When we die, our bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass. And so we are all connected in the great Circle of Life. -- The Lion King

There are twice as many college coaches from the 1995 NBA Draft (Corliss Williamson, Damon Stoudemire, Fred Hoiberg and Cuonzo Martin) as there are players left in the league. Kevin Garnett is one; Kurt Thomas, the oldest player in the NBA, is the other.

Garnett, along with Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki, revolutionized the power forward position. Despite being 7’0, he preferred to play on the perimeter, where his quickness made him a defensive terror and his high release point made his shot unblockable. Even in his 17th season, he remains an incredibly productive player, posting a 20.4 PER while handling the interior defense for a Boston Celtics team with no other player taller than 6’8 in the starting lineup.

Boston’s lack of size leaves Garnett as the best matchup for Josh Smith in their first-round series against the Atlanta Hawks. Smith, an athletic 6’9, 225 combo forward, is a textbook example of the type of multi-dimensional big man who have followed in Garnett’s footsteps. And for all Garnett’s wisdom and savvy, he no longer has the foot-speed or the explosiveness to handle Smith one-on-one, which is one of the main reasons why Atlanta will win the series.

After playing at small forward earlier in his career, Smith has thrived closer to the basket, especially in the high post, where his vision and foot-speed make him extremely dangerous. On an Atlanta team with a lot of good players but no great ones, it’s been easy to overlook just how good he has become.

While he’s not paid as much as Joe Johnson or appeared in as many All-Star games as Al Horford, Smith has quietly been the Hawks best player for several years. He is one of the NBA’s most versatile forwards: an excellent shot-blocker (1.6 a game) and playmaker (3.8 assists to 2.5 turnovers) who can create his own shot (18.8 points) and clear the boards (9.7 rebounds a game).

About the only thing he can’t do is knock down outside jumpers, which has been the knock on him for most of his career, as he takes 1.7 3’s a game despite shooting 25% from beyond the arc. However, this relatively small flaw has been blown out of proportion in popular perception, and it’s certainly less of a problem for Atlanta than Smith’s offensive versatility is for Boston.

That was the story in Game 1, when Smith had 22 points, 18 rebounds and 4 assists. He’s on a different level athletically than anyone on Boston’s front-line, which his gaudy rebound total illustrates. He can jump faster and higher than Garnett, Brandon Bass and Greg Stiemsma; at a certain point when the ball is above the rim, that’s all that really matters.

Garnett can’t handle Smith’s first-step; if he puts his head down and takes the ball to the rim, the Celtics have to double team him. That would be survivable against the vast majority of NBA power forwards, but Smith is a good enough passer and ball-handler that he can make the correct read and find the open man off the bounce.

Boston, like San Antonio, has tried to compensate for the aging of their legendary seven-footer by surrounding them with perimeter shooters to spread the floor offensively. That strategy has been successful in the regular season, when excellent team defense can overcome for a lack of athleticism on the front-line.

It hasn’t worked as well in the playoffs, where the caliber of big men is dramatically higher. There are only a handful of excellent 6’9+ players in the NBA, and Smith, with a 21.1 PER, is one of them. As the Spurs have found out, the type of defense that can stop a Luis Scola or a Drew Gooden won’t work against Dirk Nowitzki (2009), Amare Stoudemire (2010) or Zach Randolph (2011).

Smith, along with Al Jefferson, is one of the two best players never to have made an All-Star Game. These playoffs are his chance to make his name, as Derrick Rose’s injury has opened up a path for Atlanta to make the Conference Finals. Standing in his way is a 37-year old-man who began playing in the NBA when Smith was in third grade.

As an alpha lion ages, the last thing to go is his appearance. To the casual observer, who can only see the mane and hear the roar, he looks as fierce as ever. But the younger lions, the ones waiting for their chance to be at the head of the pack, are watching intently. Each passing year, the alpha lion gets weaker and slower, while the ones who grew up watching him get stronger and faster.