MEXICO CITY (AP) Trae Young put on a show for nearly 20,000 fans at the NBA’s regular-season game in Mexico City.
He wouldn’t mind doing it every season.
Young scored 41 points and then opened up a 3-pointer from Dejounte Murray with 31 seconds left to give the Atlanta Hawks a 120-119 victory over the Orlando Magic on Thursday night.
“I love the energy of the arena tonight, the electricity. It was fun playing here,” Young said. “I know we’ll probably expand the league and expand it to a few more cities. I mean, I’m open to playing here. This is an incredible place to play.”
Jalen Suggs scored 21 points and Paolo Banchero had 17, but missed a three-pointer with 7.9 seconds left on Orlando’s final possession.
“We tried to play the same game for Franz (Wagner). “He scored a goal on possession before, but he took out two defenders, threw the ball to me and I missed the shot,” Banchero said. “We had a chance to win and we didn’t win. But it was still a great game. “Great environment.”
Young had 33 points in the first half for Atlanta (4-3), which was playing south of the border for the first time. Jalen Johnson had 19 points, Murray added 16 and Bogdan Bogdanovic finished with 15.
Even though the Magic played the game as the host team, many of the sellout crowd that packed into the Ciudad the Mexico Arena, a glass-walled, state-of-the-art facility, wore jerseys from Young, who lived in Lubbock, Texas, or Hawks gear and cheered the visiting team loudly.
The atmosphere seemed to make players forget about playing at 7,350 feet above sea level, but that didn’t last forever.
“You can definitely feel the altitude, it affected all of us,” Young said. “There was a moment in the third quarter where I had to go out because the height was getting to me and I needed a breather.”
The Magic took a 111-100 lead after rookie Anthony Black hit a three-pointer from the right corner, but the Hawks had a 14-2 run sealed by Johnson’s layup to take a 114-113 lead with 4:04 to play.
The teams traded leads and Wagner scored on a hook to give Orlando a 119-117 lead with 43 seconds to play. Young drove toward the basket and fired a pass from behind the arc to Murray, who scored the final points.
The Hawks built an 18-7 lead early in the game after a 3 by Young, but the Magic rallied and tied it at 34 after the first 12 minutes.
The Hawks led 73-69 at halftime, with Young shooting 9-for-14 from the field and 11-for-11 from the free throw line.
But the Atlanta guard cooled off in the third, shooting just 1 for 6, and Orlando closed the quarter with an 11-5 run to take a 98-93 lead into the fourth half.
It was the league’s 32nd game in Mexico since 1992, more than in any other country outside the United States and Canada.
According to NBA metrics, there are 30 million fans in the country and it has been mentioned as a potential city if or when the league decides to expand.
“I can’t set a specific timeline, but a major part of my job, if not the most important part of my job, is to grow this league. “So it’s something to think about a lot,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said before the game.
Mexico has an NBA G League team that had a successful first year at Arena Ciudad in Mexico. Positive feedback from former NBA players living in Mexico City could help the city’s bid for a franchise in the future, but for now the only thing that is certain is more regular season games.
“We’ll definitely be back,” Silver said when pressed by Mexican reporters about the city’s chances of getting a team. “We’ll be back with at least one game next year, we’ll see if it’s two games.”
NEXT
Hawks: Host the Miami Heat on Saturday night after a three-game road trip
Magic: Host the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday
—
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA
Copyright 2023 STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and the Associated Press is strictly prohibited.