“Would’ve Unalived Him”: Celtics Legend Reveals Kevin Garnett’s Closest Call With Ex-teammate in Heated Clash

There’s a difference between an intensely competitive, trash-talking Big Ticket, and a blood-boiling raging mad Kevin Garnett. Paul Pierce has had a front row seat to that KG for most of his life. From their exhibition games in high school to winning an NBA championship, Pierce has witnessed when Garnett is ‘playing’ and when he’s close to worse. He might be amazed that his teammate has not been in a sticky situation yet because of it. KG’s temper was infamous already. It didn’t stop one teammate from testing it.

That would be Kendrick Perkins, who’s not the most famous for his tact even on ESPN. It once almost cost him his life, if Paul Pierce is to be believed.

While on the Games with Names podcast, Pierce told Julian Edelman about a players only team meeting on a plane that nearly went sideways. Like, he thought he was about to be an unwilling accomplice in a Samuel L. Jackson thriller.

This happened when KG suffered the season-ending knee injury in 2009. As Paul recalled, “We was on the plane. We had a team meeting… KG was hurt this year. So this is the year after we won the championship and at some point, it was like a disconnect between the older guys and the younger guys on the team.”

Perk arrived in Boston in 2003 and things were already frosty between him and KG. He didn’t tread lightly with KG in this meeting. “I remember Kendrick Perkins had said something and all I know… we all was on the plane. All the coaches was on the bus, ’cause we was all kind of clear the air. And Perk says something that turned on another switch of evil to KG.”

On solid ground, this switch has known to get locker room doors slammed and people getting yelled at. Here, it was scarier to Pierce as a spectator. “I’m sitting here, like Perk is right there and Kevin is walking over to get in his face. And I thought he was going to kill Perk. Like for real, kill him. Like unalive him. Like I saw it in his eyes and he and it was just the most intense moment that we had to like get in between him and I never… and I’ve been around KG for a minute and I’m like I never seen this look. I thought he was really gonna kill Perk over with his bare hands.”

What exactly went down between his teammates that had Pierce this scared even years later.

Kendrick Perkins caught Kevin Garnett in a bad moment

Today Kendrick Perkins and Kevin Garnett have a great friendship and banter across media. At the start though, it wasn’t so. KG’s infamous temper grew while at the Minnesota Timberwolves before Celtics picked Perk in 2003. Wolves KG served Perk his welcome to the NBA moment too. After the Celtics acquired KG in 2007, he and Perk had not spoken a word to each other in the first three weeks.

It was the preseason game in Italy that helped them set their differences aside. That trip must’ve been healing because even Pierce told Edelman he was able to build stronger friendships with Danny Ainge and others during it. But after the championship and losing KG to an injury made things tense once more which culminated in this wild players only team meeting on a plane.

“Kevin was hurt and and going through it because he couldn’t play right now,” the Truth said as he recalled although he doesn’t know the exact words spoken between Perk and KG. He does remember the visual though – Big Ticket sweat, veins popping, the likes. It was bad enough for the team to jump in and stop Garnett. Yet he says incidents like these are what made them a good team.

Doc Rivers wasn’t around to mediate as it was players only, which does get nasty at times. Remarkably this little near homicide didn’t create a wedge. Pierce said they got over quickly and it was business as usual for the Celtics then.

For Perk, who still has close calls for his commentary, he remains a close friend of Garnett. Not so much with the Celts who didn’t invite him back to the 2024 championship parade.