CHICAGO -- If Philadelphia 76ers coach Doug Collins could win any quarter against the Chicago Bulls in their Eastern Conference quarterfinals playoff series, he would prefer it to be the first one.

"They're 23-0 when they score 100 points, and they're 39-3 when they win the first quarter," Collins said after Monday's practice. "So they're a quick-starting team, and when they score, their defense is really good."

Collins' fear before Game 1 on Saturday was the Bulls jumping on his team, and that's exactly what occurred. The Bulls opened the game on 10-3 run, forcing Collins to cause a timeout, and the 76ers trailed 28-24 after one quarter. The Bulls allowed the 76ers to tie the game in the second quarter, but the 76ers never took the lead and lost 103-91.


Collins thought one of the keys for Game 2 on Tuesday will be not allowing Bulls guard Richard Hamilton to get off to another hot start. Hamilton made all four of his shots and scored 11 points in the first quarter on Saturday. He finished with 19 points on 6-of-7 shooting.

"Hopefully, he won't get 19 points on seven shots," Collins said. "We would like to make him a point-per-shot player, and they almost got three points per shot. He got off to an early start. We have to do a good job with him.

"Rip is a jump-starter. He did that in Detroit. He used to always get them going early in games, so we have to be aware of that and do a better job."

Collins said they would also be more conscious of Bulls guard Kyle Korver, who was 5-of-8 shooting and scored 11 points. Collins believed Derrick Rose's absence could help the 76ers provide Korver and others more attention.

"We didn't want to give (Korver) that many looks the other day," Collins said. "But again with a Derrick Rose out there, sometimes your coverage is a little bit different. You take that MVP and put him out there and it causes a chain reaction in a lot of different ways.

"We can't give them 103 points and let them shoot 50-plus percent. We can't do that. We got to get them at about 45 percent and get the number down to the low 90s. That's more of who we are."