Celtics forward Kevin Garnett has been voted as the NBA Defensive Player of the Year

Celtics forward Kevin Garnett became the first Boston player to be voted as the league's Defensive Player of the Year today.

Garnett earned 493 points (90 first place votes, 12 second place, seven third place). Denver Nuggets center Marcus Camby finished second with 178 points.

Garnett led the Celtics to hold opponents to 90.3 points per game. Garnett averaged 7.3 defensive rebounds per game, 1.2 blocks per game, and 1.4 steals per game. He had a season-high seven blocks at Chicago on Dec. 12.

Kia Motors will donate a seven-passenger SUV in Garnett's name to the Boston Center for Youths and Families, which supports KG's Big Ticket Challenge Program.

Boston Garden..

He earned it through sweat and blood

That's awesome.

He deserves it . Changes everything the opposition does when he's in.

Wil, he's not quite Bill Russell. But in modern day NBA don't think we could ask for more.

RobFunk said:

That's awesome.

He deserves it . Changes everything the opposition does when he's in.

Wil, he's not quite Bill Russell. But in modern day NBA don't think we could ask for more.

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agree glad he got it

how is garnett more worthy then dwight howard?

good for him.... very tough award to have a clear runaway. Can't really say he did not deserve it.

easy choice and deserving... wonder how many russell would have won if this award existed when he played

gtc08 said:

how is garnett more worthy then dwight howard?

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:lol:

i guess im the only one, even though howard has better defensive statistics.

gtc08 said:

i guess im the only one, even though howard has better defensive statistics.

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Its not always about statistics. Also is this the same Howard that was call out for his defense by his coach about 2 or 3 months ago.

As Expected.

RobFunk said:

That's awesome.

He deserves it . Changes everything the opposition does when he's in.

Wil, he's not quite Bill Russell. But in modern day NBA don't think we could ask for more.

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In modern day NBA if you want to ask for more - just look at #21 for the Spurs.

[http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/extras/celtics_blog/2012/06/wally_szczerbia.html


Wally Szczerbiak changes tune on Kevin Garnett: 'KG proved me completely wrong'
Print | Comments () Posted by Steve Silva, Boston.com Staff *June 6, 2012 02:51 PM
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By Steve Silva, Boston.com Staff

Former Celtic and current CBS Sports basketball analyst caused a bit of a stir last week when he criticized former teammate Kevin Garnett on Twitter, calling Garnett's late Game 2 work 'horrible' and said the Big Ticket was lacking a '#clutchgene.'
Szczerbiak did a bit of backtracking on his old friend-and-foe on WEEI's Dennis & Callahan show on Wednesday.

"Like he said in his interview last night, it's incredible what he's doing right now at his age," Szczerbiak said in the radio interview. "It is a credit to his craft, how professional he is. …He's playing the best basketball quite possibly I've ever seen him play, at the biggest moments. It's just incredible.

"The reason why I put the tweet out there about the clutch gene is to be objective. In our profession, our job is to be objective. We put LeBron on blast for not having the clutch gene. Watching KG throughout his career, now with Boston, I just threw it out there that, hey, let's keep an eye on KG at crunch time and see what he does at crunch time. Because in years past, when we were with Minnesota, we had guys like Sam Cassell that took the big shot. Now with Boston he has Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. And to KG's credit, why wouldn't you defer to those guys at the end of games? They're big-shot-makers. Paul Pierce showed it again last night."

Then Szczerbiak threw out the major mea-culpa.

"Having said that, KG proved me completely wrong last night," Szczerbiak said. "[He] made two huge free throws down the stretch and made a big 15-footer. If I'm one of the naysayers that's helping motivate KG play at this level, then maybe the Boston fans owe me a little thank you. Because he's just playing off the charts."

Not sure "thank you" is what Celtics fans will be shouting at Szczerbiak if he shows up for Game 6 at the Garden Thursday night.

It may be something else.

dude has been incredible..