Milwaukee Bucks: Ray Allen’s greatest moments as a Buck

Ray’s career-high night over the Hornets

For our final great Allen moment, let’s just try to set the scene here a bit. The Bucks’ efforts to follow up their transcendent 2000-01 season had gone awry during the second half of the 2001-02 campaign.

A dreadful month of March caused the Bucks to tumble down in the Eastern Conference standings and only turned up the pressure for them to curtail their mediocre play enough to lock down a playoff berth during a loaded 10-game stretch in the final two weeks of the season.

However, the Bucks’ slide continued into April and suddenly, the mere thought of the Bucks missing the postseason after going to the East Finals the year prior was becoming a very real and disheartening reality. After losing their last five games, the Bucks entered the Bradley Center on Sunday, April 14, 2002 needing a pivotal win over the Charlotte Hornets to keep their dwindling playoff hopes alive.

Under the national spotlight, Allen crafted a downright incredible scoring performance to lead the Bucks to a 98-91 victory over the Hornets to stop the bleeding, so to speak, for just one game.

Standing as one of the more dazzling and efficient outings the franchise has sported in their 51 years, Allen put on an absolute show, draining shots from all levels of the floor to power the Bucks through an afternoon duel with a then-central division foe.

As the game wore on, Allen’s incredible scoring display grew into one unfathomably large heat check as he continued to hit tough shot after tough shot over tightly contested defenders for stretches.

Playing exactly 44 minutes, Allen posted 47 points on 15-of-23 shooting from the field (10-of-14 from three, 7-for-7 from the charity stripe), four rebounds as well as four assists, three steals as well as three turnovers and was a +10 for the afternoon.

Unfortunately, it did little to turn around the Bucks’ late season meltdown as they would miss the playoffs for the 01-02 season and soon, the dismantling of the “Big 3” era would begin that summer and climax with Allen’s stunning trade some ten months later.

For more on Bucks’ history throughout the month of September and beyond, check out our history archives here.