Will Tony Allen finally see minutes against the Pistons? He should

[crownsy]

but those minutes are inherntly PG minutes, i guess we could run a 2 SG lineup, with ray at the point, but it seems like so much contrived offense for a marginal player on offense.

I do agree we need to drive more, and im hoping that pauls agressivness in games 5 6 and 7 carries over. he did a good job driving on lebron in those games, who is a bad matchup for him to drive on, since lebron can do what few SF's, and certainly prince cannot do, and thats muscle the captain around.

Pierce needs to stay aggresive and stay on the floor. When paul is driving, as he did during the regular season, it prevents teams from spying on ray with a second defender, since that defender has to collapse on pierce. thsi leaves paul with lay downs to KG or other bigs near the basket, or the often used during the season-kick to rondo to ray 3 point attempt.

We do need to stay aggressive, im just not sold tony is part of that. I think it all starts and ends with paul and rondo. Rondo and paul have great matchups in the driving department, rondo through quickness, pierce through strength.

both need to exploit them for the drive and kick, we cannot do what we did in atlanta and road games in clevland, and have paul stand around taking catch and shoot midrange jumpers 100% of the time, it stagnates our offense and allows teams to double off kg and ray.

[BudweiserCeltic]

but those minutes are inherntly PG minutes, i guess we could run a 2 SG lineup, with ray at the point, but it seems like so much contrived offense for a marginal player on offense.

I do agree we need to drive more, and im hoping that pauls agressivness in games 5 6 and 7 carries over. he did a good job driving on lebron in those games, who is a bad matchup for him to drive on, since lebron can do what few SF's, and certainly prince cannot do, and thats muscle the captain around.

Pierce needs to stay aggresive and stay on the floor. When paul is driving, as he did during the regular season, it prevents teams from spying on ray with a second defender, since that defender has to collapse on pierce. thsi leaves paul with lay downs to KG or other bigs near the basket, or the often used during the season-kick to rondo to ray 3 point attempt.

We do need to stay aggressive, im just not sold tony is part of that. I think it all starts and ends with paul and rondo. Rondo and paul have great matchups in the driving department, rondo through quickness, pierce through strength.

both need to exploit them for the drive and kick, we cannot do what we did in atlanta and road games in clevland, and have paul stand around taking catch and shoot midrange jumpers 100% of the time, it stagnates our offense and allows teams to double off kg and ray.

The thing is that I haven't liked how Rondo has played this playoffs, as I said before, I put a lot of the blame of our bad offense on him.  And if he's not making good decisions with the ball out there, he's not much use at all, hence you bring Tony Allen in and have Ray or Pierce run the offense, ala Pierce in game 7 against Cleveland.

That's all I'm saying, if Rondo continues to play the way he has this playoffs (some good games, but really a big amount of bad ones), Cassell continues his funk, and if House gets exposed by Billups, I don't see a lot of downside in trying Tony Allen in there with Ray or Pierce running the offense... especially when he brings a penetrating force that no one has done (if someone steps up, then better, but if not we should at the least try Tony out) and he could be quite capable of "containing" Billups or Rip.

[liam]

If it's a tight game and you need to bring someone in to dribble a ball off his foot, that's when you bring in Tony Allen. It's situational.

[crownsy]

i think rondo has been fine, he was good in atlanta, and pretty good in clevland. his defense has been good outside of on the road, but thats a team issue, rondo dosen't make KG decide he wants no part of the low post on the road, or paul decide that catch and shoot midrange jumpers off on pass are a good shot, thats a team effort of suckatude.

he hasen't been chris paul certainly, but for the most part he's played great defense, swung the ball, and not turned the ball over.

In fact my one complaint with him is he isn't being agressive enough in going to the rack. ever since josh smith he's been hesitant. hopefully detroit having no outstanding shot blocker will open him up a bit, Z was a big problem for him in the paint, darn 7'3 cromagnan.

[BudweiserCeltic]

Guess we'll have to disagree on Rondo's performance, especially when he has done a poor job for the most part moving the ball, and that should've been his main strength in our offense.  He's turned in to a Cassell on offense, the problem with that is that he rarely takes a good shot.

By my estimation, he only played 6 good games in the playoffs, 3 against Atlanta and 3 against Cleveland.  That's not good enough, especially when you're responsible with running our offense. It would be one thing if he was simply missing shots and that's all, but he's ruining our offensive flow completely during too many instances for my liking.  Then you consider how he hasn't been knocking down jumpers as he did during the season, letting his defender roam the floor helping out to double team our key players.

