He's been through a litany of knee injuries over the past 18 months — a strain shortly after the All-Star break in the winter of 2009, a sprain that kept him out of the '09 playoffs, a hyperextension that derailed him for a chunk of the regular season last year — and now he's healthy. For the first time in who-knows-how-long, KG is totally, completely, unquestionably healthy, and you can see from watching him on the practice court that he's got an energy about him that he hasn't shown in years. But it's not a subject that he really wants to get into in any depth.
"I feel really good," he said Thursday.
OK then.
Garnett doesn't want to expound upon it. He seems a little put off by the mere mention of his health. At age 34 with 15 years of his NBA career behind him, KG is clearly a man dead-set on forgetting the past and focusing solely on what lies ahead. Please, he implies but never outright says — don't ask me about injuries. That's ancient history.
But his coach is more than happy to discuss the fact that KG's a completely different guy than the one who took the practice court here in Newport a year ago.
"Night and day," Doc Rivers said. "I still wish he would take a break in practice a little more, but that's another issue that we'll have to solve. But he's explosive again, especially defensively, and that's just great.
"I mean, he outran guys in our scrimmage earlier. Once he got a rebound, he threw it out and then still outran the other bigs down the floor. He couldn't do that last year. And even if he could, he didn't think he could. So to me, that's the biggest change."
KG's not saying it, of course, but deep down he knows that his health is the difference between a middling Celtics team and a defensive juggernaut reminiscent of the 2008 championship squad. If his knees break down in January again as they did last season, the Celtics are headed for an underwhelming regular season like last year, and returning to the Finals will be an uphill battle to say the least. But if KG's body is right, and it stays that way all year, the Celtics' defense will be world class again.
"We went from No. 1 in field goal percentage defense down to No. 9 last year," Rivers said. "We want to get back to No. 1. That's what we tell our guys.
"We want to pressure more. Our first year and a half [with Garnett], we pressured the ball up the floor. Kevin was on the floor pressure, but due to Kevin's injury, we got away from that completely. And last year, that really hurt our defense, because now teams are starting to run their offense with 18 seconds on the shot clock instead of 12, and that's a big difference."
Teams dreaded playing the Celtics back in 2008. They held opposing offenses to historically low shooting percentages that season — 31.6 percent from 3-point range, 41.9 percent from the field at large — through relentless effort and Garnett's unparalleled leadership. This season they'll attempt to get back to that level, and it starts with baby steps upward from the mediocrity of last season.
"I think we definitely can be better than last year," Garnett said. "I think you've always got to strive to be better. You can't come in complacent, you can't think that way. I don't think we were the best that we could have been last year, defensively, at least not during the regular season.
If the C's are going to get it back, it all starts with KG.
"It'll make or break us," Rivers said of Garnett's health. "Especially the pressure part. I mean, we really didn't pressure the ball up the floor [last season]. And when you think about it, when we've got [Rajon] Rondo on the floor and Kevin, we can shadow, and we couldn't do that last year. That was a huge concession for our defense."
Garnett was 31 years old when he was handed the first and only Defensive Player of the Year award in the spring of '08. He doesn't have the same body he did back then, but he's closer than anyone could have imagined. It's not out of the question that he could once again emerge as the NBA's best defender.
"I don't know if he can be individually, but team-wise, clearly," Rivers said. "He was the best team defender last year, even with his injuries. Because he talks, he understands it, and he gets everybody else to do it."
That's what leadership is all about — communicating and making teammates better. But this is the NBA, and guys in this league will only heed your words if you can still play.
It may be early, but it looks like Garnett can.
We're now three days into the Celtics' training camp, with the start of the regular season less than a month away. And at the moment, things are looking up for the Celtics' defensive captain.
"It feels good to be healthy," Garnett said. "It feels good to have new guys in here. It feels good with the additions that we have. So far, so good."
The biggest reason things are so good is KG himself.
But he doesn't want to talk about that.
