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I've been swamped in the library pretty much all year, so I have mostly been checking games through gamecast, and I finally got to see this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6f7-xmBhbc

Last night and even into today, "fans" here were giving Ray crap about how he gave the game to the Lakers at the end. Ray played Kobe very well, he prevented him from driving, didn't bite and get caught in the air for a foul like TA would have, and limited him to a deep, off-balance fadeaway two, an incredibly difficult shot to make. Kobe earned that shot, he wasn't given it by any stretch of the imagination. It's Kobe being Kobe, there's not much more Ray needed to do.

Really getting sick of how Ray's the scapegoat for our troubles. If you want to blame anyone, blame KG, blame Doc, blame Sheed, blame Perk, even blame Pierce before you give all the blame to Ray. Ray had a cold night, but was at least trying and had his head in the game unlike Doc or Sheed. He's the 4th option on the team at this point, behind Pierce, KG, and Rondo. Anything we get from Ray at this point is extra icing on the cake. He's not going to make or break this team with a bad game. Show the guy a little more love, he's still a Celtic.

The problem with Ray is that he's making $20m this year while being worth about half of that.

Captain_Caveman wrote:The problem with Ray is that he's making $20m this year while being worth about half of that.

Would you rather go back to the days of paying Theo Ratliff and Wally Z eight figures then? If you're going to trash on Ray, trash on him for something besides his contract. We're incredibly lucky if Ray is our worst contract.

I agree with the OP. Ray Allen could have done absolutely nothing better. All credit to Kobe. He's a great player and great players make great shots. Lakers earned the win and we really can't complain about it. We still got the last shot.

The D was fine, but going 2-10 and earning 20 million dollars was not.

Ray Allen haters piss me the F*** off... Out off the big three he is the one who had to change his game the MOST.
05-06 SEA 78 78 38.7 0.454 0.412 0.903 0.9 3.3 4.3 3.7 1.4 0.2 2.41 1.94 25.1
06-07 SEA 55 55 40.3 0.438 0.372 0.903 1.0 3.5 4.5 4.1 1.5 0.2 2.80 2.05 26.4
He was a players who was used to having the ball most of the time in Seattle but I bet most of you don't realize how good he was since most of you just started watching him in Boston. He has a different type of game here in Boston then he had on previous teams and now has become 3-5 option on this team.
We have been on a slump as of late and it's not because of one player it's because our whole team chemistry isn't working. In my opinion and I am not blaming this on one player but I think a lot of this has to do with R. Wallace. It pissed me off every **** time he shoots a 3... I swear he F*** shoots more threes than Ray.
If Allen is traded I will be upset about it and you will see that our Celtics team will loose even more chemistry and that it will be a step down for us.

No problem with Allen's D on that play. My issue was the coach not doubling to get the ball out of Kobe's hands. Kobe make tough shots like that ALL THE TIME. Make Artest beat you with a jump shot!

I've given Ray kudos quite a few times for his effort on defense this season. He's taken the challenge to go hard at DWade and now Kobe. That said, his up and down shooting is hurting the team because, he is NOT the 3rd option in this offense, he is usually the 1st option. Rivers altered the offense after 2007/08 to Ray's shooting accumen and now the initial look they try to get is running Ray off of a series of picks to try to get him open. Blaming Ray solely for the team's struggles is blaming the poor work entirely on the tools and not the carpenter.

While I really hate to give our resident prophets of Rondo any ammunition, I have always, to a degree, agreed with the spirit of their message that the offense needs to be tailored more to the slashers on the team like Rondo, TA when he's in the game, and when he's feeling his oats, Pierce.

It was great D from a guy who isn't quite tall enough. Same deal with TA. They can be all over Kobe but in the end he shoots over them.

I don't recall anyone saying it was Ray's fault he hit that shot. Not one person saying he could have played better D. Not sure were that is coming from. I'm sure some people were wondering why they didn't double him. I will say if Ray would have hit some shots we would have won the game. That's why he was getting blame for losing the game going 2-10. He had 5 wide open 3 and missed them all. One great look when they were up 7 in 4th that he missed to put the C's up 10.

