Kevin Garnett is not only ready to go, he has been ready — and he’s been scrimmaging 5-on-5 with his Boston Celtics teammates for the past week.

That was the newsiest nugget to come out of Boston’s media day Monday as Garnett pronounced himself almost fully healthy and completely ready — and even a few pounds lighter than usual — to make a strong comeback from the right knee injury that prematurely ended his season last spring and forced him to undergo surgery over the summer.

After spending much of the summer rehabbing in Las Vegas, Garnett returned to Boston earlier in September and had been participating in drills with his teammates until a week ago, when he began scrimmaging again.

“It’s up and down, man. There ain’t no standing around in 5-on-5,” Garnett said.

Garnett said his surgery was a bit more complicated than he had originally expected because of the location and the size of the bone spurs that had to be removed — and the delicacy of removing them without damaging the surrounding structure of the knee.

“No surprises other than the severeness of it — I didn’t know it was that bad,” Garnett said. “They evaluate you from A to Z, but until they actually get in there and see what the problem really is, then you know a 1-to-10 on how severe it was. It was pretty severe, but the best thing about is that I got it out of the way, and my leg is almost 100 percent going forward. Better than anything I’m playing without any pain, which is something I really haven’t had for some time now.”

[ Source ESPN ]