Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant haven’t been teammates for nearly three years, but their efforts told parallel stories about what seemed like the two most interesting playoff series. (I say “seemed” as the Sunday night upsets have thickened the firstround plots considerably.) Bryant and O’Neal dominated the first halves of their games last weekend, yet their ineffectiveness in the second halves are not the reason that both men go into tonight’s games with their teams trailing one game to none. Instead, other members of each backcourt will be determining factors.

Both the Heat-Bulls series and the Lakers-Suns tilt are rematches of the no. 2 seed versus the no. 7 seed from last year’s opening round, and each series is a classic matchup of speed versus size. Last season, both series were surprisingly competitive before the Heat prevailed in six games and the Suns won in seven. This season only a handful of pundits expect either result to be different, and most of those that do expect Chicago to eliminate the defending champions.

Saturday afternoon’s game in Chicago illustrated that it will be a hard-fought series throughout. Miami’s strength is inside, and O’Neal illustrated this by powering his way to 17 points in the first half. However, foul trouble as well as the Bulls’ swarming defense limited him to a handful of touches and only two points in the second half. O’Neal fouled out with more than three minutes to go. Chicago’s strength is on the perimeter and small forward Luol Deng and guard Ben Gordon led Chicago’s scoring with 33 and 24 points respectively. Deng frequently beat the Heat defenders downcourt for easy baskets, and Gordon consistently found holes in Miami’s overextended defense and got to the line after attacking the rim.

Since the game, O’Neal has carped incessantly about the officiating, but Chicago was hurt more by the calls. Bulls point guard Kirk Hinrich was limited by foul trouble to a mere 19 minutes, 16 below his season average. While Shaq’s statline, 17 points and 6 rebounds in 28 minutes, was pretty much in line with his season averages, Captain Kirk’s two points, three assists, and four turnovers were well off his season average of 16.6 points, 6.4 assists, and 2.4 turnovers.

With or without foul trouble, I expect Shaq and guard Dwyane Wade to repeat their Game 1 performances tonight. Much of the Heat’s chances will ride on the play of the supporting cast. The non-All-Stars shot like end of the bench guys, 15 of 43, on Saturday afternoon. Forward Antoine Walker was the only productive member of the Heat bench, but the Bulls will be happy for him to repeat his inefficient 20 points on 5 of 14 shooting.

Miami will change its defense of Deng (inasmuch as it defended him at all on Saturday), putting the agile James Posey on the Bulls’ rapidly improving forward. The Bulls key will be getting Hinrich going and possibly getting even more from their rookies, guards Thabo Sefolosha and forward Tyrus Thomas. The Bulls are deeper, younger, and faster and will need to maximize these strategic advantages. Miami gave 102 minutes to their weak second unit. The Bulls bench, led by the rookies and forward Andres Nocioni, could provide the margin of victory when the starters are on the bench.

Last year, when the Lakers won three of the first four games against the Suns in their series, L.A. slowed down the Suns’ turbocharged offense to a crawl and forced them into a half-court game. They did that again on Sunday, holding Phoenix to a meager 39 first-half points, but in the second half, the Suns exposed a crucial Laker weakness, backcourt defense.

Although the series is being billed as a match between Bryant and Suns guard (and two time league MVP) Steve Nash, Phoenix reserve guard (and Sixth Man of Year winner) Leandro Barbosa stole the spotlight, scoring 26 points and helping the Suns pull away in the fourth quarter of their 95–87 win. Bryant had a big first half scoring 28 of his 39 points, but shot one of 10 in the fourth quarter. While Lakers coach Phil Jackson said that Bryant was tired, it’s probably just another one of Jackson’s motivation tricks. However, he’ll need Bryant to excel on both ends of the court as neither of the other guards, Jordan Farmar and Smush Parker, has been able to defend Barbosa all season. In four regular season games against the Lakers this season, Barbosa has averaged 20.3 points a contest on a sizzling 52.3% from the field and 50% from behind the arc.

The Laker frontcourt, centers Andrew Bynum and Kwame Brown and forward Lamar Odom, have kept their counterparts, particularly forward Shawn Marion and center Amare Stoudemire, below their season averages, both on Sunday and during the team’s four regular season games. But in a speed versus size matchup, the Lakers are losing the battle in the backcourt. They haven’t solved Barbosa all season, and unless they do it this week, L.A. will be hard pressed to make this year’s series look anything like last year’s thrilling run.