Darren Collison thrives as Victor Oladipo was the center of attention
By Ben Gibson
Darren Collison’s best game of the series came while Victor Oladipo opened up the floor as the Indiana Pacers won Game 6 over the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Game 6 could have been the end of the road for the Indiana Pacers, but thanks in part to Darren Collison playing his best game of the series, the series is going the full seven games. The Cleveland Cavaliers hands were full once Collison and the rest of the lineup got rolling in the historic beat down.
Victor Oladipo starred in the victory with his resurgence as a scorer, but Darren Collison and many other Pacers were the supporting cast that aided the All-Star’s revival.
Considering the role of the fast break in Indiana’s success, it isn’t surprising that Collison’s early success came in transition. His first two buckets came on the run while his third made basket snuck in after bouncing off the time. It wasn’t overwhelming, and it helped that Oladipo himself got things going for the Pacers with 15 first-quarter points on 75 percent shooting — including a perfect 3 of 3 from beyond the arc.
That loosened the pressure off of everyone, including Collison.
But more than allowing Collison to score, it just started to open up the court for everyone. As Indiana got rolling in the second half, Oladipo’s gravity pulled the Cavaliers towards him and away from the rest of the Pacers. That gave Collison plenty of room to operate and be the playmaker he is expected to be.
It’s a simple pick and roll play, but JR Smith wasn’t going to leave Oladipo to help crowd the lane. LeBron was left in the role of the center on the play, but against an actual center like Myles Turner, that’s a mismatch when he running downhill toward the basket.
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And that’s why Oladipo’s play is so important to Indiana. While he demanded double-teams all series, the Cavaliers couldn’t afford to play everyone else so tightly. Oladipo wasn’t making mistakes when the Cavaliers showed pressure and demanded the attention almost every Cavalier.
While this play didn’t end in a basket, you can see the room Collison had to work with. Whether it was the 5 assist or 15 points, there was more room for playmaking and shooting for him.
Collison isn’t the one the Pacers need to drop 30 points. They don’t need him to give out assists in the double-digits. You can hope for a game like Bojan Bogdanovic had, but that isn’t what the game plan calls for.
What Collison did beautifully this season was fit in. There were concerns that he would demand the ball too much before the season started, but those faded as he posted the second-lowest usage rate of his career while being more effective as a playmaker than any other season in his career.
And they need more of that in Game 7.
Indiana just needs Collison to thrive as a supporting cast member to Oladipo. He doesn’t need to make every play directly as he led the Pacers in secondary assists in Game 6. They need him to handout assists while rarely making turnovers. So far in the series, the tally is 31 dimes to 7 mistakes.
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Just do your job. It sounds basic once Oladipo loosens up the Cavaliers, it’s Collison’s job to use that room to be the 46.8 percent 3-point shooter he was in the regular season. And if he gets going as well, there’s a good chance the Pacers season doesn’t end in Cleveland.