It’s a classic Catch-22. On the one hand, Celtics coach Doc Rivers feels he has to reestablish Paul Pierce as the go-to guy as his team builds toward the playoffs. On the other, in order to get Ray Allen going — and for the offense to run smoothly as a whole — the ball has to move.

To a degree, the two agendas are at odds with each other, and the results are frustrating opposites.

One night, the entire game flows through Pierce, as it did against Charlotte March 3. He’s getting isolations. He’s running the point. He’s controlling the offense, and the fact that Allen takes only two shots and scores just 3 points sort of sneaks up you because Pierce scores 27 points, looking as good as he has since he sat a week with the flu and a bad thumb.

Other nights, like Tuesday in Milwaukee, Pierce will take a team-high 13 shots, miss 10 of them and the fact that Allen took just three shots becomes much more glaring, especially considering that since the All-Star break he has been a human torch.

In the middle of it all is Rajon Rondo, the point guard who has to decide who should get the ball and how the offense should flow.

Against Memphis Wednesday, Rondo made a conscious effort to look to Allen’s side of the floor early on. Allen finished with a team-high 17 points on 14 shots. The only shot Pierce took in the first quarter — a baseline jumper off a pass from Allen — didn’t make it into the books because Rudy Gay fouled him on the arm. Otherwise, he was invisible in the first quarter and relatively quiet much of the night, though he scored 14 points on eight shots.

“Paul’s not playing well yet,’’ Rivers said. “We have to live through that and we have to play through that. But I think that’s something we have to do through playing in games. I don’t think you sit him or rest him or anything like that. I just think you play through it.’’