Ray "Jesus Shuttlesworth" Allen

Last night's savior Ray Allen kept the Celtics in the game and even up throughout the first half, despite an almost total absence of Kevin "Heels on the 3-point line" Garnett and Big Baby's unlucky 4 inch height disadvantage. Allen's 8 for 11 three point shooting set an NBA Finals record, and got the Celtics the road win they needed. But were the Celtics really the better team?

The Celtics won by 9, but it was close all second half and the Celtics padded the final score with some free throws. The Lakers started fouling while down 7, so even if Allen had only hit 6 of 11 the Celtics probably would've still won, but not if he hit less. What are the chance the Celtics win then?

Using Allen's career 3 point percentage of 39.6 (which is higher than the 36.8 percent he shot this year) there is actually only a 2.2% chance that Allen makes 8 of them ( and .5% chance of more). Adding in the probabilities of 6 and 7 three pointers, Allen makes at least 6 out of 11 23.8% of the time. So the Celtics only win last night's game about a quarter of the time? Yup. And that's not good news for them going forward.