“That’s a bad shot right there,” Ray Allen said to himself as the ball skipped off the rim.
After all of his teammates had left the gym early this afternoon, the 33-year-old guard was still there, shooting 3-pointers. Allen hasn’t had many long-range bricks of late. Sunday night, he scored 35, leading Boston to an overtime win over Indiana. Paul Pierce has clearly been taking notice.
“It’s beautiful to watch, (to) take a back seat and just watch him,” Pierce said. “He’s been carrying us a lot with his hot shooting. Guys realize that and that’s why we make him an effort to give him the ball. He has a nice groove going. I know when I play like that I want the ball.”
A lot of talk today about the Celtics bench, which has been giving up leads of late. There isn’t much to complain about, so I guess this’ll have to do.
“They’ve been up and down. It’s a young bench. That’s what we have to expect for a while,” coach Doc Rivers said. “At some point you gotta give the starters a rest. Our starters are playing so well, it’s almost difficult to get them out.”
The inevitable James Posey question popped up. He’ll be back Friday night, but in a New Orleans uniform.
“James is gone; you can’t do anything about that,” Rivers said. “I just think as a bench we have to get better.”
Tony Allen held court as his teammates serenaded him with chants of “T.A.! T.A.!”
His right ankle appears to be in better shape. He scored 12 Sunday off the bench.
“I thought he was explosive. So yeah, he actually surprised me,” Rivers sad. “I was going to throw him on the floor and if I didn’t like what I saw, I was taking him right back out.”
The players also addressed a possible milestone. If the Celtics beat Washington Thursday night, they’d be 21-2 — the best start in franchise history.
“We’re looking for the end of the road,” Tony Allen said, “not what’s good for now…”
The right way to look at it, at least publicly. You get the feeling that this team wants to be among the greats…We’ll see if that happens.
Any college hoop fans around, here’s my offering for this week.
