Justice B. Hill

CLEVELAND - In mid-February, a sore right knee forced Kevin Garnett out of the Celtics lineup, and the four games that coach Doc Rivers used Garnett since then didn’t produce much. He logged the court time of a journeyman, playing 17 minutes on March 25 in an 84-82 loss to the Orlando Magic.

Garnett hasn’t played one second since.

With the NBA playoffs days away, Garnett isn’t any more ready now to see meaningful minutes than he was three weeks ago. Rivers has ruled Garnett out of Game 1 of the team’s first-round series against the Chicago Bulls and indicated the Celtics might have to forge through the playoffs without their star.

That’s a sobering thought for the Celtics, because it foreshows one thing: Absent Garnett, they will soon hear the word “former” put in front of “NBA champions.”

A year ago in the Eastern Conference semifinals, they had a Herculean task dispatching LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers with Garnett healthy, so what are the odds of the Celtics defeating a stronger, younger and deeper Cavaliers team with him hurting?

The afterglow of the 2008 title did give Boston fans reasons to think another deep run into the playoffs was possible. Their Celtics were a team with irreplaceable pieces — three All-Stars in Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen.

The Big Three haven’t necessarily made people forget Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish, but even James conceded Garnett, Pierce and Allen give the Celtics, the team with the second-best record in the conference, an embarrassment of riches.

“They’re one of the few teams in the league who can lose one All-Star and have two more,” James said.

None of the three has been as important as the 32-year-old Garnett, the marquee name on today’s Celtics roster.

Never the flashiest player when in the best of health, he plays basketball the way the Celtics of yesteryear did.

Video   Always a Celtic April 15: Bill Russell reflects on his legendary career and shares his thoughts on the current Boston Celtics team.

You remember those Celtics, right? Their names are Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, John Havlicek, Don Nelson, K.C. Jones ... Buy a ticket to a Celtics game at the old Garden, and you would see them man their spots on the storied parquet floor, putting up consistent statistics and bringing the bulk of the franchise’s 17 NBA titles to Boston.

In 13 seasons, Garnett has never been a Jordan, a Wilt, a Shaq or a Russell. Nor has he been a Bird or a Magic or a Kobe or a Duncan, although Garnett might be closer to a Duncan than to these other legends of the game.

Yet nobody ever asked him to be anybody besides Kevin Garnett, a player whose marvelous talent fueled talk of another championship banner being hoisted into the rafters. The flush days of November and December had fans in Boston and elsewhere saying another Celtics championship was all but assured, too.

But the turns and twists of a season resemble the Tour de France, because the successes in the early stages hold no promise of what might occur later.

As 2008 rolled into '09, the grind of the 82-game season exposed Garnett's frailties. His body was breaking down.

So were the Celtics.

Their basketball fortunes, if they include repeating as NBA champions, have always rested on how healthy Garnett was, and Rivers has judged his star unfit to play.

No good news there. All it does is tell Pierce, Allen and their teammates to order tickets now for the NBA Finals if they prefer the best seats. For soon enough, they will become spectators like the Washington Wizards, the Sacramento Kings and the Los Angeles Clippers, the dregs of the league — teams with a better chance of winning the World Series than of raising a banner.

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