Boston 100, Minnesota 79

[recap] [box score]

On Wednesday night, the Celtics beat a Utah team featuring Al Jefferson, the promising young center who was the major sacrifice of the deal that brought Kevin Garnett to Boston. After three years in Minnesota, Jefferson was traded to the Jazz before last season. Through nearly five seasons with two different clubs, however, Jefferson is still searching for his first win against his old team.

On Friday, the Celtics traveled to Minnesota and beat Kevin Garnett's old team, the team with which the franchise-altering trade was made in the 2007 offseason. Like Jefferson, the Timberwolves were looking for their first-even win over a Celtics team featuring KG, and like Jefferson, they didn't get it.

I didn't watch the whole game, but did catch the better part of the first three quarters, during which Boston led comfortably most of the way. KG was predictably over-hyped playing in Minnesota, but once he settled down a bit, the offense pretty much clicked on all cylinders the whole way. Boston shot about 49 percent from the field for the game, but if you remove Sasha Pavlovic's 0-for-5 (he was way off all game), the Celtics' percentage jumps to over 51 percent.

Avery Bradley, playing in place of the injured Ray Allen, was once again excellent, making six of nine shots from the field and five of six attempts from the line. I'm amazed at his offensive development; he's become a viable option off the ball, though he certainly benefits from being a secondary option. Rajon R-ndo controlled the tempo from the getgo, picking up a dozen of his 17 assists in the first half. KG (24 points, 10 rebounds) and Paul Pierce (21 and 9) did much of the heavy lifting. The Celtics got 20 bench points, though Keyon Dooling and Greg Stiemsma contributed 10 of their combined 16 in a 31-point first quarter.

For Minnesota's part, it's a bit unfair to judge evaluate them with their current injuries. Rookie point guard sensation Ricky Rubio (aka The Other Woman) is done for the year with a torn ACL; young big man Nikola Pekovic, who exploded on to the scene in February and averaged close to a double-double that month, has been limited by bone spurs in March and has missed the last six games; sixth man Michael Beasley has been limited by a toe injury that is submarining one of my fantasy basketball playoff runs; and backup point guard J.J. Barea, who has battled injuries all season after coming over from Dallas as a free agent, suffered a thigh bruise while amassing a triple-double against Oklahoma City on March 23 and hasn't played since. All of this leaves precious little around power forward Kevin Love, a budding star.

For those unfamiliar, in his fourth season, Love has become one of the league's best players, a tenacious rebounder with legitimate three-point range. As far as I can tell, he's more effective facing up than with his back to the basket, which may be why he struggled so much against the Celtics. Love seemed to struggle with both with KG's length and KG's comfort level on the perimeter. He was simply off all game, and his 5-for-18 performance left him nine points short of having the most prolific month, in terms of combined points and rebounds, in NBA history.

With all the injuries, the only other T-Wolf of note was rookie Derrick Williams, the second overall pick in last summer's draft. With Pekovic out and Love playing the five, Williams has been playing the four, but he's more comfortable on the perimeter and is probably better suited to the three. He's had a difficult week, but he did have a decent game against the Celtics. What surprised me, however, is how poorly he finishes in traffic. Confronted with a Celtic defender on several drives to the rim, he neither assertively changed course to get to the basket nor tried to draw the foul by finishing through the defender. Instead, he wildly altered his shot, missing more often than not. Hopefully that part of his game will develop.

And now, the best news. Boston won, and Philadelphia suffered a stunning 21-point loss in Washington to the Wizards, the second-worst team in the NBA. As I detailed in an earlier post, the Celtics faced an uphill battle against the Sixers for the Atlantic division crown and the spoils that come with it: the fourth seed in the East and a playoff series against a team like Indiana instead of a team like Chicago or Miami. We now hold a one-game lead in the division, and the unexpected loss by Philly chips a way a bit at the schedule advantage they hold over the season's final month.

The Celtics are back in action Sunday at 3:30 Eastern, on ABC -- against Miami.