Dontaie Allen (SEC Photo)
Maybe Dontaie Allen did break down a “ton defensively” as Kentucky coach John Calipari said after Tuesday’s 77-74 win over Vanderbilt. But Allen also did one other thing that Kentucky has been missing — he made shots and scored.
In the last two games, he’s played 64 minutes and scored 37 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, blocked two shots and made just one turnover. Against Vanderbilt, he was 4-for-10 from the field (2-for-5 on 3’s) and 4-for-4 at the foul line to get his 14 points. He had five rebounds and one block. The previous game against Mississippi State, Allen was 8-for-14 from the field (7-for-11 from 3) and had 23 points, five rebounds and one block.
“He made baskets and free throws when we needed it, but he may have given up as many as he scored. And I told him, I said, ‘Look, if that’s the case and it’s even-steven, I’m probably good with you,'” Calipari said he told Allen after the game.
“But I’m telling you, he deserves to be on that court and you know what he does to the defense? He spreads out the defense. I ran a play for him, banged a three. Right to the top. Boom. That may have been out of a timeout.”
Yes he does deserve to be on the court even if he took Calipari seven games to realize it or took Allen seven games to do what his coach wanted to see to get on the court. Either way, the bottom line is UK was 1-6 when Allen played 20 minutes in seven games and 2-0 the last two games when Allen has had a chance to play significant minutes.
So what are Allen’s defensive breakdowns and will they be hard to fix? That’s what I asked Calipari after the Vandy win.
“No, no, no,” Calipari said about fixing the mistakes. “And he rebounded the ball. He got a couple rebounds. I’ll give you an example: If your man was getting screened, he didn’t have the ball, we’re chasing that. He went inside and his man made a 3. If your man was getting a dribble handoff—Do you know what that is, Larry? Like, the guy dribbles to you and he goes to hand it off.”
I told the coach I did know, so he went into more detail about the defensive breakdowns.
“We were not going over that. We were going under that. He went over that. If your man was going through the lane to the weak side, you were to stop with both feet in the lane on the other side of the basket to where you left,” Calipari said.
“Not, well he went out there twice, outside the lane, and wasn’t ready to switch to a guy that he needed to switch to because he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. And again, we spent two days on it.”
Obviously Calipari was closely watching Allen’s miscues. However, in fairness the coach added more.
“But he (Allen) wasn’t the only one. Isaiah (Jackson) did it, Davion (Mintz) did it a couple times. But he had some breakdowns,” Calipari said.
Calipari said he told Allen his goal needed to be reducing eight or nine defensive breakdowns to four when the Cats play at Florida Saturday. He also added one other key thought.
“And then keep making shots. Just keep making shots, kid.’ And the team laughed. I mean, look, you got to give up something sometimes and he’s trying, and he’s got a lot of courage,” Calipari said.
“Like I said, our breakdowns (weren’t) just him, but I want everybody out there to know, look, what he’s doing for us, we can’t replace it. So I got to figure out how I get him better on defense or more comfortable.”
That’s as close as Calipari will get to saying he might have been wrong about Allen’s value. Maybe it took the injury to five-star freshman Terrence Clarke to get his chance. What happens when Clarke is back ready to go? Will Allen’s playing time be dramatically cut or will Calipari remember “we can’t replace” what Allen does.
Center Olivier Sarr certainly understands the value of Allen’s play. After having two games without a field goal, Sarr had 14 points in the win at Mississippi State and came back with 24 points against Vanderbilt.
“He’s a knockdown shooter,” Sarr said about Allen. “He showed us last game, and this game again. His offense is self-explanatory. He opens the court for everybody. Whether it is driving lanes or in the post with the bigs, it changes the game.
“It makes winning easier. He wants to do what is best for the team, which is shooting 3s. He still must find a way to get his 3s off.”
After the last two games, I’m not sure how anyone could disagree with Sarr’s analysis.
