Allen makes a strong impression

Doug Collins often talks about players making the most of their opportunities. He says that a player is a sprained ankle away from getting minutes.

In Lavoy Allen's case, it was a strained Achilles and strained knee/quad away.

Those were the injuries that kept Spencer Hawes and Nikola Vucevic sidelined. So Allen played a career high 17:26, scored 10 points and hit all five field goal attempts in Monday's 103-83 win over the Washington Wizards.

"How about Lavoy Allen," coach Doug Collins said after the game. What a coming out party for Lavoy tonight."

Collins then made an interesting observation about Allen.

"It's one of the first times I've seen him really smile and really see his personality."

Even though he's a rookie, the Temple product wants to get on the court like any other player.

"It's felt great," he said. "Any kind of minutes I get I am grateful for, and with Spencer and Nik out I knew I was going to play some good minutes."

They truly were good minutes.

Collins talked afterwards about the rap on Allen entering the NBA, how he has all the talent, but that everybody said his motor was often stalled.

There was no stalling in his longest appearance as a professional. He had two five-minute cameos and then played nine minutes when Vucevic was hurt during Saturday's loss at Miami.

Whether his performance earned him minutes when the Sixers are healthy remains to be seen.

Right now, the team is not healthy at center so Allen has a chance to make quite an impresson.

"This really boosted my confidence," he said.

And maybe his future minutes total as well.