Tony Allen

[MVE85]

Took this from Celtics blog. I know I get overly frustrated watching Tony Allen play...

[hiphop1]

Even Doc has admitted that Tony has been an "average" defender for us.

[Rocky5000]

I think it's a false dichotomy. Tony can be both frustrating and a shutdown defender/sixth man.

[FederalePDT]

He does play above average defense, and every once in a while has a pretty good game offensively, but his turnovers and all around bonehead plays that don't show up on the stat sheet destroy any positives he brings.

I would have to say defensively Tony Allen is the BEST guesser in the entire league. Cause thats what makes people think he is good on D, cause he guesses and looses looking stupid in the process consistently, but for every 10 guesses he'll guess right once and it looks spectacular. Highly overrated on defense if you ask me.

I also think people will agree with me that the team as a whole looked much much better when Pruitt/Scal were taking up his minutes. Both play decent D without the guesses, Pruitt allowed House to go to the 2 guard, Scal helped at spreading the floor cause he actually has an outside shot that needs to be contested unlike Tony when he has the ball every one can wait for him to drive to hoop, scream like a girl, and hopefully get a call.

[hiphop1]

He does play above average defense, and every once in a while has a pretty good game offensively, but his turnovers and all around bonehead plays that don't show up on the stat sheet destroy any positives he brings.

I would have to say defensively Tony Allen is the BEST guesser in the entire league. Cause thats what makes people think he is good on D, cause he guesses and looses looking stupid in the process consistently, but for every 10 guesses he'll guess right once and it looks spectacular. Highly overrated on defense if you ask me.

I also think people will agree with me that the team as a whole looked much much better when Pruitt/Scal were taking up his minutes. Both play decent D without the guesses, Pruitt allowed House to go to the 2 guard, Scal helped at spreading the floor cause he actually has an outside shot that needs to be contested unlike Tony when he has the ball every one can wait for him to drive to hoop, scream like a girl, and hopefully get a call.

I have been a big fan of Pruitt taking TA's minutes.

[tombattor]

TA will be good. He just needs to get consistent. That usually goes for young players, but TA's been injured so much that he's only had a few years at most of playing in good health. With consistent PT and some time/patience, I'm pretty sure he'll develop into the kind of player we think he can become.

[MVE85]

Pruitt knows how to space the floor and keep the ball moving on offense, Tony Allen without an outside shot completely disrupts everything when the opposing team can afford to sag off him knowing he wont take the shot.

[tombattor]

Pruitt knows how to space the floor and keep the ball moving on offense, Tony Allen without an outside shot completely disrupts everything when the opposing team can afford to sag off him knowing he wont take the shot.

You're right. But TA can also drive to the hoop and play good defense. Not Pruitt. TA's problem is consistency, which should come with time. TA's really missed a lot of time with injuries and that's hampered him from becoming a consistent player, which only comes with time.

[humblebum]

Eh, people get frustrated with Tony because he's a super aggressive player who makes mistakes "out in the open". But I think that people don't realize how much Tony has been asked to do this season off the bench for the Celtics. He's the top defender and scorer and playmaker on the second unit... that's crazy... the Celtics, due to the shortcomings of House, Powe, Davis, are asked TA to do too much. I like Gabe Pruitt, heck I think a Gabe-Tony backcourt would be great. Eddie should really be used more selectively IMO because he doesn't handle the ball well or defend particularly well most nights. Put a better shooter/ball handler alongside TA at PG (like Marbury) and he'd flourish because he could focus on his strengths.

[sully00]

Way to see the middle ground.

[TommyPoints]

I've never been a fan of his. He has his moments, but usually cancels them out by doing something stupid. When I think of him bonehead comes to mind. He got his championship ring fitted for his pinky...

[Bad-Thoma]

Way to see the middle ground.

+1

[ParticleMan]

I think Tony has been playin gpretty well lately actually.

People get frustrated with TA because he does dumb things. Fine. But at least he's DOING something. He makes things happen. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. If he was always Good Tony, he'd be a freakin all-star. He has that kind of ability. Not a lot of guys can say that. Pruitt, I like the kid, but all he does is bring the ball up, pass, and spot up. Nice, but this doesn't really put any pressure on the defense.
On the other hand, TA can drive at will, be a good playmaker, is a freak athlete, and an elite defender. The trouble is, he only does any of these things in short spurts. Maybe that's inexperience/injuries, or maybe that's just his ADD-esque personality. Either way, I think he's great as a 6th man. He's talented enough to be a game changer, but when he's having a bad night Doc can shorten his minutes.

