The Hawks came into Wednesday night four games up on the Milwaukee Bucks in the race for the Eastern Conference Play-In tournament. As added stakes, the Hawks famously own the pick that will turn out to be the better pick between the Bucks and the New Orleans Pelicans.
A win here essentially means both progress towards a postseason appearance AND a better draft pick. So, the importance of this one game out of 82 really couldn’t be overstated.
At the same time, one of the (if not THE) greatest slashers
in of all NBA history had just come back from a calf injury, and so the Hawks had their hands full cutting off his path the basket.
The defensive gameplan was, initially, what it usually is when Onyeka Okongwu starts: put Okongwu on Giannis Antetokounmpo and have Jalen Johnson check the stretch center instead (in this case, Myles Turner). But the former matchup very quickly appeared one-sided.
One thing was very evident early on: Okongwu didn’t want to pick Antetokounmpo up outside of the three-point line. Even though he’s obviously not a threatening three-point shooter, it’s still not necessarily the right move to give ground and allow Antetokounmpo momentum heading into the paint.
Here is a classic example of what happened a lot in the first half:
Okongwu has defended Antetokounmpo well at times in the past, but he didn’t seem up for the task on Wednesday. In this one, he tries taking a charge at the free throw line. He had just picked up his first foul and didn’t want a second minutes into the game.
But it’s still just a poor decision from him, and frankly he knew it was just as the Greek Freak slithered by him for an easy dunk:
And a third example where Okongwu just slowly cedes ground until he gets blown by once again:
Something had to change. It was at this point that the coaching staff made a big gamble.
The plan they concocted: what if we put our point guard on Giannis?
Dyson Daniels isn’t just some point guard, of course. He finished second in Defensive Play of the Year voting a season ago. But to put your best perimeter defender on a guy who is three or four inches taller and outweighs him by some 40-odd pounds? That’s a risk.
To that point, the Bucks had scored 56 points in 18 minutes of game time, and Antetokounmpo led that charge with 12 points on 6-for-8 (75%) shooting.
The Bucks’ offense continued rolling after the assignment shift until halftime, shooting 62% from the field and 11-for-19 (58%) from three in the opening half en route to 71 points on a Milwaukee offensive rating of 148 — all truly ugly marks for the Hawks defense.
But the second half was a different matter — and it started with Daniels’ brilliance. The Hawks forced the Bucks to go 1-for-10 in their first ten shot attempts by cutting off the head of the snake.
Atlanta would live with Ousmane Dieng trying to replicate his hot shooting start — a start he did not replicate. Meanwhile, Giannis hardly saw the ball from great ball denial from Daniels off the ball.
On his first shot attempt of the second half, Daniels here picks Antetokounmpo up right at the top of the key (a big difference to how Okongwu handled the matchup), muscles with him in close quarters, and forces him into a fadeaway baseline jumper through great lateral movement:
Defense is a team effort, of course. Even after being switched off his main assignment, Okongwu along with others stayed focused in chipping in to double or wall off Antetokounmpo when needed.
Here’s an example of Daniels cutting off a drive — with a straight up double from Nickeil Alexander-Walker to force a pass out. Jalen Johnson closes out to the shooter with the remaining defenders in good position on the backside in case of a skip pass. Another empty possession forced:
And the Great Barrier Thief always has fantastic hand and eye coordination, using his quick mitts to strip Antetokounmpo to force a stop (this was registered as a block and not a steal):
These efforts helped the Hawks roll to a very satisfying 133-116 win.
The second half alone, the Hawks scored 65 points while allowing just 42 points and an 86 defensive rating. Giannis Antetokounmpo only scored six points on 3-for-6 (50%) shooting while being held to just one assist in that time period as well.
“It’s hard to come up with the superlatives for him defensively,” head coach Quin Snyder said after the game. “The fact that he can guard across different positions. You’re not going to stop Giannis, but you can try to make it hard.”
Daniels has gotten a lot of flak this season for a year in which some people believe is a step back for him. His issues shooting threes as a guard is very notable, and he’s taking by far the fewest three-point attempts per 100 possessions of his career.
After a historic season swiping the ball, his per-game steals mark has dropped from 3.0 to 1.9. He’s scoring less overall and less efficiently despite having the ball in his hands a lot more in the post-Trae Young world.
But both the eyes and the advanced stats should be able to see how incredibly valuable he is as a basketball player.
When you can go from shutting down the other team’s small guard to shutting down a 6-foot-11 behemoth and top five player in the world all while handling the ball on offense, that worth in versatility is something that is impossible to capture in any sort of data.
Did I mention he has also played the 15th most minutes in the NBA (as of Thursday afternoon) and has only missed three of 63 contests this season?
Put plainly: Dyson Daniels has a special skillset. He works extremely hard day in and day out, is always available, and operate key functions on both ends of the floor.
On offense, he’s been incredibly cautious but effective as a lead playmaker as of late:
And on defense, by adding strength to his frame over his years of development, Daniels can now take on all sorts of defensive matchups — although his bread and butter remains smaller perimeter ball handlers. But to do that while taking over point guard duties midseason after Trae Young’s departure is nothing short of incredible.
In fact, as of yesterday afternoon, Daniels is the 16th best qualified player (and best Hawk) in plus-minus on-off splits. Over the course of the season, the Hawks are 8.8 points per 100 possessions with Daniels on the court compared to off the court:
Daniels starts a four-year, $100 million extension this offseason. If you simply read box scores and peruse his meager scoring numbers, it would be easy to assume his play this season should give Hawks fans pause about that price tag.
But the tape reveals a game-changing defensive player who can capably guard just about any player he’s assigned to guard.
So, it’s a major win that the Hawks have Daniels locked up for the foreseeable future. This kind of rare versatility gives the Hawks a number of solutions to in-game problems that few players, if any, possess on their own.
