Thaddeus Young Leads Balanced Pacers Past Trae Young, Hawks
The Indiana Pacers had Christmas Day off, but that did not stop them from giving the Atlanta Hawks the gift of buckets.
Thaddeus Young had a team-high 21 points as one of eight Pacers players in double figures, leading the way to a 129-121 win over the Hawks on Wednesday.
Indiana has won three straight games and 10 of its last 12. The loss snaps a season-high three-game winning streak for the Hawks.
The Pacers shot 55.4 percent from the floor, assisted on 35 of their 46 field goals and knocked down 13 threes in a virtuoso offensive performance.
Kent Bazemore scored a team-high 32 points for the Hawks. John Collins added 21 points and 11 rebounds, while Trae Young had 17 points and nine assists.
Trae Young Shying Away From 3-Pointer a Bad Long-Term Sign
Young's answer to his struggles beyond the three-point arc has been, apparently, to avoid taking them. The gunner has significantly calmed his three-point undertaking in the month of December. After averaging 6.7 attempts in October and 5.4 in November, he's averaged 3.6 this month.
Over his last five games, Young has shot three or fewer threes four times. The result Wednesday was a largely efficient game in which Young knocked down both of his threes, did a nice job of getting to the free-throw line and scored his 17 points on an efficient 11 shots.
That is also the platonic ideal of what a Young game without any real threat of a three-pointer looks like.
Non-rhetorical question: What is Young without his Steph Lite ability to warp a defense with his ridiculous shot-making ability beyond the arc? He's a really good passer with a borderline disdain for defense and some decent skills in space near the rim.
That isn't a No. 5 overall pick and certainly isn't someone you can justify the Luka Doncic trade with.
Young's shying away from the three-ball isn't likely to be a long-term thing, and it's made the Hawks better in the short term. But the only way Young is going to learn how to get those shots to go down is taking them in game situations.
If he's not making them or taking them, the development curve here is going to be steeper.
Pacers Are NBA's Most Underrated Team
The Pacers might just be plain old good. Their team runs deep, the hallmark sign of a great regular-season team. On nights where Victor Oladipo is slightly off, they have seven or eight guys who can randomly put a 20-piece on an opponent and carry them to a close win. The Pacers' depth was highlighted when they failed to fall apart with Oladipo out of the lineup.
The Pacers have a better point differential than the Golden State Warriors. They had the best defensive rating in basketball coming into the night, per NBA.com. The offense is getting better. Indiana's recent string of strong play has included double-digit wins over the Sixers and Bucks.
It's time to start taking the Pacers seriously as an Eastern Conference Finals contender.
The roster needs some tweaking and would certainly benefit from having a better point guard leading the way than Darren Collison. If they're serious about making a run deep into the playoffs, the Pacers could be an interesting Goran Dragic destination when he returns from injury.
There's a clear ceiling here, as there typically is with mid-market teams without a top-five guy or two superstars. They're probably not going to be able to get through the Toronto-Boston-Milwaukee-Philly gauntlet and make it to the Finals.
That said, they're not as far out of the conversation as you might think.
What's Next?
The Hawks travel to Minnesota to play the Timberwolves on Friday. The Pacers host the Detroit Pistons.
