As the Hawks Prepare for the Eastern Conference Finals, a Look at How They Overcame the Odds to Get Here

With the semifinals wrapping up Sunday night, we got to see Trae Young, an overlooked 22-year-old phenomenon, show the 76ers the process of elimination. Albeit, it wasn’t Young’s knight in shining armor moment. Young struggled, shooting just 5 for 23 from the floor, including 2 of 11 from behind the arc. It wasn’t Ice Trae’s night to say the least. But somehow, that didn’t matter.

Without watching the game, if I told you that Trae Young was shooting 21.7% from the field in a elimination game, tied for the worst shooting percentage in NBA history, what would you think? Most hecklers would be getting the Twitter fingers and memes ready with Young photoshopped into a construction outfit, laying down cement for the bricks he was throwing up. Young was saved from the Twitter slander by a unsuspected hero: Red Velvet.

Kevin Huerter, after a pitiful zero point (27 minutes) performance in Game 5, put Atlanta on his back with a 27-point Game 7 (I guess he scored a point for every minute he didn’t in Game 5). One that he will remember forever. Shooting 10 of 18 from the field and hitting some shots off the dribble that weren’t your average Huerter buckets.

Atlanta deserves major credit for taking down the #1 seed with a team with no All-Stars, though Trae Young was more than deserving of a nod. All in all, this was a very revealing series. Ice Trae is here to stay.

Photo: (Tim Nwachukwu – Getty Images)