BOSTON - Ray Allen returned to action for the Boston Celtics in Wednesday night's 87-86 loss to the San Antonio Spurs and had five points on 2-of-6 shooting in 34 minutes.
"Rusty. Not bad," said Celtics head coach Doc Rivers about Allen's performance. "He didn't get a lot of shots, which is fine by me. Especially at the beginning of the game he didn't get any shots and our offense was rolling. So you don't worry about that. But overall pretty well. Played a lot of minutes; he looked good moving around. So, yeah, I was happy."
Allen was held scoreless through the first half and made his first basket -- a 14-foot jumper -- at 11:45 of the third quarter, but would not score again until late in the fourth quarter. Of course, with Allen being Allen, his final basket was a critical corner three that brought Boston within one point, 87-86, with 39.8 ticks remaining.
"He did well, its tough when you take five, six games off," Paul Pierce said about Allen. "You know, sometimes the timing's off, sometimes a little bit of the conditioning, but he's going to work his way back slowly, he's a veteran and he knows what it takes. He had a huge shot for us down the stretch and we got to have him back for the stretch run, it's tough run coming up here these home and road games and we need a little bit of everybody."'
Allen, averaging 14.4 points this season, hadn't played since Thursday, March 22 against the Milwaukee Bucks, when he suffered a right ankle injury and missed six games.
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