Paul George led the Indiana Pacers to a 107-90 win over the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday afternoon in Game 1, accomplishing something that many of the franchise’s best players never could.

George recorded a triple-double -- 23 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds -- a feat Reggie Miller, Jalen Rose, Jermaine O’Neal, Ron Artest and Danny Granger never once did in the playoffs. Mark Jackson (1998) is the only other player in franchise history to record a triple-double in the postseason.

Such a dominant performance to begin the playoffs is one thing, but the matter in which George scored his 23 points bodes well for the Pacers going forward. He was just 3-for-13 from the field, but finished 17-for-18 from the foul line. George tied Miller for Indiana’s playoff mark in made free throws.

George’s assists also led directly to 27 points, meaning he accounted for 46.7 percent of Indiana’s scoring. 

While George attacked the rim and made a living at the line, George Hill got the offense on track in the first quarter. Hill made all five of his shots in the opening period, finishing 7-for-10 with 18 points in 37 minutes. Eleven minutes of rest doesn’t seem like a lot, but it helps given his hobbled status. He has been bothered by a lingering groin injury that has visibly altered his gait.

The Indiana offense was nicely balanced. Seven players scored nine or more points and all five starters had at least thirteen. They shot 44.9%, but made up for misses with 15 offensive rebounds and a 31-for-34 performance at the foul line. The Pacers scored 1.184 points per possession, considerably better than the 1.043 mark they posted over 81 games (20th in the league).

As good as they looked offensively, there were some defensive issues. The Pacers allowed the Hawks to score 50 points in the first half before tightening the reigns. Atlanta converted a number of second chances in the second quarter with Al Horford dominating in the paint for a stretch that allowed Atlanta to get within a few possessions.

The Hawks started the game red-hot, taking a 6-0 lead and hitting five of their first six shots. They cooled off a bit, but still shot 50 percent against the NBA’s stingiest defense. Opposing teams hit just 42 percent of their shots in the regular season. The Hawks took advantage of high percentage looks when they could and finished 7-for-17 (.412) from three, a large departure from the 32.7 percent clip the Pacers surrendered this season.

Frank Vogel probably wasn’t happy when he saw Atlanta’s percentages, but the Pacers escaped with a relatively easy victory thanks to a dominating performance on the glass (a +16 differential) and 20 more free throw attempts. With those advantages, the Hawks could have shot 60 percent and still have come away with a loss.

The outcome was a positive one, but here are two troubling things to consider as the series turns to Game 2 on Wednesday night. 

Gerald With The Green Light?

Vogel went with Gerald Green as the first wing player off the bench, over rookie Orlando Johnson, and he responded with 11 points in 11 minutes. Sounds good, right?

Wrong.

Green was in-and-out of the rotation during the season and despite his inexperience, giving at least some of those minutes (if not all) to Johnson is the better move. Green is often late on defensive rotations and rarely turns down a shot. He attempted eight in his 11 minutes, an excessive rate for any player, let alone the second player off the bench.

All but one of Green’s attempts came from deep. He shot 31.4% from three-point land in the regular season and had an effective field goal percentage of 43.5%. When he was on the floor, the Pacers scored 93 points per 100 possessions and allowed the opposition to score 103 points.

Conversely, Johnson shot 38.3% from beyond the arc with a 50 eFG%. When the rookie was on the floor, the Pacers scored 106 points per 100 possessions and allowed the opposition to score 102 points. 

Interior Presence

Always more concerned with defense than offense, the Pacers need better play from their interior defense as the series progresses. You might wonder why, given the huge rebounding advantage and overall edge in aggressiveness, but the Hawks often shot themselves in the foot with long jumpers -- the famous Josh Smith modus operandi.

David West and Roy Hibbert looked lost on Atlanta’s end of the floor too often. Horford beat West with a spin move in the first half that left the latter embarrassed. Hibbert changed a few shots and had two blocks, but his tremendous size advantage should lend itself to more.

There is no reason why Hibbert shouldn’t easily grab 10 rebounds against the Hawks. Zaza Pachulia killed Indiana on the glass during the regular season, but he’s out with an Achilles injury. Hibbert failed to record a single rebound in the first half and ended up with eight in the second half.

Anything fewer than a dozen rebounds a game in this series is unacceptable for Hibbert. His size should be used as a significant advantage against the Hawks.

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The Chicago Bulls and Brooklyn Nets finished the regular season ranked as two of the slowest paced teams in the league, preferring to operate in halfcourt sets. As much as anything the series appears to be shaping up to be defined by health and interior scoring.

Brooklyn had the third slowest pace in the league (88.76) followed by Chicago ranking the fourth slowest (89.35).

However, Brooklyn appears to have an advantage on the interior due to the ailing health of Joakim Noah.

Noah is battling plantar fasciitis in his right foot, which gave Tom Thibodeau cause for concern on the eve of the series.

“There will be some restrictions on him,” said Thibodeau before Game 1.

While Noah has dealt with the injury previously during his career, there’s no timetable for his recovery and his current status is day-to-day.

“It’s the type of injury where you don’t know how he’s going to feel the next day,” said Thibodeau.

Meanwhile, Brooklyn headed into the postseason relatively unscathed.

“I think we’re as healthy as we’ve been in a long time,” said P.J. Carlesimo. “Maybe it’s wrong to say Joe (Johnson), Gerald (Wallace), or (Keith) Bogans are 100 percent healthy, but they’re better than they’ve been. Collectively we’re in better shape than we’ve been in a long time so that’s a positive.”