Ben-N1ce wrote:I don't recall anyone saying it was Ray's fault he hit that shot. Not one person saying he could have played better D. Not sure were that is coming from. I'm sure some people were wondering why they didn't double him. I will say if Ray would have hit some shots we would have won the game. That's why he was getting blame for losing the game going 2-10. He had 5 wide open 3 and missed them all. One great look when they were up 7 in 4th that he missed to put the C's up 10.

Sometimes shots fall and sometimes they don't. Seems like Pierce missed a few shots in the fourth that could have put the game out of reach -- and he certainly didn't need to push off and turn the ball over in that next to last posession. How come he's not getting blamed? Why isn't Rondo getting blamed for slowing the pace down. And why, oh why, isn't Doc getting blamed for going for a three when you're only one point down. If I need a three, I'm going to Ray. I don't care if he's 0-for-a-million at that point, or how well he's covered. But if you only need two to win, why not try getting something going to the basket?

Point is, there's plenty of blame to go around when a team loses. You win as a team, you lose as a team. Ray's shooting woes were only a part of the problem -- but somehow he gets the majority of the blame. Go figure.

Ray's D was pretty good on that Kobe shot. Kobe's shot is just darn-near unblockable with only one person on him. I don't understand why you don't triple team Kobe on those shots. He's clearly not looking to pass, I think there'd be a decent chance Kobe just heaves it up anyway against six hands in his face.

hoopster wrote:

Ben-N1ce wrote:Point is, there's plenty of blame to go around when a team loses. You win as a team, you lose as a team. Ray's shooting woes were only a part of the problem -- but somehow he gets the majority of the blame. Go figure.

He's been the least productive of the starters the past month for his role which is to knock down open shots and he hasn't been consistent at all for long time. What do you expect? That's why he get the most blame the past month. He's an average defender, rebounder and playmaker so when his shots aren't falling he not contributing very much to the team. Simple as that.

How often has Ray Allen shot 20% this year. Twice? 3 Times maybe? Out of the 40+ games we've played so far?

How often is this going to happen in the playoffs? Once or twice? How often will it actually cost us a game... maybe once?

See what I mean? this is insane. You want to trade a player for a bad shooting performance. Nobody wants to trade Rondo when he plays lacadaisical D (which happens once every couple weeks), Pierce when he isn't as assertive as he should be (which happens once every couple weeks), or Perkins when he commits 4 fouls in a half (which happens every couple weeks).

People don't like Ray Allen because he isn't a high flying, flashy 2 gaurd like all you ESPN zealots are used to seeing. Get over it.

And for those who think they're being smart when they talk about him making 20 mil this year... HE"S IN THE LAST YEAR OF HIS DEAL. NBA contracts are structured so that a large chunk of your deal comes at the end. KG gets paid even more by quite a huge margin and you don't see him pulling down the 9 boards a night we expect.

s1ickd wrote:And for those who think they're being smart when they talk about him making 20 mil this year... HE"S IN THE LAST YEAR OF HIS DEAL. NBA contracts are structured so that a large chunk of your deal comes at the end. KG gets paid even more by quite a huge margin and you don't see him pulling down the 9 boards a night we expect.

I agree with a lot of your post and your main point here (I actually believe KG's our worst contract), but your facts are a bit off. Ray's making $19.8M this year while KG's making $16.4M. IIRC, Ray came in with a backloaded contract when we traded for him, whereas we had to re-sign KG after the trade and kept him around on another backloaded contract. He'll be making around $20M the next two years though.

pac213up wrote:No problem with Allen's D on that play. My issue was the coach not doubling to get the ball out of Kobe's hands. Kobe make tough shots like that ALL THE TIME. Make Artest beat you with a jump shot!

The Lakers were in a 1-4 offensive set, be my guest KB24 would say.