I'm not sure the NBA has ever had a player like Jason Collins, which is an amazing statement considering he has a twin brother.
But in this season in particular, Collins' uniqueness is staggering. Against 29 of the league's 30 teams, he has virtually no value. But against one particular opponent, he is solid gold.
Collins doesn't score or rebound, and he can't move all that well defensively. But he can do one thing better than anyone else in the league -- defend behemoth athletic centers. It's why he frustrated Shaquille O'Neal so much during his time with the Nets. And it's why the Atlanta Hawks have defended Orlando so ably in the teams' five meetings this season.
Atlanta won Game 1 on Saturday 103-93, beating the Magic for the fourth time in those five contests, and there were a lot of reasons for that. But paramount among them was the fact that Orlando scored only 19 points in the 18 minutes Collins was on the court compared to 74 in the 30 minutes he was off it.
This may not be immediately apparent, since Howard destroyed the likes of Josh Powell and Zaza Pachulia when Collins was off the floor en route to a career-high 46 points. Against Collins, however, he only scored 12 of them, and had six of his eight turnovers. Against the others, he had 34 points in 26 minutes while rarely turning the ball over or missing a shot. So Howard had a playoff career high "on" Collins, but most of the damage came against Atlanta's other centers.
This is the biggest difference between this year's series between the Hawks and Orlando and last year's meeting, when an out-of-shape Collins picked up multiple fouls within seconds every time he took the court, and the Magic steamrolled Atlanta in the most one-sided best-of-seven series in league history.
This year, he's the most important player in the series besides Howard, even though he finished Game 1 with one point and nary a rebound. Sure, there were one or two fleeting moments of tangential offensive value -- he threw a Russ Grimm-like lead block on Howard to enable a Kirk Hinrich baseline drive for a layup, and flopped into Howard's fifth foul while cutting through the lane early in the fourth quarter -- but basically Collins took a zero on offense, like he always does. He just has so much defensive value against this particular opponent that he's still Atlanta's most important player in the series.
For Orlando to win, the rest of the matchups have to go better. Howard won't score as much in Game 2, presumably, but the Magic's other players won't be quite as pathetic either. Orlando got 41 minutes from offensive-minded power forwards Brandon Bass and Ryan Anderson and got ZERO points from them; that can't happen in Game 2, and won't. Neither will Jason Richardson's no-show (four points in 41 minutes), part of a disturbing recent trend.
But the biggest reason to expect Orlando to bounce back Tuesday is that there's no way Atlanta shoots as well in Game 2. In the regular season, the Hawks struggled to score against Orlando just as much as the Magic struggled to score against Atlanta. But on Saturday, Atlanta blistered the Magic's defense for 51.4 percent shooting, and nearly all of it came on mid-range jumpers. That's a difficult performance to sustain, and based on the full-season shooting percentages of players like Joe Johnson and Jamal Crawford, they won't.
Also, in a late-developing story, Josh Smith sprained his left elbow at some point in Game 1, which could further derail the Atlanta attack. Of course, Hawks fans may spin this as a positive if it makes him more reluctant to shoot long jumpers with 18 on the shot clock.
So, in other words, expect Collins to continue having a huge impact … but don't necessarily expect the same result on the scoreboard.
I talked about the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds Monday, but Tuesday let's look at the other series involving No. 3 and No. 4 seeds:
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Dallas vs. Portland
If Nate McMillan was going to complain about something in Game 1, it should have been his misplaced loyalty to Brandon Roy. Roy played the entire fourth quarter despite accomplishing nothing of note; he finished 1-of-7 with two points in 26 minutes. While he assisted on three fourth-quarter baskets, his presence on the court was part of a larger problem: Portland's lack of shooters makes it an easy team to guard.
This was my one reservation when I picked Portland at the start of the series, and it played out in the opener. The Blazers shot 2-for-16 on 3s, and gave the Mavs freedom to sag on defense by leaving their only good 3-point shooter, Wesley Matthews, nailed to the bench for most of the night. Matthews led the team in 3-point makes and percentage; his 40.6 percent marksmanship made him the only player in Portland's top eight to exceed the league average in 3-point percentage.
