Ray A Sixth Man?

I should preface by saying that I've been busy and out of town and haven't had much chance to watch the Celtics or even read about them since Ray came back after missing six games with a bad ankle. So I'm basing this whole post on what I saw against Miami Tuesday night, what I can glean from the box scores of previous games, and from the pre-game interview Doc gave prior to the Miami game.

When I first heard that Allen was coming off the bench, I was concerned about the effect of the move on Ray. Not because I thought he'd sulk the way you'd worry about with some guys; he's too much of a professional for that. But even in a profession where routine is such a big part of success for so many, Ray is extraordinarily regimented: eating the same pre-game meal; arriving at the arena hours early; getting up a certain number of shots before tip. Before last week, Allen had come off the bench four times in his NBA career, the last time being in November of 2002, early in his final season in Milwaukee (he would be traded to Seattle later that season). How, I wondered, would a mid-season change in routine affect his performance on the court? At the very least, it seemed like the uncertainty would shake his confidence a little bit. Ray knows that his routine works; no matter how confident he is in his abilities, he has no point of reference as to how he'd play in a bench role.

Doc's pre-game interview on Tuesday assuaged some of those fears. According to Doc, while he had broached the topic with Allen earlier in the year, it was Ray's own suggestion that set the change in motion. So any discomfort Allen might feel from the unfamiliar situation seems to be minimized.

The effect on the team's play as a whole remains to be seen, though it's hard to argue with the early results. Avery Bradley was outstanding in the starting shooting guard slot while Allen was out (the team won five of six during that stretch) and after losing to Chicago last Thursday in Allen's first game off the bench, the Celtics have now won three in a row. Bradley gives Boston a different look on offense, a player who looks to attack without the basketball, in many ways a more suitable running mate for Rajon R-ndo. And, of course, Bradley's tenacious defense is an upgrade on that end of the floor.

In addition, Allen's move to the bench gives the second unit some real scoring punch, which has been sorely needed ever since Brandon Bass moved into the starting lineup after injuries ended the seasons of Jermaine O'Neal and Chris Wilcox. Doc's monitoring of Kevin Garnett's minutes (limiting him to five- or six-minute stretches until the fourth quarter) means that KG has been spending more time with the second unit, and suddenly he and Ray give that lineup some real weapons.

On the other hand, Allen is the greatest three-point shooter of all-time, and he's still one the game's premier weapons from downtown. Employing him in a Kyle Korver-type role seems like a waste. He only took seven shots against Miami on Tuesday, and two of them were end-of-the-shot-clock jobs -- contested, off-balance looks that he was forced into. The problem, at least against the Heat, seemed to me to be that he wasn't getting the ball in the exact right spot at the exact right time. Allen's offense with the Celtics has been based on precision, running through a series of screens that are designed to lose his defender for a fraction of a second, just enough time for him to catch and release. If the timing is off, the moment is gone, and Bradley hasn't yet developed the chops to deliver the ball on time, every time. Keyon Dooling didn't play against the Heat for some reason, but I haven't seen much during this season or Dooling's career that suggests that he's the solution. That means to be effective, Allen is still going to have play a lot of minutes with R-ndo, which either means even more minutes for R-ndo or limited minutes for Bradley, whose minutes this whole thing is supposed to maximize.

Then again, it could just be me over-reacting to one game. Ray did take nine and ten shots, respectively, against Philadelphia and Chicago, just a couple below his season average, and he took 18 shots against Indiana. And he's shown throughout his career that he can come into a game cold or out of rhythm and still hit a big shot (he proved it yet again just last week, burying a late three against the Spurs that gave us a shot at the win).

The results so far have been great. But it's a risk. In order to make a deep playoff run, we're going to need Ray Allen making big shots in the fourth quarter. We know we can get those shots out of starter-Ray. We don't yet know if we can get them out of sixth man-Ray.