[MVP16]

You can't label him one of those two. I'm a TA fan, but he is frustrating to watch many times. On the other hand, he can have games where he is playing great defense and providing good scoring.

The problem with TA is his shooting. He has less confidence in it then Rondo. Many times he is wide open and all the defenders are in the paint - instead of taking the shot he drives into the pack of defenders anyway and mostly turns it over or attempts a wild shot which ends up in a miss. That stretch where TA was playing really well he had a midrange jumper that he was somewhat confident it. If he gets it back, then it will reduce his turnovers, open up lanes for him to drive and make the offense as a whole run smoother.

And for the people who advocate playing Pruitt instead of TA, tonight is a perfect example of why it can't happen. You want to have Pruitt guarding Kobe? Or have Pierce/Ray expend all their energy on defense guarding Kobe and have little left for offense? We need TA to guard those elite wings like Posey did for us last year and it will be a good test for him tonight.

[GreenDreamer]

Tony just is not a good fit on this team. Neither is Leon, IMO, though he is better. I don't think that the Celtics have fallen out of love with Gabe, either. I think that Tony is being showcased for a trade right now,and they are showing that his recent injury wasn't that bad.

The bottom line is that bench players NEED to be able to play with the key players without getting in the way. A guy like Rager mason would be much more valuable to us than Tony for the simple reason that you could play him next to Rondo. Rondo>>>Tony, yet Doc usually has to play Eddie out there with Tony so that the floor doesn't get clogged up on the offensive end. That means not playing one of our four best players, and that is unacceptable.

I think that Veal's inclusion into the rotation showed what having another guy to spread the floor around Rajon means to this team. He is able to play more and the team plays better because of it. Perk is important to this team, but Veal's ability to faciliate the offense playing alongside Rondo at the very least made up for Perk's absence.

The Celtics need to start thinking the way the Spurs have for a very long time now. Parker has only recently become a solid jump shooter, and even now opponents will still opt to give him that jumper instead of leaving him ways to get to the basket. This is why the Spurs have a blanket policy on role players which basically says "If you can't spread the floor, you don't play." People might think it was about Tim - and that does matter - but it really is about Tony. That's why a guy like Roger Mason is so valuable to them, and why the #1 thing they look for in a power forward is the ability to hit a three pointer. Tony isn't going to give that to them, and still doesn't.... but he NEEDS to be out there and that means that you look at other positions in a different way.

Rondo will eventually be a solid outside shooter. He is already showing glimpses of that now, and did so last season as well. If playing Tony means that you can't play Rondo, then Tony needs to be shown the door. It is as simple as that. You don't sit superior players in favor of inferior players, and Tony isn't anywhere near being as valuable to us as Rondo. I'm figuring that Danny is trying to pull something off which can bring in at least one more shooter to this team.

P.S. The absence of Posey, a guy we could play at the 4 in a small lineup and knock down threes, is especially missed in this regard.

[ryaningf]

Why can't you play Rondo and TA together? They have great chemistry together (combing on two end-of-the quarter buckets against the 76ers) and can be a terror defensively. If you play up tempo basketball and pressure defense in the backcourt, these two are a potentially dangerous combination. As long as you have at least two other shooters on the floor, you're fine (such as KG and Paul Pierce).

Humblebum has a great read on the TA situation, but I'd also like to add that putting TA with a quality PG would do a lot to help him reach consistency. Sure, TA can dribble penetrate and create on occasion, but by playing him with House, he's asked to do it way more than he should be. House went on an absolute terror when he was moved off-the-ball and Pruitt was able to play point. I imagine a similar thing would happen to TA if House went down for 10 games too.

To me, it's all a question of chemistry and who plays well with whom on that 2nd unit. TA and House don't seem to have any chemistry. On the other hand, Ray/House/Pruitt work really well together, as do Rondo/TA/Paul. If I were Doc, I'd tweak rotations so those combinations were on the court, avoiding, if at all possible, any TA/House backcourt pairings, which to my mind just hide what those two can do best, while exposing what those two do worst. From comments in the paper today, Doc seems to think a TA/House backcourt CAN work, and he specifically called on TA to bring the ball up the court and do more of the playmaking....in my mind, that's just asking TA to fail...we'll see, I guess.

[humblebum]

Ya, that's really my read on the situation too... I can't see Tony being successful when playing a majority of his minutes with House. Never mind the fact that Tony's gambling style on defense tends to hurt the team more when Davis/Powe are backing him up rather than KG-Perk. I've always maintained that Tony needs to play more time with the starters in order to take some pressure off him, and allow himself to get into the flow of the game. When that happens Tony is a really, really good two-way player. When Tony's out of sync, well... I think we all know where that leads.

