Who Scores More Points Trae Young or Russell Westbrook? UPDATE Russ Outscores Trae
By Peter Dewey
UPDATE: Russell Westbrook scored 34 points to narrowly edge Trae Young (33 points) in Wednesday's matchup. The Hawks still pulled out the win, but Westbrook got off 28 shots to help propel him to a big game. What follows is the original report from pregame.
Playoff hopes are on the line when the Washington Wizards and Atlanta Hawks square off for the second act of their back-to-back contests in the final week or the 2020-21 regular season.
The Wizards could deal a knockout blow to the Chicago Bulls, who lost the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday, as a Washington win would officially eliminate Chicago from playoff contention. Atlanta could deal a similar blow to Washington, as another win would put the Wizards 1.5 games out of the No. 9 seed with just two games to play. That would leave Washington having to win back-to-back play-in tournament games on the road to make the final playoff field.
It’s only right that two of the league’s best point guards will duel Wednesday night with all of this on the line. Trae Young got the best of Russell Westbrook in Monday’s meeting, but Russ will have a chance at revenge (and another triple-double) with the Wizards’ playoff position hanging in the balance.
WynnBET has Westbrook’s player prop projection for points set at 27.5 on Wednesday, but Vegas thinks the under (-120) is more likely than the over (+100) for the triple-double king. To make things even more interesting, Young has the same player prop projection for points at 27.5 with the same odds to go under (-120) or over (+100).
So, who has the edge in this one?
Young is coming off a 36-point game against the Wizards on Monday and has scored 30 or more points four times in his last six games since returning from an ankle injury. Young hasn’t shot the 3-ball particularly well over that stretch (27.1 percent), but he has shot 51.0 percent from the field, which is nearly eight percentage points better than his season’s average.
The Wizards are once again without leading scorer Bradley Beal on Wednesday, which means Russ is going to get all the minutes (and shots) that he can handle. Westbrook crushed his projections of 26.5 points and 13.5 assists in Monday’s game by dropping 28 points on 10-of-22 shooting and 21 assists.
Westbrook is going to have to get his tonight, but he also is going to get his teammates involved (11.6 assists per game this season), which makes Young our pick in this head-to-head. Washington allows the most points per game in the NBA (118.8) and an up-and-down game would certainly favor the Hawks with Beal unable to go.
Russ will get his, but we like Young to outscore him in this one as the Hawks try to lock up the East’s No. 4 seed.