The Las Vegas Summer League tournament kicked off yesterday. The win or go home special has become a summer classic for basketball fans and nobody wants to see their team go home in the first round.
The Hawks first round matchup came against the Indiana Pacers and started off like most of their Summer League games have gone so far… Ugly.
Indiana jumped out to a sixteen point lead in the first quarter and stretched it out to twenty by half time. A motivational speech in the locker room must have lit a fire under Atlanta, as the Hawks came out of the half blazing, led by their first-round pick Trae Young.
A fourth quarter stretch saw Young completely take over the game. Though, this time it was with his passing rather than his shooting.
Trae Young TOOK OVER the last 5 minutes of the game tonight to give the Hawks the W #Hawks pic.twitter.com/1Ipj9RHAhg
— Justin Jett (@JustinJett_) July 12, 2018
This is the part of Young’s game that is so underrated. As you can see, Young is a 19-year old kid with elite vision. Combine that with his shooting ability, and we are starting to see why the Hawks were so high on him in the draft. This run capped off a 35 point fourth quarter and a 107-101 win for Atlanta.
Young is going to get all of the highlights, and rightfully so, but they would not have been in that position without the play of Tyler Dorsey. After suffering a minor injury that forced him to miss two games in Vegas, Dorsey returned to the tune of 24 points, 8 rebounds and 5 assists. His game is showing all-around improvement as he heads into his second season in the NBA, and there really is not a better team to be on where he can make a name for himself.
Omari Spellman, the Hawks 30th overall selection, also finished in double digits with 13 points and just a rebound shy of a double-double.