Dyson Daniels kept New York star Jalen Brunson bottled up again, even as his own offensive game frayed late, and the Atlanta Hawks slipped past the Knicks 109-108 on Wednesday night to take a 2-1 series lead. Atlanta got enough from Jalen Johnson, who scored 24 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and handed out eight assists, to survive another tight playoff night.
Daniels, 23, finished with five turnovers and shot 3-of-7 from the field, with one of his three baskets coming as his 23rd 3-pointer of the season. It was a rough line for a player whose value has been defined by what he does without the ball in his hands, but the Hawks have built around that reality rather than fight it. Over the last three games, Daniels has averaged six points, 6.3 assists and 8.6 rebounds, a stretch that shows how much Atlanta is asking him to do outside of scoring.
That is the tradeoff the Hawks have made with Daniels, whose season ended with him shooting 18.8 percent from beyond the arc. They have leaned into his defensive work and used him in a role closer to Draymond Green than a conventional guard, banking on the idea that a player who can bother elite scorers, rebound and set the table can still swing a series even when the shot is not falling.
The friction is obvious. Daniels has been keeping Brunson in an offensive prison, yet his own scoring has spiked downward in the last two games, putting more pressure on teammates to carry the offense. Atlanta's win showed that formula can still hold for now. The larger question is whether Daniels, already one of the league's most disruptive young defenders, can turn that kind of all-court influence into something even bigger. At 23, he already looks capable of becoming one of the best two-way players on the planet.
