Tyler Dorsey, not John Collins, had the points-rebounds double-double in a Hawks summer league game Saturday.
The guard got the better of the power forward on the boards. Dorsey had 15 points and 14 rebounds and Collins had 30 points and eight rebounds in a loss to the Knicks.
It’s all good, though.
“I was messing him,” Collins said. “I had 30 and eight. All I needed was two (rebounds). I needed to steal both of them.”
Dorsey has shown an ability to rebound from his guard position during summer league play. In four games, between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas, the second-year player has averaged 16.0 points and 7.5 rebounds.
Dorsey, along with Collins, was named one of eight Utah Jazz Summer League Standouts in last week’s event. He opened the Las Vegas Summer League with the impressive double-double before he missed Sunday’s game with a left hip tightness after getting hit in the opener. The Hawks will wait on a decision whether Dorsey can play in Tuesday’s third and final preliminary round game here.
“I love going to the boards,” Dorsey said. “Bigs probably don’t like me because I take their stats away but that is something I like to do.”
Of his 30 rebounds in summer leagues, Dorsey had 11 offensive boards. That’s a challenge for a guard in the Hawks’ system where getting back defensively is a priority.
“I think as a guard, it’s either there or it’s not,” said Hawks assistant Chris Jent, who is coaching the summer league team in Las Vegas. “There are games when the ball kind of falls to you, you are in the right spot. And obviously, you can go get them too. His instincts are, especially on the defensive end, to go get it. He is a good secondary rebounder.
“(Offensively) if you go, you better get it. It’s OK. Some guys have the ability to do both. If you give maximum effort and sprint back, you let him go a little bit.”
Dorsey, 6-foot-5, appeared in 56 games as a rookie last season after the Hawks selecting him in the second round of the draft. He averaged 7.2 points, 2.3 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 17.4 minutes.
“That’s part of my game,” Dorsey said. “I have the instincts to be in the right spot when the ball comes off the rim. Sometimes I get in trouble because I need to get back. But rebounding is definitely a big thing for me. I’m one of those rebounding guards.
Dorsey ranked 10th in the NBA in rebounding by rookie guards last season with his 2.3 average, despite making just five starts.
According to Collins, the ability of Dorsey to get rebounds is also about teamwork between back- and front-court players.
“It’s a chemistry thing because, if you watch him, most of the time I’m boxing out and he is going for the board,” Collins said. “I would rather box out and have him get the board than me go for the rebound and my guy push me or nudge me (and miss the rebound). It’s a teamwork thing. That’s my guy.”
See? It’s all good.
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