When I went head-to-head with Allen, I always tried to figure out?when he was going to be aggressive.

Let me backtrack for a second. Within Larry Brown’s system, there?was an ebb and flow to Allen’s attack. The first couple of minutes,?the team would get loose, move the ball, try to spread touches.?Then, from around the 10-minute mark until the eight-minute mark,?Allen would attack. I worked hard to decipher those patterns of?attack.

Once I figured that out, I would do everything in my power to throw?Allen off?during those stretches. I would bump him and get physical.?I would deny him the ball. I would make him catch it 30 feet from?the basket. If I could do that—if I could frustrate him—it would?throw off?his rhythm.

Then, during stretches when Allen would otherwise be passive, I?allowed him to catch the ball. After not scoring or getting anything?easy during the previous few minutes, he would then be uber- assertive, and thus more susceptible to falling into traps created by?our team defense. It would frustrate him even more.

The other mechanism I used to cover Allen also involved timing. In?essence, I would pay attention to the amount of time it took him to?go from getting the ball to attacking. If he was catching the ball and?his rate was: read the defense, one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand,?go—then I’d know what his clock was. The next time he’d get the?ball, when I knew he was at two-one-thousand I would preemptively?back up and take away his attack.

When I covered great players, they often tried covering me. That?meant, when we had the ball, I would look for offensive rebounds.?But with Allen, as soon as we put a shot up I would look for him,?like, “Where is he?! Where is he?!” because he never matched up?with me due to my size advantage. I was running over to him,?jamming him up, and impeding him from getting out in transition. If?you could stop Allen from gaining momentum, stop him from?getting easy buckets, covering him became a much more reasonable?task.