Ray Allen MVP?

June 2008

Ray Allen MVP?

Now, 106 games into this Celtics season, Allen is coming off an outing in which he went the Full Monty, an Iversonian Game 4 effort in which he played the entire 48 minutes. In the Finals, Allen is averaging 43.5 minutes a game, more than any player on either team, including the otherworldly Kobe Bryant (42.8). He looks faster and quicker than most anyone else on the court, and his legs look none the worse for wear.

Old dog, new tricks.



``There was a point out there in the game where I knew I wasn't coming out, and I just said I have to suck it up,'' Allen said of his Game 4 performance. ``I have plenty of time to rest the next couple of months, so suck it up.''

Funny, isn't it? Relatively early in the Detroit series, when Allen was struggling badly, Rivers made the decision to keep Allen on the bench during some pivotal moments of the series. Now, the coach can't bring it upon himself to take the old man off the floor. In his last six games, Allen is 40-of-75 from the field (53.3 percent) and 20-of-39 from 3-point distance (51.3) while averaging a team-leading 21 points per game. He has even grabbed 5.6 rebounds a contest, including nine in Game 4 against the Lakers.

Maybe, in retrospect, what we have here is not an old Ray Allen but, rather, the Ray Allen of old.

``Well, I think as a team, I said earlier that we grew. We've grown all year from the regular season,'' Allen said. ``As for myself, you know, I think all year it's just been one of those seasons for me where I was just playing off of Paul and Kevin and just making sure that I filled the gaps. We were going for those guys on the post and I had to find my offense. (In the playoffs), Atlanta wasn't as tough, but when we hit Cleveland, Cleveland did everything they could to take me out of the offense.

``As tough as it was, as frustrating as it was, I had to figure out ways to make plays for the team. That was a learning point for all of us, making sure that we made plays for the team and just did the simple things over and over again. Again, we got through that and we fought Detroit, a tough Detroit team. So there's been a great progression of growth throughout the regular season to each round of the playoffs for us.''

For the Celtics now, there is just one step remaining.

And the farther they travel, the younger Ray Allen looks.