Ray Allen’s three-point-shooting ‘curse’
Ray Allen reached the Mt. Everest of NBA Finals three-point shooting in Game 2, breaking the record by hitting eight of them.
Since then, he has fallen off that mountain, landed in some crevice thousands of feet below and frozen into a faint figure of his former self.
Or, in other words, he has missed 18 consecutive shots from beyond the arc, a total that grew by four after Sunday’s 92-86 Celtics win in Game 5, which gives them a 3-2 lead in the series.
“You know, it’s probably somewhat of a curse that I had the Game 2 that I had, because it’s like every time I get behind that line … I’m feeling rushed a lot,” Allen said, crediting the Lakers’ defense. “I’m trying to get off of it, but keeping space like that is big.”
To be fair, though, Allen, who scored 12 points Sunday, had a difficult weekend. He had to rush his son, Walker, to the hospital around 1:30 a.m. Saturday after the boy’s blood sugar dropped too much.
“It’s just tough to deal with my son having diabetes, you know,” Allen said. “You do everything you can, but his body just wasn’t operating correctly. And as a family, we try to figure out what you can do at home. And it got to a point where it was about 12:45, 1 o’clock at night, he wanted to fall asleep, but we couldn’t let him fall asleep because his blood sugar was dipping into the 50s and 40s.”
Allen said he didn’t sleep much that night. He was excused from Saturday’s practice but attended anyway. He said things returned to normal Sunday and that his son, who greeted Allen as he left the court, is fine.
“It meant a great deal to me because he doesn’t like missing games,” Allen said.
And even when ill, Allen’s son still proved he’s a die-hard Celtics fan.
“The nurse asked him the other day in the hospital, because they wanted him to eat before he’d go, she asked him, ‘What color popsicle do you want?’ She said, ‘You can have red, blue or purple.’ I said, ‘You can’t have purple.’ He said, ‘I want green.’ I said, ‘He’s in the spirit and he’s ready for Sunday.’ He’s definitely my spirit.”
“The irony is that when he was diagnosed in 2008, it was Game 5,” Allen added. “So, here we are in Game 5. So, I like Game 5 and I don’t like Game 5.”
Though Allen had a poor offensive game, he was still noted for his defense on Kobe Bryant. That doesn’t sound like much, considering Bryant scored 38 points, but Celtics forward Glen Davis said it could have been worse.
“I feel like if Ray didn’t do it for us defensively, Kobe scores 50,” Davis said. “He made shots for Kobe difficult. Kobe hit some really difficult shots today. Ray did a great job.”
Allen said his mentality is shifting from offense to defense somewhat during his slump.
“My mentality is really, if I get an open one, shoot it, but I’m not going to rest behind it,” he said. “Getting to the hole is important. Even if I don’t shoot, it’s an extra pass because a lot of times I can be bait out there, let them dangle me behind the line and they help and then somebody else gets a shot.”
He said his focus now is making Bryant take tough shots. “Whether I hit another shot, it’s one game to have more points than them, so whatever I have to do, defensively that’s where my focus is,” Allen said.
On the other end, defense seems to be the focus for Derek Fisher, who hounded Allen on Sunday. The two were tagged with double technical fouls with 7 minutes, 7 seconds in the third quarter after, it seemed, referees determined the two were getting too physical.
“I think he’s doing what he has to do to get in my head, try to frustrate me, try to keep his body on me,” Allen said.
“It was unfortunate that we both got techs. I don’t think we did enough to warrant a tech. it wasn’t like we were charging at each other. We were just having a conversation. That was it. The referee thought it was enough to give it a tech. Doc and everybody was like, ‘Keep you’re composure.’ I’m like, ‘Do I look like I lost my composure?’ It’s good. That’s playoff basketball.”
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