Kevin McHale was back to being a sort-of Celtic during last year's playoffs, but now that he's on the Minnesota bench he's gone from zero to coach in 60 seconds.
Before yesterday's 109-101 Timberwolves loss at the Garden, he reminisced with members of the Celtics family and talked about last season's run to the title. ``I got very nervous for them,'' McHale said. ``I even called Danny (Ainge, the C's president of Basketball operations) a couple of times. I'm happy for Danny, KG and all the people who are still here from when I was here.''
But after fighting the Green for 48 minutes, McHale was wrapped up in the Wolves. He didn't like watching his guys lose their heads - and their defensive assignments - while falling behind by 21, but he was happy to see them outscore the Celts, 57-47, in the second half.
``I truly don't care who we play or how they play,'' McHale said. ``It's how we play I'm worried about. You play yourself 82 times and you play the other team twice. I could care less what Boston does, to be truthful. No disrespect, and they're a good team.''
Though McHale enjoys working with Al Jefferson and Minnesota's young players, he has to be a little envious of the experience that breathes through the Celtics roster and allows his former outfit to avoid the kind of mistakes that add up to losses.
``They're more attentive to detail,'' he said. ``A big part of that is that their core group has been in the NBA so long. That helps a great deal when you're looking at our core group having eight, nine or 10 years of NBA experience combined. They're a good team. What they have is a relentless scorer in Paul (Pierce), so if things get bogged down they can go to him. When it comes down to crunch time, Paul is their go-to guy. Kevin (Garnett) is a great supplementary player on offense - always has been. And Ray (Allen) is a great shooter who will knock down shots when open. Offensively, Paul is the engine that drives them.
``Defensively, they engage you. They're very disciplined. That's why they win. We're still trying to develop a lot of those things. We've got a great group of guys who listen and really want to get better. But sometimes there's just no substitute for having experience.''
Of course, McHale helped tilt that veteran balance in the C's favor when he dealt Garnett for Jefferson, Ryan Gomes and Sebastian Telfair. But, as he was saying yesterday, the most rewarding part of his job is seeing the work of his young players finally translate into wins.
But even against a Garnett-less group, that wasn't going to be the outcome yesterday.
