NBA playoffs 2021: NBA world reacts to ‘unbothered’ Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks
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11:00 PM ET
Tory BarronESPN Editor
Close Tory Barron is a Bristol-based writer and editor for ESPN.com. After retiring from playing lacrosse at UConn, the DC native decided to try her hand at writing about people playing sports.
If the 2021 NBA playoffs have taught us anything, it’s that Trae Young doesn’t care about your feelings.
The Atlanta Hawks’ star not only navigated the loathing of the Madison Square Garden crowd in the first round matchup with the New York Knicks, he thrived off it. When the Hawks advanced to face the Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Conference semifinals. it was more of the same. Now? He’s going off against the Milwaukee Bucks on the conference finals stage.
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Trae was in his bag on Wednesday night as his playoff-career-high, 48-point performance helped the Hawks steal Game 1 on the road 116-113. If it feels like he has been delivering a lot of high-scoring performances lately, it’s because he has. According to Elias Sports Bureau research, Wednesday marked Young’s sixth 30-point playoff game on the road — the most in a player’s first career postseason in NBA history. Young also tied a record held by LeBron James (48 against the Pistons in Game 5 of the 2007 conference finals) for the most points by a player at age 22 or younger in a conference finals game.
But of all his impressive plays, one stood out to the internet because of its sheer audacity. Behold, the Trae shimmy:
They don’t call him Ice Trae for nothing. As Young continued his fearless antics (read: balling out), LeBron, Damian Lillard and the rest of the league turned to Twitter fingers to react accordingly: