Perk’s block party
TD BANKORTH GARDEN — There’s not a player or coach on the Celtics who will tell you that Kendrick Perkins isn’t in the best shape of his career. But it takes a lot to move the big man. And when the big man moves, he exerts a lot of energy.
“Twenty four minutes?” Perkins asked a reporter when told of his time on the court last night. “It felt like 34 minutes. Damn.”
Perkins blocked a career-high 7 shots in a win over the Bucks Friday night at TD Banknorth Garden, anchoring a defense that held Milwaukee to 40 percent shooting from the field in the game. Perkins also had 6 points and 5 rebounds against a revamped Bucks team that faltered in the fourth quarter against the defending NBA champions.
“He’s been great,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said of his center. “He’s just doing his thing, playing his role. He’s doing it at a high level. He’s playing his role at a high level, and it’s been terrific.”
Perkins has been on a defensive tear since the Houston game on Tuesday. It was a game in which he blocked 4 shots, and a game in which he squared off with massive Rockets center Yao Ming. Perkins followed up that block party with another one against the Oklahoma City Thunder the next night, blocking 4 shots in that game as well.
“He’s taking a challenge night in and night out, whether it’s Yao [Ming], or tonight it was [Andrew] Bogut,” Celtics forward Kevin Garnett said of his counterpart in the middle. “He wants that. Last year, I think he was trying to find his way a little bit. I think what you see with the starting group, if not the whole team, is that we have a sync, and we have a way that we play. Everybody trusts us that way. He’s found his groove.”
Perkins started tonight’s block barrage with a swat of a Charlie Villanueva jump shot with 5:23 left in the first quarter. He went inside and blocked a Francisco Elson layup attempt before the end of the first. Perkins blocked two more shots in the first half to help stymie the Bucks offense into 28 percent shooting in the second quarter.
Early in the third, the Celtics center rejected Richard Jefferson as Milwaukee’s leading scorer for the game tried to bring the ball into the paint. He blocked a Bogut jump shot in the third and another Bogut dunk attempt later on to round out the defensive display.
“He’s active,” said Garnett “He’s probably a little more mobile than last year. He’s talking. He and I always say that we have to be on the same page and hold the middle down… He’s a beast right now.”
The sudden surge in blocks does come as a bit of a surprise for a player with a career-average of 1.2 blocks per game. Perkins played with essentially the same tools, on essentially the same team, last season. But he’s raised his blocks per game average to 2.0 so far this season, his sixth in the league. Dwight Howard leads the league at the moment with an unwieldy 4.2 blocks per game.
“As long as I just keep protecting the paint I think it will come,” said Perkins. “I’m just going to make sure I contest everything. I think I was being overly aggressive [before]. Now I’m just going to let it come to me.”
Perkins’ previous career high for blocks in a game was 6, a feat he has accomplished three times in his six-year NBA career. The last Celtic to have 8 blocks was Kevin McHale on Jan. 9, 1987 vs. Sacramento at the old Garden.
“It’s all about timing,” said Perkins. “I think I have to get in a groove. There’s going to be some games where you’re not going to block shots. If they come, they come.”
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