ATLANTA – Dyson Daniels has been everywhere on the floor for the Atlanta Hawks this week.
Two nights ago in their first game against the Washington Wizards, he finished with 16 rebounds, with seven of them being on the offensive end. He added eight points and eight assists, nearly finishing with a triple-double. Tonight at home, he was everyone on the floor once again, and finished with 13 points, nine rebounds and 12 assists on the way to a 139-132 win for the Hawks.
Daniels failed to grab a rebound in the fourth quarter, but you can’t say he didn’t try. There were several times he had his hand on the ball, but it would slip out of bounds. At the end of the game, Daniels had a clear chance for a rebound, but Onyeka Okongwu took the opportunity.
“The bench was definitely in my ear about it,” Daniels said after the game. “The win is the most important thing, but I think my natural instincts throughout the game always are just to go rebound. We’re small out there on the floor, so rebounding is a big thing that I’ve been trying to do. That last quarter, I was telling them to box out so I could go grab one.”
With the Hawks without Jalen Johnson, Jock Landale, Asa Newell and Mouhamed Gueye, their frontcourt was obviously shorthanded coming into the game. That meant that it had to be a collective group effort on crashing the boards, and Daniels has been doing that for the Hawks.
If he isn’t on the boards, then he’s probably finding his teammates for assists, which overall led the team to 38 total in the game.
“Our team, the way we play the offense that Quin’s built into us is we move the ball side to side. Everyone gets touches and when you play that way, you’re going to get assists, and we want to get out and run,” Daniels said. “We’re undersized as a team, so when we play a team like Washington, who’s really big, we want to run them up and down as much as we can.
“Our offense is moving the ball side to side, breaking the paint, eyes out, and playing that way is going to get you a lot of assists and everyone gets touches.”
Lu Dort was one of the players who benefitted a lot from the ball movement, finishing the game with 25 points, which is the most points he’s scored in a game since early last year with the Oklahoma City Thunder. He hit some big shots down the stretch for the Hawks as the Wizards tried to make a last-minute comeback.
“I think as a team, we’re just trying our best to find the right shots in those situations,” Dort said. “When the game comes down to that, you have to try your best to just get stops and take the right shots. We just had to read the game. We got the ball moving a little bit. I was the one who was open to make those shots.”
When Daniels wasn’t on the boards or making plays for his teammates, he was mostly guarding his former teammate, Trae Young, who played his first game in Atlanta since being traded last season. Young was able to finish with 23 points and 10 assists, but Daniels didn’t make it easy for him.
“It’s different playing against Trae,” Daniels said. “Obviously, a super talented guy; played here for however many years. He’s a really good player. He gets his teammates involved. Our game plan was to force him left, channel the ball screens, and keep him contained that way.”
Daniels has proven to be an all-around player for the Hawks, and over the last two games, it’s definitely shown on the stat sheet.
The post How ‘natural instincts’ nearly led Hawks’ Dyson Daniels to a triple-double vs. Wizards appeared first on ClutchPoints.
