Celtics Prevail in Garnett’s Return to Minnesota

By KC Downey in Celtics, Featured ⋅ November 22, 2008 at 1:02am ⋅ Post a comment

Kevin Garnett was Minnesota’s shining star. He was by far the greatest player in the history of the franchise. Any average fan would associate the Minnesota Timberwolves with KG and vice versa. That is…until last season.

Garnett is now one of the franchise faces for the Celtics, and has worked with Ray Allen and Paul Pierce to develop a winning culture in Boston. Playing in his first game back in Minnesota with the Celtics (he sat out last year’s encounter with injury), Garnett scored 17 points on 8-12 shooting with four rebounds and a blocked shot to help the C’s continue the winning trend, 95-78.

“It’s just another team that I play against,” Garnett said. “I don’t put no more or no less than that into it.”

Yeah, OK. KG gave the same robotic response most athletes would give, but case and point, this was deifinitely an important game for him. He probably penciled it on his calendar, and I bet he even got more focused and more intense than usual (if that’s possible).

The former Celtics playing in Minnesota played relatively well. Here’s a look at how they all fared:

	MIN	PTS	REB	AST	STL	BLK
Al Jefferson	31:52	23	4	0	0	1
Ryan Gomes	28:10	7	6	0	2	0
Sebastian Telfair	27:45	13	2	3	2	0

Jefferson’s point total led the team, but it was not enough as the T-Wolves just couldn’t keep up with the Starting 5, and had even more trouble with Celtics bench.

Tony Allen had another strong effort, scoring 14 points with two rebounds and two blocked shots. Leon Powe also played well in his nearly 20 minutes of court time. He finished with a double-double (10 points and 11 rebounds) on the night.

Next up for the Celtics is a game Sunday at Toronto at 12:30 p.m.