Kevin Garnett's all-around game was something to shout about in a 117-97 win over the Suns. If wins and team defense of his Boston team are weighed heavily, his numbers are quite compelling for MVP.

BOSTON -- We have two stories to tell about the Kevin Garnett-for-MVP debate, one from before Wednesday night's Suns-Celtics game, the other from afterward.

First, though, let's set the parameters for this debate, because there is a school of thought out there -- a ridiculous one, but a school of thought nonetheless -- that KG doesn't even belong in the debate.

"What are his numbers?" one-time MVP Shaquille O'Neal asked in the Suns' locker room an hour before tipoff when the KG-for-MVP question was raised.

His numbers? Well, if you're judging him solely by his individual numbers, maybe it's true that he doesn't belong in the debate. Garnett does not lead his team in scoring (he's averaging 19.0 points, second on the team to Paul Pierce's 20.1), is third in minutes played (behind Pierce and Ray Allen) and does not lead the Celtics in either of the two defensive stats, steals and blocks -- all stats the numbers-oriented people (we're talking about you here, Shaq) get so hyped up about when it comes to choosing an MVP.

Numbers can tell different stories, and there are other numbers that can be used to make the case against Garnett being the MVP.

• The No. 9, as in the nine games Boston played without Garnett, going 7-2 when he went down at midseason with an abdominal strain.

• The No. 1, as in the total number of MVP awards Garnett has already won, which is exactly one more than the number that another strong MVP candidate, Kobe Bryant, has accumulated over his career. "It might be his year," conceded Garnett's coach, Doc Rivers.

• The No. 20, which is the number of assists Chris Paul -- arguably the third member of the troika of leading MVP candidates -- put on the board against Cleveland on Wednesday night, marking the 48th time he has reached double figures in that category this season while leading the New Orleans Hornets to the top of the Western Conference standings.

• The No. 30. Garnett reached that number in the points column for only the second time all season in Boston's 117-97 drubbing of the Suns on Wednesday night. Kobe? He's scored 30 or more 34 times this season.

MVP Candidates In March It's not how you start, it's how you -- and your team -- finish. Here are the March numbers for MVP candidates Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Kevin Garnett: Paul Bryant James Garnett PPG 24.5 30.3 32.8 20.9 RPG 3.3 7.4 8.1 8.1 APG 13.3 4.9 6.5 2.8 SPG 2.7 1.5 1.2 1.3 Rec. 10-3 8-5 7-6 11-3

So let's look at the flip side, because some numbers work in Garnett's favor.

• The No. 90.5, which is the average number of points being scored per game against the Celtics' league-leading defense. (Wednesday's game was broken open in the third quarter, by the way, when Garnett began aggressively denying Amare Stoudemire the ball and held him to a scoreless third quarter in which Stoudemire committed four turnovers as Boston broke the game open.)

• The No. 24, which is the number of victories the Celtics have accumulated in 29 games against teams from the Western Conference. Yes, you can make the case that the West is the much stronger conference, but you can't use that argument against Garnett in the MVP race when you look at how the Celtics have performed against those teams.

• The No. 56, which is what Boston's victory total reached Wednesday night in its 71st game of the season. The Celtics are on pace to finish with something in the area of 62-64 wins, which will substantially eclipse their victory total from the past two seasons combined.

That last nugget brings us to our second Garnett-for-MVP story, the one that happened afterward as Garnett and Pierce sat together at the interview podium and Garnett had just finished explaining how he had been trying to tune out the crowd's "MVP" chants when they started up with six minutes left.

"This is my MVP right here," Garnett kept saying, pointing to Pierce while repeating a line he has been uttering ad nauseam throughout this season.

So the question was asked of Pierce: Where do you think KG belongs in the MVP debate?

"You have to understand," Pierce replied, "where I came from a year ago, and to be on pace to win as many games as we are, I wouldn't have believed it."

As Pierce spoke, Garnett kept trying to interrupt him, even injecting an off-color remark about bovine waste in his effort to make Pierce clam up.

But Pierce wouldn't have it.

"The whole face of Celtics nation turned around when the trade happened with this guy. Everybody talks about the MVP, and they talk about numbers, but this guy has changed the whole culture around here, and I think that says a lot. The mentality, from a day-to-day aspect, everything is changed from a year ago."

The MVP debate will continue over the final three weeks of the regular season, and the thinking here is that Bryant will ultimately edge Garnett when the votes are counted, with Paul finishing third, LeBron James fourth and Dwight Howard fifth. But that does not mean that Bryant is clearly the most deserving.

Maybe he is and maybe he isn't, but he's not a slam dunk to win it. Not when there's a guy sitting 41 games over .500 -- which, lest we forget, gives his team the best record in the league -- whose team just took down another Western Conference powerhouse by 20 points.

You can argue over who is more deserving, but no matter which type of numbers you look at, you can't have a legitimate MVP debate without including Kevin Garnett in the discussion.

Dimes Past: March 15-16 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22-23 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26