Gino's Jungle

(The most important knee in the NBA, courtesy of Yahoo Sports)

Going into preseason and the start of camp there was one question everyone had when it came to the Celtics, Is Kevin Garnett healthy? So far we have seen him play in three preseason games, and have only heard good reports from practices. Have we seen enough of him to believe he is healthy and ready to go?

In his three preseason games Garnett has played an average of 18 minutes. That is not quite what we would expect in mid-season form, but then again its only the preseason. The rest of our starters are only averaging between 19 and 23 minutes a game. I think that 18 minutes is not enough but Doc has stressed that he wants to get KG more minutes, and that he wants to get the starters into their roles before the end of the preseason. In the three preseason games is second on the team in points scored, averaging 9.3 points per game. He is also tied with Sheed for the most rebound on the team with 6.3 per game. These numbers are very promising, given the number of minutes he has played.

Good news also came from practice today, Frank Dell'Apa from the Boston Globe reported that KG threw down an amazing alley-oop today during practice. He also reports that KG took part of the full 90 minute practice, in which Doc Rivers stated, "We worked them hard." Rivers commented on the dunk by saying:

     "He took a lob and dunked it -- it was an amazing dunk, everybody said, we haven't seen that."

KG also commented on the dunk by saying:

     "I think Doc's been waiting for me to grow wings and fly, just tell him to be patient, the wings are coming."

It is very encouraging to hear that KG can get up and fly. Lets hope we can see this in a game soon. So far everything is thumbs up from KG and I'm becoming very confident that we will be raising #18 come next October.

KG and the Celtics return to action tonight against the New Jersey Nets. Come join our live chat at 7pm.