Start Tony, Ray off the bench

[EJPLAYA]

Absolutely one of the worst possible ideas out there. Like it or not, Ray would take this as a slap in the face. He had a good long stretch out there where he wasn't the Ray of old or the Ray in the Finals. This would do nothing but make him question Doc/Danny's belief in the guy and will not be good for his shooting. We need a confident Ray Allen to potentially repeat.

Topping all that is that TA is at best a question mark. He wasn't even getting any playing time at all most of last year and now you want to start the guy?! Bad move all around. We know the formula to win and it isn't direspecting your HOF guy!

[Celts17Pride]

Tony Allen is lucky to have a roster spot nevermind starting for a championship team. Not enough ways to describe how bad of an idea this is. 

[acieEarl]

Bench Garnett! he sux

start Walker over him

[cordobes]

I'd see no major problem with this (assuming Tony would still be the 6th man and nothing more) if:

1. Ray absolutely agrees and feels he can play 34-36 minutes during a 40 minutes span, instead of during a 48 minutes span.

2. Any of Rondo or Tony Allen were good outside shooters.

So, no.

[Jon]

Even if this was a good idea (and I don't think it is), it simply isn't happening.  There's no way that a player like Allen who has accomplished essentially nothing in the NBA is going to start over a future Hall of Famer. 

[youcanthandlethetruth113]

If Tony needs extended minutes to have a positive impact why not have him start and Ray come off the bench?

It helps Tony with his confidence and will help his production possibly with an eye to flip him for another player when Giddens or Walker emerge.

It helps the bench with a superb scorer in Ray as the focal point.  If we go small with the bench House, Pruitt, and Ray on the perimeter…someone’s got to be hot.  This will also quiet all the "Nervous Nancys" because Posey is no longer around.

It helps extend Ray’s career and prolong his productive years.

All this of course is contingent on Tony being healthy, if he isn’t…forget it.

Be reminded that Manu came off the bench in favor of Finley last year for the Spurs so this isn’t an unprecedented notion.  The better player doesn’t always have to start.  It’s who finishes that counts.

In the infamous words of Tanguay..."why not?"

why not, well lets see.

1. TA is a bad ball handler, ray is very good. generaly you want your starters not to pass to the other team (finley protects the rock)



2. Tony cant shoot a 3 to save his life, ray allen will retire as the number 1 3 point shooter of all time, currently #2

3. TA was the 11th man on the bench in the playoffs 3 months ago. ray allen was arguably the finals MVP.

4. tony has one of the highest turnover ratios in the NBA per mintue. ray protects the ball.

5. if he fails at all, it destroys his confidance.

6. it makes no sense to disrupt a starting lineup that one 67 games and an nba championship a year ago.

7. finley is a much better player than TA, which is why it works in SA.

and on the positive side:

1. ray is an above average team defender, Ta is better. this is the onyl positive. everything else, ray does much better.

I mean, TA isn't even your best 2 off the bench, except defensivly. house is.

thsi move makes zero sense.

Very, very, very well said my friend. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Oh and the fact that I have dubbed Tony Allen as "Turnover Tony" (TT for short)

[ACF]

Bench Garnett! he sux

start Walker over him

Bill?
Or... Hmmm, dare I say it?

Toine?!  

[BillfromBoston]

Another possibility is for Doc to stagger the substitution pattern .......often times he has the BIG 3 sitting at the same time, the beauty of having three super stars is that at any given point of the game he will ALWAYS have at least one super star on the floor.

this is in fact blatantly untrue. doc very rarley  sits all three of them, barring a blow out. its one of the only sub patterns he held to all year long.

Usualy pierce or allen stays out while KG goes to the bench first with one or the other.

doc mentioned throughout the year that he does this to keep one of them out on the floor as the bench's scorer, it was ussualy pierce, since he can open up the shots for house and posey.

it will be intersting to see if doc keeps going with pierce in this role or tries something else now that they only have house to spot up.

I seem to remember seeing an awful lot of the "Green" team out on the floor as a collective unit and not a starter to be found. An awful lot. Too much for my liking.

I too would prefer a normal substitution pattern and then bring in players 10, 11, and 12 during garbage time. But we are dealing with Doc and he is absolutely infatuated with playing an entire substitute team at times.

I think you are probably just remember the last 10 games of the season or so then.  Up until that point, there was rarely a time when one of the Big 3 wasn't on the floor, and ussually at least 2 of them were there.  Seriously, look back at the game logs, it almost never happened.

...exactly...Doc only "went green" when the game was salted away or the competition was inferior to the point where the green team could compete straight up...in any real competitive game situation, Doc always had GPA mixed in...

[BrickJames]

Yeah definitely!  Let's start O'Bryant at PF too so KG can come off the bench.  He's getting old and can come in at the 4 or 5 depending on matchups....

[BrickJames]

Be reminded that Manu came off the bench in favor of Finley last year for the Spurs so this isn’t an unprecedented notion.

Uhm, is Tony even close to as good as Manu?  Do you really think that?

In the infamous words of Tanguay..."why not?"

TA is garbage, that's enough reason in and of itself.  Let alone what other posters have been saying, why diss Jesus like that?  And for TA no less...