Thrilling win for Boston Celtics over New York Knicks still a pain for Kevin Garnett

Mitch Lawrence

Monday, November 23rd 2009, 4:00 AM

Goldfield for News

Kevin Garnett celebrates game-winner at end of OT as Knicks leave the hobbled Celtics' star alone at top and the forward converts despite coming off knee surgery.

The big mystery surrounding the Celtics concerns the Big Ticket, Kevin Garnett.

Actually, it's no mystery, if what was witnessed at the Garden Sunday is to be taken at face value.

The most important member of the Celtics, the biggest of the Big Three, the anchor of their championship defense, Garnett isn't close to what he used to be, probably because he's still working his way back from last season's right knee injury and subsequent surgery.

Garnett drilled the game-winner, at the gun, allowing the Celtics to escape without suffering their fourth loss in the last five games.

This would have been an especially tough loss for Doc Rivers to take. The Knicks are not the Atlanta Hawks, who showed the Celtics they are young, long, athletic and a handful in a big win in Boston 10 days ago. This wasn't Indiana, which took advantage of the schedule to clip the Celtics right after the Hawk game.

This game followed Boston's home loss to Orlando on Friday, so you figured that the Celtics would bring their "A" game to town. Plus, even as they put together a winning streak, the Knicks can't guard Tommy Heinsohn these days.

But they did enough at that end until Paul Pierce started his game-winning pick-and-roll with Garnett at the end of OT.

"Doc wanted to run some misdirection," Pierce said. "I just suggested we keep it simple."

Right, force the Knicks to stay at home with Garnett, but David Lee was in another time zone when Pierce made his pass to Garnett. And how did the hero celebrate, after screaming in the general direction of Spike Lee?

By getting his knee worked on for a good 40 minutes after the game. During that time on the training table, he read his text messages. As the Celtics emerged from the privacy of the back room, the other members of the Big Three talked about Garnett's physical condition.

"Obviously, he's still building off some of the things he wants to do and getting a lot of his strength back," Pierce said. "But you've got to ask him how he feels. He's getting stronger and getting better, every day and every week."

Next out was Ray Allen.

"I try not to judge him," Allen said. "As long as he's out there and feels good about his body, we love him out there."

But Pierce and Allen have to know that if this is how Garnett is going to move around on his right leg, if he's this limited, then it's going to kill their chances of securing banner No. 18.

Finally, once the locker room was just about vacant, Garnett emerged, grabbed a bottle of water, and then held court, sitting down.