KL Chouinard @KLChouinard
5) Trae stayed focused through an avalanche of potential distractions.
In Game 5, Trae Young had an eventful final minute in both the first and second halves. Much will be made of the showmanly devastation he wreaked on Madison Square Garden late in the fourth. With the game squarely in hand, Trae swished a step-back 31-footer before calmly bending at the waist to take a deep, Broadway bow.
"I know where we are," he said afterward. "I know it's a bunch of shows in this city, and I know what they do when the show is over."
As perfectly theatrical as that ending was, Trae might not get there without the way he handled the end of the first half. As the final seconds ticked away, Trae drove into floater range where he took a forearm push in the back from one large Knick and went careening chest-first into the knees of another large Knick. The floater bounced off. Seconds later, as Trae left for halftime, a third large Knick tried to walk through Trae's shoulder, a jock-bumps-nerd-in-the-school-corridor sort of collision.
Trae dismissed it with a Kobe-cool shrug and kept on moving.