Significantly Ainge confirmed that Garnett had suffered a strained right calf muscle which was nothing related to his surgically repaired knee, "It's not anything to do with his knee, which is great news. He may be out for a couple of weeks, at the most...I think that's on the conservative side."
Garnett injured the muscle early on in the Celtics loss to the Detroit Pistons on Wednesday night. His X-rays at the stadium came back negative and an MRI on Thursday showed that the knee was unharmed.
Keeping players healthy is becoming a problem for the Celtics, who are one of the deepest teams in the league, as Garnett joins Rajon Rondo, Kendrick Perkins and Delonte West have all spent significant time on the sidelines this season. Ainge worries for the teams remaining stars "My biggest fear is wearing Paul [Pierce] and Ray[Allen} out right now...it would be hard to maintain the pace we're playing at right now without Rajon [Rondo] and without KG[Garnett]."
Coach Doc Rivers is lucky enough to have various different options available to him, "It'll be a short rotation clearly. We don't have a lot of bigs left. Right now we'd probably start baby[Glen Davis] with Shaq[Shaquille O'Neal] and then you have Jermaine[O'Neal] come off the bench. From there you may use Luke {Harangody]. You may go with a smaller lineup with Marquis [Douglas]."
Rivers was clearly relieved at the results of Garnett's MRI echoing Ainge's seniments, "The way he did it, I thought the knee or Achilles...thats usually a severe one."
The Celtics welcome the New Orleans Hornets to the TD Garden in Boston at 3pm ET/8pm GMT.
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