Celtics forward Kevin Garnett pronounced himself close to fully healthy and ready to go on Monday.

He has been scrimmaging 5-on-5 with his teammates for the past week, a strong sign that his rehabilitation from right knee surgery is close to complete.

"It's up and down, man. There ain't no standing around in 5-on-5," Garnett told the media.

The future Hall of Famer added that the severity of the surgery surprised him slightly.

"No surprises other than the severeness of it -- I didn't know it was that bad," Garnett added. "They evaluate you from A to Z, but until they actually get in there and see what the problem really is, then you know a 1-to-10 on how severe it was. It was pretty severe, but the best thing about is that I got it out of the way, and my leg is almost 100 percent going forward. Better than anything I'm playing without any pain, which is something I really haven't had for some time now."

The bone spurs in his knee were considerably larger than doctors had expected.