12 hours with the Cavaliers' Jarrett Allen: From country dances to a 20-year-old mattress

CLEVELAND — Jarrett Allen’s morning included the admission that he learned some country dances at teammate Dean Wade’s offseason wedding.

Allen’s evening included the confession that he sleeps on a 20-year-old mattress.

He's only 24 and stands 6-foot-11, so that may be somewhat of an exaggeration. But those are the kind of laughter-inducing nuggets born of unvarnished honesty that 12 hours with the Cavaliers’ All-Star center produced on Wednesday.

In between was some ferocious basketball from Allen in the second half of the Cavs’ 103-92 victory over the Orlando Magic at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Not surprisingly when Allen is involved, his third-quarter aggression was in part sparked when he was called for a three-second violation.

But Allen is the type of player who will answer almost any question, except for his favorite sub-Reddits to browse.

“I like to keep that separate from….,” he laughed, unwilling to go deeper on the American social news aggregation, content rating and discussion website.

That query was sparked from the ":60 seconds with Ahmaad” timeout bit on the Humongotron where Ahmaad Crump, the Cavs’ in-arena host, fired personal questions at Allen.

To his favorite place to vacation in the offseason, Allen responded, “My 20-year-old mattress.”

That required further exploration.

“Oh, yeah, that thing’s been in my house for a while,” Allen said, laughing. “Hey, it’s my smell, it’s been in my room, I’ve got no shame in that. That’s the most comfortable thing I sleep on.”

As he departed, he pointed out that he does regularly wash the sheets. Allen clarified Saturday that he was referring to his twin-size bed at his parents' house.

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The Wade wedding story came out of a line of questioning at shootaround about why the “jack of all trades” forward, who made his first start of the season against the Magic, gets along so well with his teammates.

“He's a laid-back guy that just, anything goes. He'll just hang out with anybody, talk about any subject, just, he's a happy go lucky guy,” Allen said of Wade, who got married in Manhattan, Kansas, on Aug. 20.

Asked if he’d talked to Wade’s beloved “Grandma T,” who lives in Hutchinson, Kansas, Allen said no, but offered, “Did go to his wedding this summer. I learned some country dances.

“I learned the kick-cross-kick, I was enjoying it.”

Even when Allen is talking about basketball, gold can be mined at any moment.

Asked about 6-foot-3 All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell getting a rebound against the Magic with one hand, Allen said, “The thing with Donovan, it doesn’t look like he jumps highest to me. But then you see like this freakish alien arm come out and just snatch the rebound.”

As for what he was doing after his massive slam over 7-foot-2 Magic center Bol Bol in the third quarter, Allen said, “I probably barked. I don’t know what happened. We were talking about it on the bench about just being aggressive and dunking everything. I pointed back to them, who I was talking with.”

At shootaround, when Allen’s perimeter defense was brought up, he thought back to Sunday’s 117-107 overtime victory over the Washington Wizards and a play made by Kyle Kuzma.

“I don't know if I take pride in that. I find it as a fun challenge,” Allen said. “Against Kuzma the other night, he made the shot, I tap him on the back and say, ‘Good job.’”

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Allen’s monstrous third quarter, when he scored six points with five rebounds and an assist in 7½ minutes, was due in part to the chewing out coach J.B. Bickerstaff gave the Cavs at halftime.

But it was also precipitated by Allen being whistled for a three-second violation just 27 seconds into the quarter. He clapped and celebrated the call.

“What got me going was the three-second defensive call and I started cheering," Allen said. "That’s a thing that I do for the team, I guess that got me going. Obviously J.B.’s speech, too. Just a mixture of that.”

If that makes no sense, Allen was willing to explain.

“J.B. was like, ‘Oh, they never call three seconds.’ It’s true. People stand in there for 10 seconds,” Allen said. “He’s always telling me, ‘Just stay in the paint. Just stay in the paint.’ So whenever somebody gets three seconds I just go crazy. It just happened to be me, so I started cheering for the bench.”

There are moments of reflection from Allen, who on Wednesday became the only active player in the league age 25 or under to reach 3,000 career rebounds. With 18 points [and 16 rebounds] against the Magic, he’s one point shy of 4,000 just four games into his sixth NBA season.

“I guess I do look back on it. ‘Wow, that’s a pretty good stat’ and then I just go out the next game and play my game,” Allen said. “I guess I am just locked into the moment and trying to do the best that I can.

“After the game if I see something cool like that, that’s nice. It’s showing how hard I’m working on the floor is coming to fruition.”

His humility is another part of the multi-faceted Allen to appreciate. But so are his bolts from the blue, like the “kick-cross-kick” and a 20-year-old mattress.

Cavs coach J.B. Bickerstaff delivers fiery halftime speech

Bickerstaff wouldn’t elaborate much on what he said at the half, when the Cavs (3-1) led the Magic (0-5) 54-50.

“I’ll let them tell you. I can’t repeat it, my mom will wash my mouth out with soap,” Bickerstaff said.

As for what he didn’t like, Bickerstaff said, “Everything. I don't think we played Cleveland Cavaliers basketball in the first half. Defensively, I didn't like the way we were competing, things were too easy. I thought we were trying to do too much offensively instead of taking the play that was in front of us. I just didn't like our attention to detail. So all of it.”

Allen said the harsh words were deserved.

“All I’ll say is you see how animated J.B. is during the game, just multiply that by three,” Allen said. “We weren’t playing our expectation of basketball to our level, going out there and just playing with that fight and energy.”

Second-year center-forward Evan Mobley said Bickerstaff “kinda lit us up at halftime.”

“He was really just trying to get us to play our brand of basketball, Cavaliers basketball. He felt like we weren't really doing that and he's definitely right,” Mobley said.

Bickerstaff felt he got his desired result.

“I think they responded well. They took it and they understood it,” he said. “There was a fire lit, and I appreciate those guys responding.”

Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.

Cavaliers at Celtics

Time: 7:30 p.m. Friday

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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Cavs center Jarrett Allen delights with unvarnished honesty