Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks had to endure a tough road loss on Sunday against the new-look Denver Nuggets. Young and his team were blown out by Jokic and co. early in the first half and couldn't do much the rest of the evening as they suffered their third loss in four outings.

Interestingly, the third-year guard had choice words directed at Sunday night's officiating.

After initially throwing the referees under the bus, Young had to catch himself when Sarah Spencer of AJC had a follow-up question to double down on his take on the striped officials. Young knew where the interview was going and his response was just perfect.

“Sarah, you're trying to get me fined,” Young said, via Kevin Chouinard of Hawks.com.

Trae Young, who still finished with 21 points on 8-of-14 shooting, was clearly frustrated on how his Hawks came out rather flat. Aside from him, no one else from his team had sufficient contribution as they fell to the Nuggets' well-rounded effort. Denver's five starters were all in double-figures, including Aaron Gordon who debuted for Denver for the very first time.

After the game, interim head coach Nate McMillan felt that Young and his team focused on the wrong things and admitted that he didn't make the necessary adjustments in-game.

“I thought we got distracted with the officiating, me included,” the Hawks coach said, via Chris Kirschner of The Athletic. “I just though we got caught up in the officiating. We can't do that. We have to focus on the game.”

The Hawks continue their eight-game road trip on Tuesday as they take a trip to the dessert and face the red-hot Phoenix Suns.