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Kevin Garnett had been written off to the dustbin of history. His skills in serious decline and his bark having become decidedly worse than his bite, a reputation for empty trash talk had caught up with KG and reduced the 36 year-old Big Ticket to a side show.

As conventional wisdom shifted underfoot, it appeared during the first half of the 2011-2012 NBA regular season that Garnett’s aging knees would only take him as far as his retirement press conference, his Celtics a one-and-done champion that would be sold for parts at year’s end.

But the sports media, they of the mayfly attentions-spans, forgot one crucial thing:

However, statistics provide an insufficient picture of what’s happening in Boston. KG is moving better, snarling, scowling, challenging shots and protecting the rim. He’s back to coordinating the Celtic defensive effort, and, suddenly, the chest-pounding and trash-talk that had been the subject of much eye rolling over the past few years seems imbued with substantiation and purpose. His 27 points, 13 rebounds and 4 assists (resulting in a gaudy +47 “+/-” figure) in Thursday’s Game 3 victory is an indication that Garnett’s eyes have gone black with the smell of blood. If his body can match his mental focus, the Eastern Conference might field as it’s representative a Boston team more terrifying than the one that brutalized the Lakers in 2008.

But back to my thesis: Kevin Garnett is freaking insane. By which I mean: KG has been rocking out at “11” for seventeen seasons. He has no other setting. That any human can play at this level of volcanic intensity for so long a time (so intense that he’s rendered use of the word “intense” a cliché in itself) is baffling. He belongs to that small club of athletes able to will their own reality into existence – MJ, Kobe, Duncan, Magic, Bird and Russell. It’s not necessarily just about greatness – plenty of great players have lacked this trait. It’s about a howling, stubborn refusal to accept an unsatisfactory reality- which is a kind of insanity. I think this is what people really, perhaps unwittingly, mean when they say “Kevin Garnet is CRAZY” (and they DO say that.)

Any Celtic fan will tell you that despite Paul Pierce’s regular heroics and Rajon Rondo’s indispensable Swiss-army-knife play, Garnett is the straw that stirs the drink, and as he goes, so goes Boston. With Indiana looking bullish against Miami, we could easily be seeing a scenario by which the Celtics’ path to the finals consists of Atlanta, Philadelphia and Indiana. Crazy indeed. Avoiding Derrick Rose and LeBron James to win the East represents a parting of the seas that can’t help but invoke a sense of destiny for an emotionally fueled squad like the Celtics. With a rejuvenated Kevin Garnett at the helm, anything may in fact be possible.

The Chase Down Block Chris Berry Interactive Chris Berry Interactive