After the Tuesday night 115-105 loss, the Atlanta Hawks have their backs against the wall and are going home down 0-2 in their best-of-seven series against the East top club in Miami Heat.
But Trae Young looks convinced that this unfortunate scenario would have not happened if the referees are frequently whistling against the physicality that the Heat have offered.
The two-time All-star hurled a shady remark against the officials during his media availability, saying that while the Hawks would do anything to win as an eight-seeded, it’ll be hard to accomplish it if there will be no further calls directed from their aggressive opponent.
“Obviously, we felt like we let one slip away,” Young said in post-game, via ClutchPoints. “But if the refs are gonna let them be as physical as they are & not call fouls, it’s gonna be be hard to really do anything anyways.”
The Hawks and the Heat went back-and-forth in the first half until both sides had some key stretches during the third and fourth periods. It was Jimmy Butler who delivered the clutch performance, going for a 7-0 personal blitz down the stretch while locking the Game 2 win with a playoff career-best 45 points.
For reference, Miami finished the match with 26 fouls, higher than the 24 of Atlanta. It is expected that the Heat would commit a lot of foul calls because of their hard-nosed approach in defending a scoring machine like Young, who can easily strike from distance with his elite shooting.
While Young had a bounce-back game with 25 markers, his team will badly need his productivity and seizing of every possession in the resumption of the first round saga, as he recorded a personal-worst 10 turnovers in the postseason game that was decided in the last frame.
The series will now shift to Georgia, as the Hawks will try to claw their way back from the current one-sided series on Friday inside State Farm Arena.
