Kevin Garnett is one of the greatest players in NBA history. Garnett had a 20-year career where he won every major accolade he could. Garnett is one of only six players in NBA history to have won the MVP and the Defensive Player Of The Year awards.
On top of that, he is a former NBA champion, winning the title in 2008 alongside Ray Allen and Paul Pierce on the Boston Celtics.
One of the most recognizable characteristics of Garnett’s game was his intensity. Regardless of the game, Garnett always brought hunger and intensity to the court and had a ferocious approach against each opponent.
This often resulted in him having hostility towards his opponents and even led to confrontations on the court. But Garnett was unfazed by that, and never changed his approach to the game.
Kevin Garnett once explained his approach to the game. He noted that he was always bringing the fight to the court, and would not back down. He added that there was no room for softness in the game and that he would look for any and every advantage on the court, regardless of how his opponents felt about it.
One of the most intense players of all time 😤
HBD Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett aka Da Kid aka The Big Ticket pic.twitter.com/TMcuMsrbKN
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) May 19, 2022
“I feel like my intensity is right where it needs to be. If you’re going to be anything in this league, you gotta have an edge. There’s no room for soft, there’s no room for a person who is going to give ground. Hell yeah, I’m trying to gain an advantage out here. If you not, then you’re in trouble. If you can’t handle it? Get off the court… My job is to stop people so I don’t anticipate you liking me, I don’t anticipate you trying to be my friend because I’m not trying to be your friend… The stuff you probably hear about me, is not even true. I’m not doing anything different than I’ve been doing for 15-16 years I’ve been playing. It’s never personal toward anybody I’m playing. It’s the way I play. Night in, night out…”
Garnett once also shared his gratitude for how his former teammate Shaquille O’Neal was raised, noting that Shaq was raised right, and if he wasn’t, he would have been more dangerous than he already was during his career. Garnett once even talked trash to Michael Jordan but learned his lesson immediately after.
Kevin Garnett’s trash talk is the stuff of legends. But not everyone appreciated his trash talk and often felt like he crossed the line. Udonis Haslem recently slammed Garnett for crossing the line while talking trash, harkening back to their encounters during the Heat-Celtics rivalry in the early 2010s.
