Miami – Heath’s defense may have strangled Atlanta Hawks star Trey Young throughout the game in Sunday’s victory in Game 1 of 115-91 in their first-round streak, but East No. 1 knows he can’t expect Young and the eighth placed Hawks to walk quietly.
“He will score the ball,” Heat striker PJ Tucker told Young. “It’s a match. You look like that. Treat him the same way in the next game. Expect him to make a lot more punches and be much more aggressive, so we need to bring in the same type of energy and even more. Because he will be better. “
After averaging 31 points in Atlanta’s two wins to win № 8, Young was suspended on Sunday as he scored the lowest 8 career playoff points in a 1 to 12 shooting (0 to 7 of 3) and had more revolutions (six) than assists (four). His 8.3% of shots were tied for the worst percentage of goals in his career – including the regular season and the playoffs – according to a study by ESPN Stats & Information.
The Hawks scored the first three points of the game, but it was all Heath, with Miami leading by 32 points in the fourth quarter. Hawks coach Nate Macmillan, aware of the quick turnaround from Friday’s victory in Cleveland to Sunday’s Miami Sunday local council at 1 p.m., pulled Young with two minutes and 34 seconds left in the third quarter and kept him on the bench until the end of the game. game.
“Miami is playing on another level,” Macmillan said. “We need to get to another level. There’s another level of intensity where you’re locked into winning every possession. We need to perform and value every possession in these games.”
The Heat sounded confident they would see a better version of Young in Game 2 on Tuesday.
“Listen, he’s going to make more than one shot,” said Kyle Lowry, who had 10 points and nine assists. “He will have more than four assists. He will explode. But we just have to be patient and stick to what we do.”
Miami, which ranks fourth in the NBA in terms of defensive rankings in the regular season, used Young’s switching schemes in an attempt to neutralize him when Atlanta tried to release him by placing screens on his main defender. Heat’s defense has been boosted by the return of Bam Adebayo, a permanent candidate for Defender of the Year who overcame a recent COVID-19 attack to play for the first time since April 8.
“Keep it up front,” said Jimmy Butler, who scored 21 points in a 9 to 15 shot when asked about Miami’s strategy against Young. “He constantly breaks down defenses and makes you help, and if you don’t help, it’s laying. [or] it’s floating. And if you help, he hits the right person every time [with a pass]. I think we did a great job of not going bankrupt, we just moved our legs and stayed in front of him. “
Heat changed 21 times against Young in Game 1, according to Second Spectrum, allowing 0.8 points of direct selection. During the regular season, Young averaged 0.96 points of direct selection against all opposing defenders who turned against him, showing Miami’s experience in that division on Sunday.
“It’s all in the hands of the deck,” Heat coach Eric Spoelstra said when asked about his team’s retirement from Caleb Martin as Young’s main defender, as Heat did in the regular season, and change the task on Sunday. “Whatever is required.”
Young acknowledged the fatigue caused by this schedule, but admitted that the Miami defense played a role in leveling his own score for low water for the second-largest trio he tried in a match without success.
“You definitely feel the heavy legs, but you have to give them credit,” Young said. “They came out aggressive, they came out with a lot of energy.”
This is exactly the approach Heat expects from Young in an attempt to recover.
“You better be on the edge,” Spoelstra said. “You have to be on the edge. This team can really score in groups. Obviously, Trey Young can just catch fire at any moment. So, if you relax at any moment, suddenly he hits a couple, it can become much more You have to respect this.
“And our boys have that respect, but even with respect, even on the edge, he’s still capable. That’s why we’re just going to have to be ready for Game 2 and somehow erase that memory and keep that advantage. . “
Young, who led Atlanta to a surprise appearance in the conference finals as No. 5 last year when the Hawks rose 1-0 over eventual Milwaukee Bucks champions before losing a six-game streak, said the experience was reminiscent of how he could there is an inertia swing.
“You have to win four games to win a series, you don’t win one and you win all of them,” Young said. “If that was the case, we would have been in the finals last year.”
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