Boston Crowd Welcomes Kevin Garnett as Celtics Drop Knicks

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Oct 9, 2009

Boston Crowd Welcomes Kevin Garnett as Celtics Drop Knicks BOSTON — Kevin Garnett had 10 points and eight rebounds in his first game at the Boston Garden in more than seven months, and the Celtics beat the New York Knicks 96-82 in an exhibition game on Friday night.

Rasheed Wallace played his first game for the Celtics in Boston and had 13 points and 12 rebounds. He even avoided drawing a technical foul from the replacement referees after picking one up in the preseason opener.

There were no apparent issues with the substitute officials, who called 75 fouls in Boston's 96-90 loss to Houston in Hidalgo, Texas, on Wednesday night. The NBA has locked out its regular referees because of a labor dispute.

Kendrick Perkins
scored 14 points, Ray Allen had 13 and Paul Pierce scored nine on 4-for-12 shooting for Boston.

Al Harrington and David Lee both scored 13 for the Knicks, who made 3 of 22 shots in the first quarter and went 28-for-76 on the game. They shot 5-for-16 from 3-point range and 2-for-20 in the first half.

Garnett played 22 minutes — roughly the same as the other starters — and showed no ill-effects of the bone spurs in his right knee that sidelined him in March and kept him out of the playoffs last year as the Celtics tried to earn their record 18th NBA title. The defending champions lost in the Eastern Conference semifinals to the Orlando Magic in seven games without him.

Garnett was his usual fiery self before the game, letting out a yell and banging his head against the padded basket support before the opening tip. He got a standing ovation when he was introduced, and when he left the game in the third quarter, he got another big cheer that was rivaled only by the one that greeted the news that the New York Yankees had — temporarily — fallen behind the Minnesota Twins 3-1.

Celtics coach Doc Rivers said before the game that Garnett, who underwent surgery over the summer, had "zero knee pain, but he does have shin splints and aches and all that."

"What I'm trying to build him back to is playing normal minutes in a game," Rivers said. "He hasn't done that in a long time."

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