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\n Trae Young made an impressive debut for the Washington Wizards, scoring 12 points and recording six assists in limited playing time. Despite Young’s flashy performance, the Wizards fell to the Utah Jazz 122-112 in his first game since being traded from Atlanta.\n <\/p>\n
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WASHINGTON \u2014 In his inaugural appearance wearing a Washington Wizards uniform, Trae Young delivered a spectacular performance filled with highlight-reel plays.<\/p>\n
The point guard wasted no time making an impact, scoring an easy basket on Washington\u2019s opening offensive play. During the first half, Young executed an impressive fake behind-the-back maneuver with his right hand before switching to his left and finishing a difficult layup through contact.<\/p>\n
The third quarter brought more fireworks as Young connected on a three-point shot while drawing a foul, then threaded a pass through a defender\u2019s legs to create a scoring opportunity for a teammate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just wanted to come out here and just have some fun,\u201d Young said. \u201cGet the first one out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Young contributed 12 points and six assists during his 19-plus minutes of action in Washington\u2019s 122-112 defeat to Utah on Thursday evening. The Wizards obtained Young from Atlanta in a January trade, but he had been sidelined since then due to quadriceps and knee problems.<\/p>\n
The arena atmosphere became electric when Young took the court with the starting five, and despite playing under time restrictions, he provided fans with a preview of his offensive capabilities \u2014 constant activity and creativity on that end of the floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou felt the electricity in the building,\u201d Wizards coach Brian Keefe said. \u201cOur fans have been terrific this year. I\u2019m glad they came out to show support today. You could definitely feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Young admitted he experienced restless anticipation the night before his debut.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really looking forward to today,\u201d he said. \u201cJust coming out here and shaking off whatever rust I would have, just from missing a few months of basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Young commanded most of the attention, two first-year players managed to steal some spotlight. Utah\u2019s Ace Bailey established a personal best with 32 points, while Juju Reese \u2014 appearing in only his third NBA contest \u2014 recorded 18 points and 20 rebounds for Washington.<\/p>\n
Tre Johnson, selected by the Wizards immediately following Bailey in last year\u2019s draft, contributed 15 points exclusively from beyond the three-point arc.<\/p>\n
The developing chemistry between Young and Johnson will be worth monitoring. However, the partnership that could truly generate excitement in Washington involves Young and Anthony Davis, though the latter remains unavailable since the Wizards acquired him last month.<\/p>\n
Davis continues recovering from ligament damage in his left hand. The organization announced Thursday that he has received medical clearance to begin restricted basketball activities on the court and will undergo another evaluation in two weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trae Young made an impressive debut for the Washington Wizards, scoring 12 points and recording six assists in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3785],"tags":[80926,80927,7,80920,80928,80922,80923,80921,80924,423,6,422,427,3972,80925],"class_list":{"0":"post-642506","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-utah-jazz","8":"tag-102-3","9":"tag-102-3fm","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-fine-day","12":"tag-fine-day-102-3","13":"tag-fine-day-fm","14":"tag-fine-day-media","15":"tag-fine-day-radio","16":"tag-have-a-fine-day","17":"tag-jazz","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-utah","20":"tag-utah-jazz","21":"tag-utahjazz","22":"tag-weller-radio"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}