It may have taken a few years for Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks to face the New York Knicks in a game with some high stakes surrounding it, but on Wednesday night, the time finally came for Young to reclaim his place as the king of the city that never sleeps. Thanks to Young's dynamite performance at the controls of the offense, the Hawks advanced to the semifinals of the NBA Cup by defeating the Knicks, 108-100.
Young was once again the subject of some vitriol from the Madison Square Garden, but he was the one to have the last laugh yet again — dropping 22 points, five rebounds, and 11 assists to punch his team's ticket to Las Vegas. But at the end of the day, it's all love between Young and a Knicks fanbase that he just couldn't seem to leave alone.
“It's a love-hate relationship. I got a lot of love and a lot of hate I guess from them, but I got a lot love from them too. It's respect,” Young said in his postgame interview with ESPN, via the official ClutchPoints account on X (formerly known as Twitter).
The 26-year-old floor general definitely gets a lot more hate from the Knicks brass than love, but those feelings are intrinsically linked anyway. One cannot eliciting as many feelings as Young does from the Knicks crowd without being someone they think and care about anyway, and the Hawks star has done that on multiple occasions starting from when he terrorized them in the 2021 NBA playoffs.
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Now, the Hawks are two wins away from bagging home the NBA Cup — with a huge semifinals clash against the Milwaukee Bucks scheduled on Saturday night.
Trae Young, Hawks advance to Las Vegas in emphatic fashion
Hawks guard Trae Young (11) brings the ball up
© Brad Penner-Imagn Images
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For a bit, it looked as though the Hawks were going to run of steam, with the Knicks taking a double-digit lead early in the third quarter. But with Trae Young leading the way, Atlanta found its groove in the middle of the third quarter and refused to look back.
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It's a testament to the Hawks' resolve and iron will that they have now slayed three of the top teams in the Eastern Conference on their way to making it to the NBA Cup semifinals. Defeating the Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Knicks isn't an easy task whatsoever, and the Hawks checked all those boxes. But they will be facing a motivated Bucks team in the semifinals, so they will have to bring their A-game on Saturday.