The Celtics are being very careful with the hyperextended right knee of forward Kevin Garnett.

Garnett could have returned on Boston's three-game road trip, but the team opted to hold him out.

"With Kevin, we're just going to wait," coach Doc Rivers said Friday night. "The only thing you do know, historically, with hyperextended knees, if you want them to be 100 percent, you've got to allow it to heal 100 percent before you put them back in. Kevin could play today but then it would just get worse, it would get tighter, and we're just not going to go down that road."

Rivers added that Garnett's experience with a bone spur last season prepared him to handle this shutdown.

"He knows what he's doing," the coach said. "He's been very good. If anything, with Kevin, I think going through the thing last year, he's kind of learned that lesson. For Kevin, he's been very good, extremely good."