Despite rust, Young dazzles Wiz crowd in debut

WASHINGTON -- It took nearly 21 minutes into Thursday night's game, but Trae Young's welcome-to-D.C. moment came in spectacular fashion.

After receiving a pass behind the 3-point line and pump-faking his defender into jumping past him, Young drove to the basket and faked a behind-the-back pass to guard Leaky Black in the left corner with his right hand before switching to his left to score a tough scoop layup.

The crowd at Capital One Arena went wild.

It didn't much matter that the Washington Wizards were down 15 points after that basket or that Young, in his first game since being traded to Washington in January, was on a 20-minute restriction. It also didn't much matter that Young started slow and made just one of the five 3-pointers he attempted in the game, finishing with 12 points and six assists in the Wizards' 122-112 loss to the Utah Jazz.

In his limited time on the court, Young, 27, proved he's the type of player the Wizards haven't had since the early, healthy days of John Wall. He displayed the fluidity and playmaking abilities that made him one of the most exciting players in the league during his seven-plus seasons with the Atlanta Hawks. Young dazzled the crowd with his ankle-breaking handles, no-look passes and moonshot 3-point attempts.

Young compared Thursday's game to his debut with the Hawks against the New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden eight years ago, when he said he couldn't sleep the night before. He said his only expectation on Thursday was to shake off the rust from having not played since Dec. 27 and get back to game speed.

Young found offense for himself -- off a pick-and-roll or a step-back jumper -- but missed open 3s that he otherwise would have made in the past.

"I think I played decent," Young said after the game. "My shots were on line. I just didn't have any legs under me."

In his first minutes of action, Young was more of a facilitator than aggressively looking for his own shot. Late in the second quarter, he was freed up for a wide-open 3 coming off an Anthony Gill screen, but instead of letting it fly, Young found guard Tre Johnson in the left corner for an open 3-pointer.

"Trae is such a willing passer," forward Julian Reese said. "Just being that much of a threat being a scorer and also on the other hand being a willing passer. Not a lot of guards like that in this league."

In what would have been the highlight of the game, Young threw a dart to Bilal Coulibaly, who was sprinting up the right side of the court on a fast break. But head coach Brian Keefe had called a timeout right as the ball left Young's hands.

"He caught me too quick," Keefe said. "He threw that too quick. That ball went out of his hands right when I was calling it. I was like, 'Oh, man,' but that stuff happens."

Though Young looked like his normal self on several plays, it was clear this was his first game in over two months and his first with his new Wizards teammates.

Reese, signed to a two-way contract last week, fumbled a few of Young's entry passes off of pick-and-rolls, which have been Young's bread and butter in his career. On a fast break in the second quarter, Young found Johnson in the right corner wide open, but Johnson missed. Young tried a behind-the-back pass to Coulibaly earlier in the game that went into the first rows of the stands.

"I'm learning these guys, and they're getting to learn me, too," Young said. "I feel like there's going to be times that they have some, 'Oh s---' moments, like when I'm wide open and they get the ball when they're not expecting it."

Trailing 67-49 at the break, the Wizards appeared to clean up some of the misses and mistakes in the second half.

In the third quarter, Young dropped a backward pass off to a trailing Johnson for a 3-pointer, and a few plays after that he nutmegged a pass through the legs of Blake Hinson into the waiting hands of forward Anthony Gill, who converted a contested basket. On a fast break late in the quarter, Young found Bub Carrington in the left corner for a wide-open 3 that brought the score to 87-77.

Young, who played 19 minutes through three quarters, sat out the entire fourth.

Though the Wizards are likely to clean up the offense in a matter of games, the defensive side is another story. Young, who at 6-foot-2 has always struggled on the defensive end, was attacked on Utah's first possession, and he constantly was put in pick-and-rolls and layers of ball screens to create open baskets.

Overall, the Wizards had poor transitional and 3-point defense. They provided little to no rim protection and the perimeter defense led to a lot of open looks for Jazz shooters, who made 15 3-pointers.

"We had a hard time controlling the dribble tonight. I thought that was the biggest thing, dribble penetration, getting to the basket," Keefe said. "I thought we scored OK. It was just the penetration, [Isaiah] Collier and some of those guys getting downhill. We didn't protect off the initial drive, and then our shell wasn't tight."

Young has ingratiated himself to Washington fans and his teammates since arriving in town. Since being acquired in January, he has worn the jerseys of stars who have played in the nation's capital over the years, including Wall, Georgetown's Allen Iverson and the Washington Capitals' Alex Ovechkin.

During the team's game against the Houston Rockets on March 2, Young was ejected from the bench after walking onto the court to argue with a referee during a squabble between Washington guard Jamir Watkins and Rockets forward Tari Eason.

"I knew I wasn't going to get ejected tonight when I was playing," he said.

This was only Young's 11th game of the season after injuries to his right MCL and quad limited him to just 10 games in what became his final season with the Hawks.

After his first game with Washington, which marked the Wizards' seventh straight loss and dropped them to 16-46, Young is already looking forward to taking his new team to bigger heights.

"I haven't won a championship or been to the Finals, but I've gotten two games away from it," Young said. "So I know what it takes to get there. For me, it's trying to get further here. I know you can't just do it overnight.

"That's why I love it here right now. That's what we're preaching is the daily habits and making sure that you're getting better each and every day, whether you're in the gym or not, you can get better, and whether it's your body or your mind. Those daily habits are going to carry on to us hopefully [having] long-term success."