Hawks need to find J-Co's replacement

[Admin]

In my opinion, Collins handling of Dwight Howard was over-lauded by analysts around the country and a few of the members of this site, just because people were surprised to see Collins have any impact at all. The fact of the matter was, Jason Collins was dominated 95% of the time by Dwight Howard during that series.

He was able to take a few charges which was nice (Dwight didn't foul out of a single game however) and was able to have a few poke-aways as well. But Dwight exceeded his season average in offensive rebounds, total rebounds, scoring and field goal percentage (though I am not deep in stats enough to prove who that domination came against, seeing as how he ate up Hilton and Josh Powell)

In that series, Jason Collins played 103+ minutes and had 7 (seven!) defensive rebounds, about one every 15 minutes of game time.

He has no vertical, no lateral quickness and his main positive contribution during that series was that he flopped decently. Couple that with his non-existence on the offensive end, and Collins' helpfulness dips even more because he can't draw fouls on Dwight in an attempt to get him into foul trouble.

I just don't see how anybody can praise him for doing more than just having his 6 fouls.

Dolfan, can you find the stats from the playoffs though?

Typical stats have NEVER told the story of the impact that Jason Collins has on a game. StatsCube has a nice advanced statistics that show you how poorly Dwight does when Collins is on the court. You'll have to switch over to the 2011 Playoffs tab on this page.

http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2011/04/26/statscube-the-no-stats-playoff-mvps/

f you were to name a playoffs MVP at this point, you would have to choose between Chris Paul, LeBron James and Kevin Durant … and maybe Derrick Rose. But beyond the stars with the big individual numbers, there are players who have made a big difference on the scoreboard without actually scoring points.

If Shane Battier could be heralded as a no-stats All-Star in The New York Times back in 2009, then Joel Anthony and Jason Collins, two guys that would have trouble scoring in an empty gym, deserve to be called no-stats playoff MVP candidates here on the Hang-Time Blog.

Collins has had a similar effect on the Orlando Magic‘s offense. They’ve scored just 76.6 points per 100 possessions in 72 minutes with him on the floor vs. 108.8 in 120 minutes with him on the bench, as the Atlanta Hawks have taken a 3-1 lead in the East’s 4-5 series.

Those numbers come close to matching The Collins Effect in the regular season: 72.9 on and 105.0 off. With Collins starting, the Hawks are 6-2 against the Magic this season. Compare that to Atlanta’s 1-7 record against Orlando last season, when Collins played just 16 total minutes in the eight games. (Don’t necessarily blame former Hawks coach Mike Woodson here. Collins is in much better shape this year.)

This isn’t the first time Collins has had success in defending Howard. In 591 career games in which he’s played at least 25 minutes (including postseason), his two lowest scoring games came against Collins and the Nets. Collins held Howard to two points on 1-for-5 shooting on March 13, 2005 and to one point on 0-for-6 shooting on Jan. 20, 2007.

The Collins Effect goes beyond Howard’s numbers. By defending Howard one-on-one, Collins allows his teammates to stay at home on the perimeter. The Magic are shooting a league-low 29.1 percent from five feet or beyond in the postseason, and just 26.5 percent when Collins is on the floor.

Here is an article after the series that talks a little about his (and Zaza's impact)...

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2011/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=atlcenters-110428

On Thursday night, Collins set the tone by forcing turnovers on three of Howard's first four touches. Each time, Howard tried dribbling on the left block but could get nowhere against Collins' physical defense; then Collins or a digging Kirk Hinrich would get a hand on the ball.

"It's just something you get used to doing," Collins said, "over the years, guarding Shaq, guarding Tim Duncan. I actually learned it from Kenyon Martin [a former teammate in New Jersey]. With one hand you hold him up so he can't back you down, and with the other hand you flick at the ball."

"It's not easy," Pachulia said. "He's very athletic, strong, a great post-up player. We sacrificed ourselves and our bodies, starting with [Collins], of course. He set the tone. He was amazing all series. He was forcing turnovers, making him take tough shots. You can't keep this guy down to 10, 15 points, but we frustrated him."

Colin will you take Zaza at his word about Collins setting the done and being amazing all series?

[/thread]

[Colin]

Typical stats have NEVER told the story of the impact that Jason Collins has on a game. StatsCube has a nice advanced statistics that show you how poorly Dwight does when Collins is on the court. You'll have to switch over to the 2011 Playoffs tab on this page.Here is an article after the series that talks a little about his (and Zaza's impact)...Colin will you take Zaza at his word about Collins setting the done and being amazing all series?[/thread]

Upon founding the Zaza Pachulia fan club, I took an oath to always take Zaza at his word. That being said, I must depart this thread immediately.

[Guest]

C'mon. Please spare me of this bull crap. We had a 6-game series, and Howard 'failed' to dominate the paint in just one of those (the one the Hawks were down 20+ @ halftime, that game he played less than 30 minutes). We didn't win because of Collins, but because their shooters were plain awful all series long.46-1933-1921-1529-178-825-11How is that NOT dominating the paint?Collins is trash. Simple as that.

Having JaCo on D-12 wasn't about shutting him down. It was about being able to play D-12 1 on1 to keep their other players from being wide open on 3's by having to double team him. It was about the team's defensive philiosophy - let D12 get his, shutdown everybody else and it worked. The shooters were awful because they had a hand in their face and we chased them off the 3-point line. Edited March 21, 2012 by JayBirdHawk