BOSTON — When Kevin Garnett is in a really good mood, he has a tendency to make cooking analogies.
Hey, we all have our things.
Since Rajon Rondo went down with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, Garnett has been one of the most vocal Celtics in talking about each player’s need to step up in one area or another to take on the many roles Rondo fulfilled all by himself. The Celtics have played a much faster-paced style in the last two weeks, which have featured six Boston victories and not a single loss. Garnett was asked, after the Celtics’ 116-95 win over the Lakers on Thursday, whether the Celtics were more comfortable playing this kind of style.
“The only way I can really explain it is, when you have a player like Rondo who does so many great things for this team, you kind of get lackadaisical, if you will,” Garnett said. “It’s very similar to, if you’ve got someone cooking for you and you’re expecting that every day, and all of the sudden they’re not there to do that, it’s up to you to feed yourself. All the sudden, you start making these gourmet dishes, and there’s more people coming over the house. You never knew you possessed that until you lost that person that was cooking for you. It’s kind of like that.”
What Garnett was getting at was that Rondo’s absence has forced the rest of the Celtics to find skills within themselves that they never had to utilize before. Now, by necessity, they have been forced to become great cooks, just like Rondo, who in this analogy is the Julia Child of the Celtics.
This is not the first time Garnett has gone culinary on us. Last season, he used fajitas to demonstrate the importance of the correct ingredients and used a cake to illustrate the importance of timing. Whatever Garnett’s point is, we can all agree that the Celtics are much more delicious when they are winning.
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