SEATTLE – Generally speaking, as Ray Allen goes, so go the Seattle SuperSonics.
When the four-time All-Star is in a shooting groove, the Sonics are usually on a winning roll, as they were early this season. And when Allen’s perimeter touch falters, as it has in recent weeks, Seattle often tapers as well.
Allen has gone 11 consecutive games, beginning with a Dec. 31 contest in Charlotte, without shooting .500 or better from the field. In that stretch, capped by Friday night’s 112-107 loss to Minnesota in which Allen was 7-for-23, he is a combined 84-for-221 for a very un-Allen-like .380 percentage.
The drought has dropped Allen’s season percentage, which was .440 after a Dec. 30 in Atlanta, to a season-low .422. And if that figure stays unchanged, it would be the lowest mark of his nine-year NBA career.
Likewise, he has been less than sharp of late from the 3-point stripe. In that same 11-game span Allen is 29-for-88 from beyond the arc, a .330 percentage. For the season he is 96-for-262, .366. By comparison, Allen had a higher percentage in six of his eight previous seasons, including three seasons when he shot better than .400.
As a team, meanwhile, the Sonics have gone 6-5 over the last 11 games. Seattle has lost two in a row heading into tonight’s 6 p.m. game against Utah at KeyArena.
These numbers raise two questions – why is it happening and what does it mean?
First, the cause. Some of it no doubt has to do with fatigue. This is often the point of the schedule when players are vulnerable to weary and sometimes sore limbs. Also, every shooter experiences ebbs and flows during a six-month, 82-game regular season. Allen actually went 13 games without cracking .500 from the field earlier this season, but followed that by doing it four times in his next six games.
Also, opposing teams know that Allen is not only Seattle’s top perimeter shooter, but one of the best in the game. Those foes are designing defensive strategies specifically to stop or at least slow Allen.
“For most teams, their primary concern is to keep me from shooting the ball and to make me take tough shots, and there are teams that succeed in doing that,” he said. “Defensively, those teams are trying to take Ray Allen out of the game and to not let him score.”
“Defenses have changed on him,” acknowledged coach Nate McMillan. “They’re putting a good defender on him, and that guy is basically pressuring and getting into Ray.”
So, what does it mean? Obviously, the Sonics need Allen to score. They also need teammates like Rashard Lewis, Vlade Radmanovic, Luke Ridnour and Antonio Daniels, the team’s other primary outside threats, to score effectively, thus easing some of the defensive pressure on Allen.
One remedy, McMillan believes, is better ball movement. The Sonics, he said, “are not being as patient as we need to be. Some of the shots we’re taking are quick shots because sometimes you think the first look is the best look. But by making the defense work a little bit you can get the same shot, if not a better shot, if you’re just a little bit more patient. Right now we’re still pulling the trigger quick.
“Moving the ball and using each other to set screens to get someone open is what we’ve got to do. Not just for Ray, although Ray probably more so than the rest of the guys.”
Allen agrees. Early in the season, he said, “it was different. We jumped out of the gate so fast and we got easy shots because we played so fast. But I think teams have figured out a little bit more of what we’re doing and they’re trying to take us out of it.”
The Sonics, he said, have to adjust accordingly. In many of Seattle’s losses this season “we’ve all been guilty of going away (from team play) and being a little more individual. Not selfish, just more individual. But our best offense is when we pass the ball.”
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