Memphis’ Allen can fluster the best
If you’re looking for Tony Allen during Saturday’s Game 3 of the Warriors- Memphis series, he’ll be the one hounding Klay Thompson. Recalling the images of Game 2, perhaps “haunting” would be a better description.
It’s not often we see Thompson looking confused, somewhere between hesitant and rushed, unable to put his personal stamp on a game. He never quite seemed in rhythm, scored just 13 points, committed five turnovers and flubbed an uncontested dunk. It hardly resembled the teams’ regular season- game at Oracle last month, when an absurdly hot Thompson had a 37- point half — and Allen was sitting out with injury.
It’s no disgrace for a top- flight shooter to become flustered by Allen, the toughest on- ball defender of all NBA guards. He famously stifled Kevin Durant during extensive stretches of last year’s Memphis- Oklahoma City playoff series, Durant admitting he was “worried” about Allen’s presence and that he was “thinking too much.”
People have been worried about Allen for most of his life, for matters reaching well beyond the court. A street- fighting kid from Chicago, he was kicked out of two junior colleges before landing at Wabash Valley College ( Illinois) and eventually Oklahoma State. In his early NBA years with Boston, he reportedly had close ties with some shady characters from his hometown. At a Celtics-Bulls playoff game in 2009, Chicago police posted extra security around the benches after learning Allen had received the latest of several death threats.
“I found out fast,” Allen told reporters at the time, “that the path I was on wasn’t going to keep me in the league very long.”
Allen has straightened out his life, much in the manner of his once- troubled teammate, Zach Randolph, but he’s as tough as they come. If you recall John Brisker, Calvin Murphy or Alvin Robertson — NBA players not to be messed with — Allen is in that league.
“Zach and Tony, they’re a reflection of our city,” point guard Mike Conley told espn. com. “Everybody in this town has had to work for everything they’ve got in life. Just grind it out. It gives people hope of what can happen if you work hard.”