BOSTON (AP) - Kendrick Perkins scored on a putback with 16.6 seconds left, and Kevin Garnett poked the ball away from Sebastian Telfair as time expired on Friday night to give the Boston Celtics an 87-86 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves.
In the first matchup between Garnett and the handful of ex-Celtics traded to Minnesota for him, Boston struggled to put away the team with the worst record in the NBA. Perkins scored 21, Paul Pierce had 19 points and eight assists and Garnett had 10 points and 16 rebounds despite leaving the game for four minutes because of an abdominal strain.
Telfair scored 18 points, and fellow ex-Celtics Al Jefferson and Ryan Gomes had 15 and 13, respectively. Craig Smith, who played at Boston College, had 10 rebounds for the Timberwolves as they missed a chance to extend their season-high two-game winning streak to three.
