss like we did tonight, they’re able to come out and come in.”

The good news for the Hawks is that it was just the first game of an 82-game season. The chemistry will be better, the shots will start falling, and they will learn from their mistakes.

“This is something we have to learn from. We have to be better. If we were down by one, it would have been the same result,” Young said. “So no matter what it is, because it’s a loss in the loss column, we’ve got to get better, and that’s exactly what it is. And a lot of it is on us. Those are things we can fix, which is a good thing.”