I guess you can play Rondo and Tony together but good defensive teams will really clog the lane when those two guys are on the court together. So that's the core issue with Tony, he doesn't quite fit well with Rondo or House, and that underscores why Tony hasn't been able to establish any consistency this season. Hence the desire to bring in Marbury who can both handle and shoot... I even think that you could play Marbury, House, and TA together and that would be a very potent trio off the bench.

[Rocky5000]

Why can't you play Rondo and TA together? They have great chemistry together (combing on two end-of-the quarter buckets against the 76ers) and can be a terror defensively. If you play up tempo basketball and pressure defense in the backcourt, these two are a potentially dangerous combination. As long as you have at least two other shooters on the floor, you're fine (such as KG and Paul Pierce).

Humblebum has a great read on the TA situation, but I'd also like to add that putting TA with a quality PG would do a lot to help him reach consistency. Sure, TA can dribble penetrate and create on occasion, but by playing him with House, he's asked to do it way more than he should be. House went on an absolute terror when he was moved off-the-ball and Pruitt was able to play point. I imagine a similar thing would happen to TA if House went down for 10 games too.

To me, it's all a question of chemistry and who plays well with whom on that 2nd unit. TA and House don't seem to have any chemistry. On the other hand, Ray/House/Pruitt work really well together, as do Rondo/TA/Paul. If I were Doc, I'd tweak rotations so those combinations were on the court, avoiding, if at all possible, any TA/House backcourt pairings, which to my mind just hide what those two can do best, while exposing what those two do worst. From comments in the paper today, Doc seems to think a TA/House backcourt CAN work, and he specifically called on TA to bring the ball up the court and do more of the playmaking....in my mind, that's just asking TA to fail...we'll see, I guess.

Awesome points. I have seen TA and House play well together before though. The difference was that it was Tony doing the ball handling and House playing shooting guard. I actually believe that Tony makes a better point guard than Eddie, because he has the ability to cause the defense to collapse on him, which gives Eddie, Leon, and Big Baby open looks. When Eddie's in the game most of the trips he hands the ball off to another player in an Isolation situation, and then starts to play like a shooting guard. The problem with that is that it takes a lot of time off from the clock and if the first option doesn't work, House comes back to the ball, retrieves it and tries to set someone up again, taking even more time off. The frustrating part is that although Tony is a better playmaker than House, but he looses control of his dribble way too often. If he can control the ball, he would be a better fit at point guard.

Also people's eyes deceive them with respect to the Pruitt/House pairing.
Check out the player pair ratings from 82 games
http://www.82games.com/0809/0809BOSP.HTM
House/Pruitt is a -14 on the season. House/TA is a +95.(+9 per 48) The third best player pair for Eddie.
House and Ray Allen is where the best fit is with another guard, +120 (+15.1 per 48)
Also Perkins must set Eddie some nice screens, as he and House are +18.

Not surprisingly Leon plays much better with Tony than he does with either Eddie or Pruitt, which I think may have been why Leon was having such a rough stretch with Tony out.

[GuyClinch]

TA is greatly underrated - and C's blog is full of TA haters who IMHO hate him more for his off-court incident then his actual play.

Why do I think he is underrated? By the STATS TA is not just okay - he is one of the better players on the entire team. His PER at SG is 16.0 which is respectable but his PER against at SG is 12.9. That's FANTASTIC. TA is a good defender. And it's not all "gambles' either or his man would be making out like a bandit.

The beautfy of TA is that he isn't playing at his full potential yet. Forget about getting his "head" together.His head is FINE. He is ultra-aggresssive - sure. But it often pays off. It's his shooting. It's down this year. While always a medicore shooter - as he has some form problems. He could shoot better then .270 efg (Jump).

I think his constant injury problems are the biggest knock on the guy. When healthy he is a good NBA player but his health is always in a state of flux.. I think the C's would like more stability our our offense could beneift from a better shooter. But TA is a huge talent for his bargain rate.

As another poster pointed out he is star like in spurts.. Personallly i have grown to love his fearless personality and focus on that rather then the screw ups. It's like watchng a slugger in baseball. TA swings for the fences..(when healthy). The times he gets bad is when he is nervous about his injury and tries to "think" out there..

Pete

[pballa]

how come as BBD has gotten better TA has been on the decline? like they both cant play well in the same game its either one or the other

or is it just me?