With Noah’s effectiveness limited, Carlesimo wants use his center tandem of Brook Lopez and Andray Blatche to wear down a depleted Bulls' frontcourt.

“We want to go inside regardless,” said Carlesimo. “We want to go to Brook (Lopez), we want to go to Blatche whether Joakim (Noah) is there or Nazr (Mohammed).”

The tandem worked well in Game 1 as Brooklyn received a combined 33 points on 13-for-26 shooting from Lopez and Blatche. The tandem took a noticeable toll on Noah.

“(Noah) was tired,” said Reggie Evans. “He did good for the little time that he played. It seemed like he hurt himself again, that’s what it looked like to me.”

While Noah’s health has declined towards the latter stages of the season, Deron Williams has dramatically improved since the All-Star break. Williams received a third set of cortisone shots in both ankles, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) treatment, and cleansed his body with a juice diet.

According to Evans, Williams has rediscovered his “lift” and has played like an elite point guard ever since.

“He’s looking good,” said Evans of Williams. “He’s looking like he’s supposed to be, one of the top point guards in the league.”

While Brooklyn made a dramatic statement in Game 1, the series is far from over.

“It’s going to be a tough physical series,” said C.J. Watson. “We’ve got to go out there and match their intensity, match their toughness, and play hard every possession.”

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For a vast majority of the season, I thought this Denver Nuggets team stood out as a real contender in the Western Conference. Their excellent depth meshed perfectly with their aggressive style of play and a mile high home court advantage, creating a team that would be extremely difficult to take down in at least three of the tilts in a seven game series. Even as their system began to work better, injuries to Danilo Gallnari (who will not play in the series) and Kenneth Faried (who likely will play but may sit out the earliest games) change how they will work as a postseason team.

The other major factor here comes in the form of their opponents. In halfcourt sets, the Warriors’ organizing philosophy has been to try to deny teams scoring chances at the rim and giving up three point shots. That manifested itself in Golden State yielding the most three-point attempts in the entire league per game (23.8) and the fourth-least attempts at the rim per game (also 23.8). The second figure becomes more impressive because the Warriors were third from the bottom in the entire NBA when it comes to turnovers. Since turnovers often yield looks at the rim in transition, they had to do even better in halfcourt situations to offset those figures.

Against many teams, building a defense with the release valve being three-pointers (often open ones) can be devastating. The corner three is the second-best shot in basketball behind shots at the rim and teams who know and game plan for Golden State can make sure that these looks go to the best players. However, the Nuggets as presently constituted do not have the personnel to exploit the Warriors’ defensive weakness and in fact could be victimized by it.

This season, five different Nuggets attempted 2.9 or more threes per game- Gallinari, Corey Brewer, Andre Iguodala, Ty Lawson and Wilson Chandler. Of that group, Chandler was the only one to shoot better than 40 percent while Lawson and Gallinari shot 36.6 percent and 37.3 percent, respectively. Finally, Iguodala converted only 31.7 percent of his looks while Corey Brewer shot an abysmal 29.6 percent from deep. In fact, Corey Brewer was the third-worst of any player who attempted more than 250 threes this season, behind only Alexey Schved and Monta Ellis. Iguodala was fourth-worst.

With Gallinari out of commission for the season, this means that the group of players taking the shots the Warriors will give them contains as many bad shooters as good ones coming off a regular season where the poor gunners attempted more threes both total and per minute than the better shooters. Denver’s offense will require more discipline than they showed at any point during the regular season, including their improved performance over the final month.

Golden State would also be wise to understand Denver’s strengths and attempt to take them away from the Nuggets. Unlike nearly every NBA team, Denver can get quality minutes at the Center position every minute of every game thanks to Kosta Koufos and JaVale McGee. Both are good defensive players that can impact the opposing offense in different ways. However, by shifting around personnel the Warriors have the capability of neutralizing this strength. While the combination of David Lee and Carl Landry has plenty of defensive problems, they each have the ability to stretch the floor which must be respected by opposing bigs. Playing them together would get either Kosta or JaVale out of their comfort zone and leave both those players and the system susceptible to penetrators and unusual screen actions. Andre Iguodala in particular is an excellent defensive player but spending some time each game taking away the core of the Nuggets’ D would work incredibly well for the Warriors, particularly while Andrew Bogut is less than 100%.

The Warriors also need to be aware of Denver potentially putting Andre Iguodala or Corey Brewer on Stephen Curry since their length will cause him some problems and they each have enough lateral quickness to largely stay with him during sets. Exploiting those situations will require using two swingmen (like Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes) rather than Jarrett Jack because the bigger players can exploit Ty Lawson or Andre Miller more than Jack can. Golden State should also use substitutes to maximize their opportunities when George Karl plays Miller and Lawson together because their collective limitations in terms of size, shooting, and defense can be exploited.

One final reason I am picking the Warriors in this series is George Karl. He has done a fantastic job this season (I had him second for Coach of the Year) and has had an admirable career. However, his teams have consistently underperformed in the playoffs. Since the 2001-2002 season, Karl’s teams have made the playoffs nine times and have advanced beyond the first round once. Furthermore, despite having three division champions, since he became the Denver head coach nine seasons ago the average number of wins per playoff series for his team sits at 1.9. That 1.9 wins per series includes a trip to the Western Conference Finals with Melo- without that run the Nuggets have average 1.3 wins per playoff series with all first round exits.

My best guess of how this goes down is that the Warriors sneak one of the first two in Denver, then get both wins at Oracle, lose Game 5 in Denver and then take the series at home in Game 6. The Nuggets have done a superb job this season but may have run into exactly the wrong team while not having their full arsenal.