Celtics will lean on Davis

By Gary Dzen

April 18, 2009

2 minutes to read

Glen Davis walked through the Celtics locker room this morning singing a hip hop song featuring lyrics about “being sick” and “throwing up”. The Celtics better hope Davis isn’t actually under the weather, because they’re going to need a big dose of Baby this afternoon against the Bulls. Davis will start at power forward in place of the injured Kevin Garnett.

“He’s better prepared because he played in [the playoffs] last year,” said Celtics coach Doc Rivers. “Last year we had the ability to use him or Leon. This year there’s nobody backing them up, so they know they have to play. It will be interesting if they can have that same sense of urgency that they did last year.”

Interesting to note that Bulls forward Tyrus Thomas, who played with Davis at LSU, declined to talk about Davis before the game.

As for Garnett, he will be on the bench for this afternoon’s game.

“He’s fine with it,” said Rivers “I don’t know if he’ll be comfortable or we’ll be comfortable. I’m not worried. I’m worried about the guys in uniform, not in suits and ties, if you want to be honest.”

Rivers refuted the notion that the Celtics announced Garnett was out for the entire playoffs just to get the rest of the team to focus on the games at hand.

“I didn’t do it for that reason,” said Rivers. “I did it because it was true. Players play, and they were going to play regardless of if he was coming back or not. I don’t think they were looking to see when Kevin was coming back.”

Celtics guard Ray Allen said the playoffs will be a learning experience.

“As this first round evolves we hope to grow,” said Allen. “We’re going to find out a lot about who we are. At this moment it’s going to be without Kevin. We’re going to have to grow to get to the next round.”

Brian Scalabrine will practice with the team on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to Rivers, and if all goes well Scalabrine will be available to play in Game 3 against the Bulls.

“In his case there’s no, ‘The player tells you he can play and he’ll play,'” said Rivers. “The doctors have to give him full clearance before we play him. That’s the only thing we can do.”