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Lavoy Allen’s Preparation, Aggressiveness Giving Pacers a Big Lift

Since a 1-6 start to their season, the Pacers have gone 4-2. Two big reasons for that turnaround, which has come despite a well-documented and lengthy list of injuries, are stingy defense and offensive rebounding.

That the Pacers are a gritty defensive team – even without many key players – isn’t surprising; they’ve been that type of group under coach Frank Vogel’s guidance for the past few seasons. But Indiana is hitting the offensive glass particularly hard early this season: the Pacers are second in the NBA with 166 offensive rebounds, averaging 12.8 per game. (The Lakers lead the league at 172/13.2, thanks in large part to the efforts of Jordan Hill.)

Though it’s early, Indiana’s offensive rebounding pace is up 26 percent over last season. And the player leading the charge is none other than Lavoy Allen.

The fourth-year pro out of Temple, who came to Indianapolis from Philadelphia last February in the trade that sent Danny Granger to the 76ers, has quietly placed himself among the league leaders in offensive boards with 41 on the season, good for sixth in the NBA.

And he’s done that despite coming off the bench and playing 74 fewer minutes than anyone in the top five (Detroit’s Andre Drummond is fourth in the league with 48 offensive rebounds in 370 minutes played – Allen has played 296 minutes).

Allen also has the most total rebounds (97) of any non-starter in the NBA.  

Allen’s offensive rebound percentage (the percentage of available offensive boards he’s grabbed while on the floor) is 15.4 percent. His highest for an entire season is 11.7 percent in 2013-14. His total rebound percentage is up from a career-high of 15.7 last season to 18.2 so far in ’14-15.

What’s led to the sudden increase?

“Over the summer I think I got in really good shape,” Allen told Pacers.com. “That’s one of the things I wanna do is keep on pounding the glass and go after every rebound while I’m out there. Eventually I’m gonna get a couple.”

Allen’s gotten more than a couple. And his aggressiveness in boxing out and winning the battle for each board led Roy Hibbert to call the spoils of Allen’s efforts “man rebounds.”

When told he had 41 offensive boards, Allen was surprised, but not in the way that you’d think.

“That’s all?” he said, smiling.

Allen is doing more than just cleaning up the offensive glass. His numbers across the board – no pun intended – this season have been better than his career averages.

Allen is shooting 48 percent from the field and averaging 11.7 points per 36 minutes. Defensively, his block percentage (percentage of two-point attempts blocked while on the floor) is 3.5 percent; his high for a complete season is 2.6 percent in 2012-13.

The 25-year-old is no stranger to playing tough defense as part of an effort to win games despite a subpar offense. When he came into the league in 2012, the 76ers finished with the third-best defensive rating in the NBA (99.2) while finishing 20th in offensive rating (103.9) under head coach Doug Collins.

This season’s Pacers currently rank eighth in the league with a 103.8 defensive rating and 26th with a 100.4 offensive rating.

“Before Brett Brown got [to Philadelphia] – and I love Brett Brown, he’s a great coach, once he gets the right pieces he’s gonna be a really good coach – the staff we had before that, Michael Curry was an assistant handling the defense,” Allen said. “My rookie year we were one of the top defensive teams thanks to him.”

And thanks to the rookie Allen, who had to step up in circumstances very similar to the predicament the Pacers are in now with the avalanche of injuries that have hit the team.

“I was the last guy off the bench my rookie year,” Allen said. “Unfortunately, two of our bigs got hurt, so I’m coming off the bench playing 20 minutes a game. The older guys on the team – Elton Brand, Andre Iguodala – always told me, ‘Be ready, be ready.’ So I was always getting in extra conditioning, always going hard in practice.

“That’s the thing: You’ve always got to be ready. You never know what’s gonna happen.”

That mantra has certainly applied to the Pacers this season. With all of the adversity his team has faced, a season removed from championship-or-bust aspirations, Vogel has appeared to be stoic and steady with his group. And his steadfastness seems to have been soaked up by his available players.

What’s he been like when the doors to the gym are closed to the outside world?

“That’s exactly how he is,” Allen said. “He’s always telling us that, besides the [Denver and Phoenix games], we’ve pretty much been in every single game. It seems like every game is coming down to the last possession. You’ve just gotta stick with it and defense has got to be there every night, especially nights that we don’t shoot it well. As long as we continue to play tough D, shots are gonna start to fall.”

There’s no doubt in Allen’s mind that the Pacers will be in the playoffs.

“I’m not sure what seed,” he said. “But I’ll take any seed – 1, 8, it doesn’t matter what seed we get. But, yeah, definitely I see us in the playoffs. We’ve got a talented bunch of guys, from the first guy to the 15th guy. We’re very talented, and when somebody goes down, we have guys to back them up.”

If the Pacers return to the playoffs for a fourth consecutive season, this early test will surely be looked at as a pivotal marker. For Allen’s part, he’s had experience coming through off the bench when injuries take a bite out of a starting unit.

And even beyond the key contributions he’s made in an expanded role so far this season, his mindset will continue to serve him well when Indiana is back at full strength:

“The thing is: you always have to be prepared.”

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