Trae Young Saves Hawks, Staves Off Trade Rumors for Another Day

The Hawks were supposed to be done already. In fact, I was ready to write their obituary.

The title was going to be something along the lines of “Was that Trae Young‘s final game with Atlanta?”

It may have even been a thought-provoking piece. There may have been some truth to it. After all, whispers have started to circulate that maybe the Hawks could move on from Young this offseason.

Seems unlikely, but you never know. This is, after all, the NBA.

Anyway, forget all that noise for now, as Young’s 3-point bomb with time-winding down lifted the Hawks to a stunning 119-117 road win over the Celtics in Game 5 of their Eastern Conference series.

This was supposed to be over. The Celtics could have put the series to bed. Young had other ideas. And now Boston leads 3-2 with Game 6 back in Atlanta.

I was all set to write a speculative “was that Trae Young’s final game with the Hawks” post. pic.twitter.com/hqx9hp75yH

— Sam Amico (@AmicoHoops) April 26, 2023

Young finished with a game-high 38 points, including 5-of13 on 3-pointers. And remember, this game came without backcourt-mate Dejounte Murray, suspended for a night after making contact with a referee.

The rest of the Hawks chipped in plenty too, keeping things close and setting up Young’s heroics. Forward John Collins snapped out of a series-long funk with 22 points. Bogdan Bogdanovic added 18 on 6-of-9 shooting. Young also dished off 13 assists,

“Man we dug deep today,” Collins told Lauren Jbara of Bally Sports South. “Obviously a lot of things have been going on around our (team). Our mission today was to have tunnel vision and to come in here and get a win.”

So, now we have a bit of a series, and Young — who has been the subject of some trade speculation — is the biggest reason why.