Is Ray Allen's long personal nightmare now officially over? Is the All-Star/Olympian/Professional Jump Shooter back? Did this 9-for-15, 5-for-6 on threes, 29-point performance mean Ray Allen will be back to being Ray Allen for the remainder of the playoffs, however long they last?
"I just know he had one in him," said coach Doc Rivers. "He's a great player. He hasn't stopped being [one]. He just hadn't played well in a while."
Allen made a big early contribution with a transition 3-pointer that broke a 5-5 tie. To him the circumstance told the story.
"My first two threes in the first half were because we got the rebound and pushed it up," he explained. "When we run, I score."
That's the idea, but even getting Allen out into the open floor hasn't guaranteed success during the playoffs. He just hasn't been himself. People are still talking about a transition airball he threw a few games back. C'mon, when has anyone ever seen Allen shoot an airball?
Now it is true he doesn't get all the shots he used to get. Coming to Boston and joining forces with Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett meant he was no longer the automatic No. 1 option he'd been for his entire professional career in Milwaukee and Seattle. He had to make a significant mental adjustment.
"Clearly, throughout the season I learned that being on this team meant I didn't always have to score," he said. "I had to learn to be more efficient in my scoring."
He made that adjustment to everyone's satisfaction. Take, for example, the month of February. In that month he scored 20 points a game. He shot 49 percent from the field, 40 percent on threes. That's Ray Allen.
He was Ray Allen often enough so that both Garnett and Pierce, when asked in a joint interview which of the (so-called) Big Three should take the last shot in a close game, said, "Ray Allen."
But that Ray Allen has been on hiatus for much of the playoffs. In his place has been a guy clanking up threes and just looking, well, hesitant. Whoever that No. 20 was, when the game started, the guy was most definitely not the real Ray Allen.
