Garnett feeling right at home against Wolves

Jennifer Simonson, Star Tribune

Kevin Garnett scored 17 points Friday in the first game he played in a Celtics uniform at Target Center, then spent the final period playing cheerleader on Boston’s bench.

A big crowd turned out for Kevin Garnett's return but couldn't light a fire under the home team.

By JERRY ZGODA, Star Tribune

Last update: December 31, 2008 - 3:44 PM

The Timberwolves' past collided with their present and their future Friday night at Target Center, and it was enough to make a sizable announced audience of 19,107 people who came to see Kevin Garnett's real return to Minnesota restless and surly.

The hometown fans cheered Garnett during pregame introductions and throughout a telling third quarter of the Boston Celtics' runaway 95-78 victory, just as they had for 12 seasons before the Wolves traded away Garnett 16 months ago in the NBA's largest deal ever for a single player.

Then they twittered, harrumphed and booed the home team as that third quarter mercifully came to a close after the Celtics transformed a three-point halftime deficit into resounding victory with a 35-10 bulge that included 14 closing, unanswered points in a quarter when the Wolves tied a franchise record by making only two field goals.

"You get a crowd like that, you want to show them we're going to be competing and we're going to be a good team," said Wolves forward Ryan Gomes, one of three remaining players from the five acquired for Garnett in July 2007. "Tonight, we didn't show that at all. I'm sure they expected more. We expected more."

The Celtics won 66 games and the franchise's 17th NBA championship last season, one year after they had won 24 games. They then changed everything, including most of their roster and their culture, by acquiring Garnett from the Wolves and Ray Allen from Seattle.

This season, they are 12-2 after clobbering Detroit at home Thursday and pounding the Wolves (2-9) 24 hours later on a night when Garnett punctured the air with celebratory flying fists, particularly in that third quarter.

"I thought Kevin almost talked himself into not being too emotional," Boston coach Doc Rivers said. "I like the nutty, high-energy Kevin. In the second half, he started playing again. I thought he almost talked himself out of playing in the first half."

Garnett scored 17 points -- eight in the third quarter before he sat down for the night -- in his first game at Target Center since he played his final one with the Wolves on April 9, 2007, a 111-100 loss to Toronto. Garnett was injured when Boston visited last season and greeted the adoring crowd with waves and bows briefly before that game.

"I don't want to see him in green," Wolves guard Randy Foye said, "but it was good to see him."

The Wolves shot 31.3 percent (26-for-83) one game after they shot 51.4 percent against Philadelphia and ended an eight-game losing streak. Their starters made 14 of 49 shots -- Foye 2-for-12, Gomes 3-for-11, Al Jefferson 8-for-20, Kevin Love 3-for-10. Sebastian Telfair was the only Timberwolf who made more shots than he missed (6-for-10).

At one point, Wolves coach Randy Wittman surveyed the floor and yelled to his players, "What's wrong with an 18-footer?" He should have modified that quote later to a 5-footer.

"It was a tough shooting night for us, and I thought it caught up to us, where we relented to it and didn't find ways to fight through it," Wittman said. "We've got to learn to become as much stronger mentally as physically."

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