Dyson Daniels Explains Hawks’ Aggressive Defense After 4-Steal Game

Dyson Daniels took the ball from Walker Kessler three times Monday night at State Farm Arena and finished the Atlanta Hawks' 124-114 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers with 4 steals.

He went 4-of-4 from the field for 10 points and added 6 rebounds and 8 assists in 30:54. At plus-9, he tied Onyeka Okongwu for the best plus-minus on the team.

Daniels said the Lakers did a good job executing out of Atlanta's blitzes on Luka Dončić, who finished with 32 points and 10 assists.

"It's definitely a scheme thing," Daniels said. "We have really good defenders on this team, and for us, we want to turn people over. We want to make people work. We want to pick up full court."

"So it's definitely a scheme thing," Daniels continued. "And I'm just trying to do my best, putting pressure on whoever I'm guarding each night."

Two Ziaire Williams dunks to open the third quarter put the Lakers up 72-57. Daniels stole the ball from Kessler with 10:20 left and again with 9:33 left, and Atlanta scored the next 9 points.

He finished that run himself. Daniels hit a 3-pointer from Kingston Flemings with 8:45 to go, then grabbed an offensive rebound off a Jalen Johnson miss and tipped it in at 8:01 to make it 72-66. He had 5 points and 4 rebounds in the quarter.

The third steal against Kessler came with 6:29 left in the fourth quarter. Kessler had stolen a Daniels pass three seconds earlier.

Daniels' other steal came in the second quarter, when he took the ball from Dončić with 2:24 left in the half.

Six of his 8 assists led to 3-pointers. Nickeil Alexander-Walker made three of them, and Okongwu, Flemings, and CJ McCollum made one each. With 3:30 left in the fourth, his driving floater made it 115-111.

Atlanta finished with 12 steals, forced 16 Lakers turnovers, and won the fast-break scoring 20-17. Los Angeles turned the Hawks' 20 turnovers into 29 points.

Daniels said guarding Dončić takes a team effort, with Atlanta's defenders there for each other. Dončić committed 6 turnovers, and five different Hawks took the ball from him.

"I just think I've been more aggressive on the defensive end," Daniels explained. "So last year [I] went a little bit more passive. This year I'm trying to be more aggressive on the ball, picking up, trying to turn people, trying to create turnovers and stuff like that. So I think it's just more of an aggressive thing on defense."

After Saturday's win over the Brooklyn Nets, Hawks coach Quin Snyder described the umbrella for the team as "defend, run, and share the ball." Daniels had 6 steals that night, 4 of them after halftime, in the 124-121 comeback win.

He missed a triple-double by one rebound the night before against Washington.

Daniels had 5 steals in the Oct. 21 opener at Orlando, a 132-125 win. Two days later, he had 7 in 23 minutes of a 128-81 win at Charlotte.

In 2024-25, Daniels led the NBA with 229 steals, an average of 3.0 a game, and was named Most Improved Player.

Atlanta trailed 115-111 after Daniels' floater. The Lakers scored the next 6 points, and the Hawks did not score again until McCollum's 3-pointer with 1:12 left.

Daniels felt the Hawks did a pretty good job on Dončić. The big shots by other Lakers, and Atlanta's own turnovers, did the damage.

"I think we started playing slow, and then they're very good at loading up on people and loading up on drives and being in the passing lanes and stuff," Daniels said. "... We need to get stops to get out and run."

"But I think we just slowed down our pace in that last couple of minutes when the game was on the line and gave up too much easy stuff on the other end," Daniels noted.

In that stretch, Williams stole a Johnson pass with 2:22 left and dunked. Jake LaRavia's cutting dunk off a Dončić assist made it 121-111.

The Hawks are 7-5. They visit the Chicago Bulls on Friday at 8 p.m. ET.