Allen Is More Than Meets The Eye

His Garnett analogy was just as priceless:

Have you ever watched any of those nature shows where a pack of hyenas harasses a pride of lions consisting of females and cubs, chasing them up trees, threatening the cubs, stealing their kills and generally making their lives miserable? Then the male lion returns from wherever it is that male lions go. He sees the chaos and immediately chases down and kills the lead hyena as the rest of the pack runs for their lives and the stoic BBC narrator says something like “Adult male lions brook no nonsense”? Well, Garnett is the adult male lion in this analogy.

Lets hope and pray his ankles hold up for the entire season. Thats all that can bring hime down.

It’s too bad that a brake job on a Porsche costs as much as a Toyota Camry.

My understanding is that his surgery was for bone chips in both ankles. This simply isn’t the kind of stuff that degrades athletic ability over the long term.

Allen has excellent athleticism and quickness for a 2 guard, but what sets him apart is how incredibly fluid he is. He never looks awkward, even though he is an aggressive scorer. When he takes it to the hoop, he makes some very difficult stuff look very easy. There was a lot of talk about how big guards start to slow down quickly at his age, but he looks as good as ever so far.

Allen never forces anything, which is why he rarely turns the ball over. I wish Pierce would lear how to play the same way.

I remember when Ray Allen converted me away from the conventional incorrect “3 point sharp shooter” belief. Granted, it was an all star game, but a few years back he took the ball behind the arc on a couple occasions, showed some nice handles, and got to the baskets for almost effortless reverse, double pump dunks.

He is very smooth and always in control, not just a strict jump shooter. I like what I see so far.

Wow, Brick never saw Ray Allen force a shot? Of course he has, but I’m not complaining. ;)

If he remains healthy, Ray is one of the best offensive players in the league.

Trust me, I bought “He Got Game” this weekend. Once Jake Shuttleworth can’t guard you anymore, you’ve reached a truly special point in your development as a basketball player.

Sure, Allen does force a shot or two per game. People never tend to complain, though, because he makes them. Or at least makes them at a rate better than a Pierce isolation pull-up :P

This may be heresy on this board, but I’ve always thought R. Allen is a little better than PP. Mainly because Allen is a better shooter and, importantly, when he drives to the basket he always stays in control and focuses on actually making the shot. Too often PP gets out of control on a drive and just prays for a foul. If PP could take his superior strength and learn to play under control like Allen, he would simply be unstoppable.

what makes a big difference to the patriots is that they get intelligent players who can think their way through situations. isn’t that what ray allen is all about. not only smooth- smart- and respectful of the game and its players- not above it all as is kobe or arod.

I am disappointed that true fans ever bought into the media need for digestable bytes to feed the masses that Allen was only a ‘spot-up shooter’. This was nothing more than the media always needing to describe things for casual fans in the most simplest of terms. Even if one did not follow Seattle last season, any study of Allen over the years would easily have revealed his ability as an all around scorer. Guards don’t make the Western Conference All-Star team multiple times, just being a standstill jumpshooter. Nor can a guard average 26.5 points a game, simply by taking and making jumpshots. Awesome to see him doing his thing in the Green, but observant fans have known for years that Ray is a scorer, not just a shooter.

At the game Friday night i kept saying over and over to my buddy that Ray is a silent assassin.

compared to last year Ray is walking on eggshells but he’s so smooth it’s no biggie…come spring when he’s got his legs he’ll be dealing…that 1/2 a step will return

I love Ray Allen

Minor surgeries. I watched a fair bit of him in Seattle and we haven’t seen …. let’s just say a lot more is to come. I want to see him more involved in the offense.

Ray Allen is only “more than meets the eye” to myopic Celtics fans who have spent the last decade or so convincing themselves that Paul Pierce is a top-10 NBA player. Ray Allen has made more all-star teams than Pierce, more all-NBA teams, and is a likely HOF’er, regardless of whether he wins a title or not. That he is embracing his role as a 3rd option is due to the fact that he’s hitting the tail end of his career and has more experience working within a multi-star system. But as last night demonstrated, the myth of “Paul Pierce: clutch player” is likely to evaporate in lieu of better options, and Ray Allen will be The Man at the end of games.

Yup, those ankles are deffinitley shot and you can tell by that 33pt performance that at 32 he is simply just a shell of a shooting guard and it’s clear he is declining as we speak!
Awful trade, Danny, just terrible. What was he thinking bringing in this over-the-hill has been for Wally and Delonte! Clearly Boston got the raw end of the deal there! Sheesh!

Ray is an amazing player that has still got lots of game left in his tank. Obviously an injury can hit anyone, but he won’t be a problem for a few years due to old age. He is just smarter than most everyone else out there.

I must admit I like his little ’’snarl’’ as he backs up down the court after hitting a big shot like it is no big deal.

Brick said: Allen never forces anything, which is why he rarely turns the ball over. I wish Pierce would lear how to play the same way.

Even when you are paying one guy a compliment you have to be slamming someone else…

I too have been surprised by Ray Allen. I only saw him twice a year and sometimes he had a bad game. What amazes me is the way he can take it to the hoop, without fantastic speed or strength, and use his body to make a difficult shot easy. He pulled one off with Bargnani guarding him yesterday and just effortless (to the eye) got Bargnani out of position so there was no way he could block the shot. Maybe EFFORTLESS (appearing) is a way to describe Ray Allen. Mike kept saying he had ice in his veins. He’s a calm antithesis (trying to use big words today) to KG’s demeanor, with PP being somewhere in between, but closer to KG. He’s also a much better defender than I thought because he understands team defense. And to think, we got him for practically nothing (and this is not to demean DWest or Jeff Green).

I think the posts that may be trying to demean PP may not understand what has been happening these past years and why PP plays like he does. In yesterday’s overtime I think PP took one shot, if he took any. He was mostly getting the ball in to KG. KG has been criticized in the past for not taking the big shots. He did that yesterday. You need to look at these players in the context of the teams they were playing with. Now they are all together and must adjust their games a bit to accommodate each other and the rest of the team. This doesn’t happen in 2 games. As the season progresses our pre-conceived notions of these players will change, if they haven’t already.

Ray Allen is the Walter Payton of NBA basketball- “sweetness”. That is the nickname I am giving the guy and it is well deserved.

He is much more than the outside shooter that is often featured in highlights the past several years.

True: you are 100% right on. PP may be the one of the three who has to adjust his game the most but he is more than capable of achieving that, and he will.