Kevin Garnett has already expressed fatigue with the number of questions about his right knee, but any time there’s a hard fall or a slip he’s going to be asked about it. He had such a play midway through the third quarter against the Bobcats when he dove for a loose ball and came up gingerly.

After the play concluded, Doc Rivers replaced Garnett who didn’t return to the court. That may have had as much to do with the score as anything else. The Celtics were up big at the time and things were beginning to get chippy with Kendrick Perkins, Tyson Chandler and Gerald Wallace all picking up technicals.

“My first intention was to get back and run,” Garnett said. “Then I saw Paul [Pierce] and [Rajon] Rondo in the break and I was like, ‘Know what? They got that.’ Let me just sit back here, rub this hip and that was it. It wasn’t nothing. Doc said it looked really bad, but it wasn’t nothing. I slid into second base. The ump said I was safe. I’m good with that.”

Garnett was smiling by the time he got to the bench.

“It was enough because of the lead, and it was just time for him to come out anyway at that point,” Rivers said. “But obviously every time he goes to the floor you just want him to get back up, and he did. He’s fine, but it does scare you because it was an awkward fall. The rarity is that you see a big [man] diving with a 25-point lead at the time. And that’s who he is, and that’s who you want him to continue to be.”