On the other side, the Mavs benefited from a ri-Dirk-ulous closing run -- Dirk Nowitzki scored 11 points in a 2:13 stretch of the fourth quarter to effectively decide the game. Otherwise, however, the Mavs failed to overwhelm. They're unlikely to shoot 10-for-19 on 3s again, and even with that performance from long range, they failed to light up the scoreboard.
Dallas tried to speed things up with its ****** guard attack, even going with a Kidd-Barea-Terry look at one point, but they need more spark from Jason Terry and J.J. Barea than they got in Game 1. Rudy Fernandez, in particular, proved surprisingly effective guarding Barea when each side removed its starting point guard. On that front, the Mavs might also try turning up the defensive ball pressure when Andre Miller checks out, since Fernandez is hardly a natural at the point.
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Boston vs. New York
The Knicks took a lot of heat for playing through Carmelo Anthony at the end of the game, and justifiably so. Plus, it's indefensible for a mediocre long-range shooter like Anthony to take eight of his 18 shots from 3-point range. But I can understand the desire to go to him for the last shot -- Anthony has a well-documented track record of being absolutely deadly in these situations. Also, this may not have mattered had two crucial calls not gone against New York in the preceding seconds.
What nobody is talking about, however, are the shocking rebounding stats. Boston got 15 offensive boards out of 36 misses (41.7 percent), essentially winning them the game on the offensive glass. What makes that so shocking is that the Celtics were far and away the league's worst offensive rebounding team in the regular season, often barely bothering to contest boards and instead running back on D. Boston got only 21.1 percent of its own misses in the regular season, compared to the league average of 26.4 percent; in Game 1, the Celtics doubled that rate.
Of course, this is more easily accomplished against the Knicks than some other clubs. New York was just 27th in protecting the defensive boards, gaining possession on only 71.9 percent of opponent misses. Obviously, New York has to control the defensive glass better in Game 2.
The other big question is what can the Knicks do without Chauncey Billups? This is whether the lack of depth in the wake of the Anthony trade really hurts them, and leaves New York heavily dependent on rookie Landry Fields. Toney Douglas will be fine -- an upgrade defensively but a downgrade offensively -- but the Knicks are short a backcourt player if Fields no-shows like he did in Game 1 (no points, 1 rebounds in 19 minutes). He'll likely need to play 35 to 40 minutes in Game 2, because the alternatives are the offensively inert Anthony Carter or the defensively flammable Bill Walker.
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Oklahoma City vs. Denver
My focus in Game 2 will be on the guards. Raymond Felton and Ty Lawson both are playing on ankles that they sprained in the days before Game 1, but each should be in better shape by tipoff Wednesday night after having two days off. Additionally, we may see more of the two in combination than we did Sunday, especially if they show they can battle Russell Westbrook (31 points) more effectively.
As much as Kevin Durant killed them, Nuggets coach George Karl said at Monday's practice that he felt Westbrook's big game was as much of a factor. Several of Durant's shots were difficult looks, and the Nuggets just had to shrug their shoulders and say "Well done," but Denver felt it could have made Westbrook work harder if its guards were more confident in their ankles and guarded him closer, and that they need a bit more help from the big men on the pick-and-roll so Westbrook didn't have quite so much space to shoot a jumper when the guard goes under the screen.
The other wrinkle we may see is the Nuggets using more size against Westbrook. Ideally, Karl would like to use Arron Afflalo on Westbrook, but his hamstring is likely to keep him out for Game 2 and probably far beyond. Instead, we may see Wilson Chandler guarding Westbrook while Danilo Gallinari or Kenyon Martin checks Durant.
Whatever the alignment, Karl seemed confident of tone thing -- "I don't think Westbrook and Durant will get [72] points in four games," he said in a low voice, indicating that if the Thunder were going to beat them in this series, they would still need to find new ways to do it. He's probably correct in that assessment, but the Thunder won't get only nine points from the other three starters either.