One of the main reasons Doc started using Pierce as the main ball handler since game 6 was due to the poor ball movement of our team, and a great portion of the blame lies with our PGs, namely Rondo.

He has underperformed quite a bit in the playoffs.

[Atzar]

In fact my one complaint with him is he isn't being agressive enough in going to the rack. ever since josh smith he's been hesitant. hopefully detroit having no outstanding shot blocker will open him up a bit, Z was a big problem for him in the paint, darn 7'3 cromagnan.

Couldn't agree more.  TP.  All year he had no fear going to the hoop, and he even showed flashes of becoming one of the better finishers in the game.  Here lately, however, he's developed a habit of just running underneath the hoop and then resetting the offense with 10 seconds left on the shot clock.  I'd like to see him go back to his regular season game this series.  

In Cleveland, they left him alone on the weak side of the court.  There were several occasions where nobody would be between him and the basket, but he would still settle for a jumpshot.  I don't mind him taking 14 shots if most of them are layups.  I do mind if most of them are jumpers - that's not his game right now, and it will take significant work on his part for it to even leave the "weakness" column on his scouting report.

[crownsy]

right back at you, thats fustrated me too, i understand he needs to take and hit that jumper, but when you have 12 open feet of floor ahead of you, and your as quick as rajon is, force the issue to the rim sometimes.

[BudweiserCeltic]

right back at you, thats fustrated me too, i understand he needs to take and hit that jumper, but when you have 12 open feet of floor ahead of you, and your as quick as rajon is, force the issue to the rim sometimes.

Yep, and with that he has to start finishing plays better.  Not only that, when 2 or 3 defensive players collapse on him, he needs to do a better job of regrouping or finding the open man. He has done a poor job at that this playoff, and he ends up shooting an awful ill advised shot with 3 players on him for no reason.

[youcanthandlethetruth113]

My thoughts on Tony Allen...

I have a nickname for him and it's "turnover tony".

Why? Because he's a walking turnover.

I think I have better handles than him and an overall higher ball IQ.

This is a guy who continues to dunk after the whistle is blown.

He also makes a painful gesture with his face after he gets burned on the defensive end.

He's an extremely overrated defender.

He's not that quick, and like I said before not that smart.

I'd rather play Eddie (new nickname = Crazy Eddie or Engery Eddie) any day of the week.

However, I support Tony's continuous improvement as he is wearing the green uniform.

[Chris]

right back at you, thats fustrated me too, i understand he needs to take and hit that jumper, but when you have 12 open feet of floor ahead of you, and your as quick as rajon is, force the issue to the rim sometimes.

He has forced the issue to the rim, and the shot has been bothered or blocked almost every time.

Rondo needs to shoot the jumper.  There is no way around it.  Interior defense is too good in the playoffs, and when guys can play 10 feet off of you, and block the passing lanes and sit on  the drive, then there just is nothing you can do.  Unless he shoots the ball, then the entire C's offense is going to continue to be clogged up.

[CelticBalla32]

I completely agree, he should see minutes in short stints. I wrote something about this yesterday too.

http://www.celticsnews.com/blog/Boston-Celtics/is-it-tony-allens-turn/

[2short]

Put Rondo on Hamilton and put Ray on Billups.

agreed
I can see Tony getting some minutes defending either guy BUT PLEASE doc don't have Tony and Eddie in at the same time.  Doc does need to cut ray's minutes, spread them out to whomever eddie, pp at sg, tony etc

[wdleehi]

We saw the limit of Tony's minutes during meaningful game time (non-garbage)


Coming in at he end of the 1st quarter (30 second left) to play defense and give Ray (or Pierce) a little extra rest early.

[BudweiserCeltic]

Tony not needed today... but House a bit of a concern with Lindsey Hunter's pressure.  We need a better system to get our offense going with House in, else we'll need to try out Cassell or Tony Allen with someone else bringing the ball down.

Positives... Rondo played extremely well, and it all started with ball movement.  He could've scored zero points tonight, and I would've thought he played a good game.  Let's hope he keeps it going because consistency has been his worst enemy this playoffs.

[nickagneta]

wd stole my thunder!

But I guess we have our answer. Tony will be given a half minute of completely meaningless playing time a game.

Maybe one of the smarter things Doc has done this offseason is letting Tony Allen collect splinters in his backside.

I like the rotation the way Doc has it now. With Brown the first big, Posey, Eddie, and some Powe thrown in too.

They looked excellent and comfortable in that rotation two games in a row. Let's not throw a monkey wrench into the rotation by trying to force Tony Allen into a situation he doesn't belong in.