BenMVP.com: Magic Arm Sleeve for MVP!

The Celtics' "Big 3" celebrate with the Larry O'Brien NBA Championship trophy after the Game 6 shellacking of the Lakers at the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston. I think Ray Allen got champagne in his eye.

So the Boston Celtics concluded the 2008 playoffs with a 131-92 spanking of the Los Angeles Lakers in Tuesday night's Game 6 of the Finals. This was the Celtics' 17th NBA championship and their first in 22 years. The game was pretty much over in the second quarter when the Celtics outscored the Lakers 34-15, making 11 baskets on 11 assists. At that point, the Lakers had given up (including Kobe Bryant) on the way to a 39-point embarrassing loss, the biggest margin of victory in a championship clincher.

Jordan pushes off Byron Russell to hit the "Final Shot"

Kobe has not risen to the occasion like Jordan, but he does foul like him

Hopefully now the comparisons to Jordan will cease. Don't get me wrong, Kobe had a fantastic season, but Jordan isn't going out like that. Not in the Finals. If he is gonna go out, at least he woulda gone out blazin'. 22 points (on 7-22 shooting), 3 rebounds, and 1 assist is a very poor showing for the league MVP touted to be the 2nd best ever. I just think it was just a bit too early to start the comparison. I mean he's just now entering the prime of his career. He's finally got a team that could potentially win a championship. Let's reevaluate his Jordan-ness 3 or 4 years from now. Deal? Deal.

Paul Pierce, who averaged 21.8 PPG, 4.5 RPG and 6.3 APG in the Finals, received the MVP trophy. My boy Brandan was convinced that Ray Allen should have been the MVP, especially since he carried the Celtics in Game 3 when Pierce only had 6 points because of foul trouble. At first, I thought he was trippin'. He was telling me this as Pierce was dropping 38 in Game 5 in a close loss (can a brother get a reach-in foul call?). But now that I think about it, he has a point. Ray Allen averaged 20.3 PPG, 5 RPG, and 2.7 APG (although some of those points came in Game 6 when he was shooting 3 pointers like it was pregame warm-ups). In terms of raw numbers, that's pretty close right?

But if you're going to make a case for Ray Allen being finals MVP, then you are really making a case for what I'm calling his "magic arm sleeve." Am I the only one who noticed this? I never heard it mentioned in any of the telecasts or written any in of the articles about the Finals. It's technically an NBA Shooting Arm Sleeve, but for Ray Allen, it definitely worked some magic. Since donning the arm sleeve in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Detroit Pistons (where he scored 29 points, grabbed 3 rebounds, and handed out 2 assists), Jesus Shuttlesworth averaged 21 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 2.5 assists for the remaining 8 games of the playoffs. Compare that to a paltry 13.2 PPG, 3.3 RPG, and 2.9 APG in the first 18 games and you can see why I'm calling the sleeve magical.

Ray Allen (and the fan behind him) celebrating one of his NBA Finals-record 23 3-pointers thanks to his magic sleeve

Prior to wearing the sleeve, RayRay had been in like a three month shooting slump. It had gotten so bad and Celtics fans were so fed up with his performance (or lack thereof), that even Bill Simmons changed the moniker given to Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen from "The Big 3" to "The Big 2, Featuring Ray Allen" after Game 4 of the Cleveland series. Allen averaged a meager 9.3 points per game that series.

You know I really don't remember Ray getting injured during that Cleveland series that would have medically warranted him to wear the sleeve. I just think that he knew that the reason he had been slumping was purely mental. He still had the skills, he had just lost his swag. So in order to not turn into a new millennium Nick Anderson, he decided to rock the arm sleeve when he came back to Boston for Game 5. Now I'm sure that the compression from sleeve does provide some sort physical improvement while playing, but I'm convinced that 90% (or higher) of the sleeve's benefit is all mental. Rockin' the arm sleeve (or its cousin the leg sleeve), just adds that tiny bit of swagger to your game that can take it to the next level.

And for Ray Allen it took him from a prediction of a couple of years away from Sam Cassell territory to a legit candidate for Finals MVP. I'd say that's some magical sleeve. I mean did you see his double clutch reverse lay-up in Game 4 of the Finals??? That wasn't just Seattle Sonics Ray Allen, that was Milwaukee Bucks Ray Allen. That play was sick! And the X-Mo that ABC used just made it look nasty. Definitely Jordan-esque. In the words of Mark Jackson, "Mama there goes that man!"

If you're a Celtics fan, ZAZZLE has a number of shirt celebrating Boston's 17th victory. Here are a couple good ones: