These days Kevin Garnett is better on offense than he is on defense (other than last night!). Paul Pierce can still fill up the box score, just not consistently (and maybe not very often). Ray Allen? For two years, the Celtics had trouble remembering he was on the team. Sure, he had his monster games here and there. No doubt he's had his share of game winners, too.
But you could never say that he was Option Numero Uno.
Not that I recall anyway.
I think that's changing.
Michael Jordan was 34 when the Bulls won their last title, or the same age as Ray Allen is today. Best I can tell, MJ had a pretty good year that season. Kevin Garnett has never been a go-to-guy for 82 games a season, even in his MVP year. Paul Pierce, even in his younger days, really didn't want to play Kobe for the Celtics every night.
Ray Allen is a different cat altogether.
Despite being the consummate professional, willing to subordinate his game for the better of the team, Ray Allen still likes to put ball in basket, and do so as often as his teammates will allow and the circumstances of the game require. Over the weekend, I observed that the Big 3 appear to be finally figuring out how best to play together. What I think is really going on is that Rondo, KG, and the Truth have figured out that Ray Allen's tank is still full, and as long as it is, the Celtics are riding in his car.
The Celtics offense has never revolved around Ray Allen. It might be fun to see how much it does over the last 20 games and into the playoffs.
2 comments:
Nice one lex!
i agree, it has taken a while, but the team is definitely so much better at getting ray the right looks.
He is definitely a product of ball movement though, so when the offense get's stagnant, so is ray, but as long as rondo keeps calling plays, and we don't stand still, i don't see why he can't have some more 50+ games like he did against the bulls.
plus defenses will have to adjust more than normal to track ray off screens and on other set plays, so lets just see if he can't get some more assists or create a couple of mismatches too.
True.
He seems to be driving with more abandon as well.
This should help keep defenses honest.
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