Kevin Garnett had stifled him once, and Andray Blatche would not let it happen again.

Garnett got the best of Blatche the last time the Wizards faced the Celtics in early March. His taunting flustered the big man, causing him to commit careless fouls and the Wizards eventually blundered away a win. Blatche said Garnett came so close he could feel his lips touching his cheek.

On Friday, Blatche kept Garnett out of his head -- and away from his cheek.

“I didn’t think it was a big deal at all. It was something I just thought was part of the game. Trash talking is part of the game,” Blatche said before the game. “He’s still a great player. That’s not my focus. My focus is to go out and stick to the game plan and compete.”

Blatche kept his composure and was the driving force behind the Wizards’ 106-96 win over the Celtics. (Recap.)

He recorded a double-double with a game-high 31 points (12-23 FG) and 11 rebounds. It paid for Blatche to listen to his coach, Flip Saunders, instead of his competition.

“It goes back to the respect of my coach,” he said after the game. “My coach said don’t say nothing, just play your game, let your game talk, and that’s what I tried to do.”

While the Wizards let their game talk -- they fended off a late fourth quarter run -- the Celtics were left trying to find the words to explain what went wrong.

Here are three things we learned from the Celtics’ loss to the Wizards:

'THERE'S NO EXCUSE FOR IT'

Doc Rivers looks to himself after the Celtics loss. He pointed out that he didn’t have the team practice on Thursday nor did he hold a shoot-around on Friday.

“I told our guys I really took the blame for this loss,” he said. “I gave our guys yesterday off and shoot-around off today and nothing, you know sometimes we meet in the morning for guys to get shots. I forbade anybody from going to the gym today because we need our rest and I thought it really killed our rhythm.

“So you could just see it, they couldn’t get their engines started. They were stuck in mud the entire game. And I really thought that doing that was probably the reason for. I still would take the rest, having said that, but I just thought we’d play better.”

The players say it’s not fair to pin it on the coach, though. He isn’t the one on the court. 

“Doc is going to look at himself first to figure out what he can do better, but as a team we’ve got to take responsibility as well,” said Ray Allen. “Doc can’t get out there on the floor. It’s whoever is out there. We have to cheer each other on and we have to have the effort every night.”

Paul Pierce has weathered the ups and down with Rivers over the years. He knows his coach bears responsibility but refuses to let him carry the blame. Winning this game was up to the players. And in the end, Pierce summed it up the same way as he did the team’s loss to the Spurs -- an old-fashioned butt whooping.

“It really comes from the players,” he said. “When we go out there and put that type of effort, I don’t think we really played with any toughness against this Washington Wizards team that has been struggling all year long. There’s really no excuse for it.

“I just think when you say playing with toughness, a lot of things come along with that -- loose balls, having energy, a sense of urgency. All those little things come into play when I say we didn’t play with any toughness, and that’s what it was tonight. We just got an old-fashioned butt whooping.”

A BIG PROBLEM WAS ON DISPLAY

Earlier this week, the Celtics gave up 17 points and 18 rebounds to Earl Barron and another 13 points and 11 rebounds to David Lee in their loss to the Knicks. They were outrebounded, 44-34.

On Friday, they gave up 31 points and 11 rebounds to Andray Blatche along with 14 points and 11 boards to JaVale McGee. The Celtics were outrebounded, 49-40.

While rebounding has been a concern for the Celtics the entire season, the issue is keeping their opponents off the boards and away from the basket.

“Not let them score,” Ray Allen said of the solution. “We definitely have to keep those long, athletic guys away from the basket. I think that’s the commonality. Just box those guys out and let the ball fall where it may.”

The Celtics rank 29th in rebounding, better only than the Warriors.

A RARE OPPORTUNITY FOR A POSTSEASON TUNEUP

Rivers may not have held practice but the loss gave him the opportunity to work on a few plays. He turned to his bench late in the fourth quarter and plays worked so well, the reserves cut the deficit to single digits.

“I was just working on stuff,” Rivers said. “You know, really, just working on [plays] that we may need in a playoff game and probably wouldn’t even be the same guys running them. But all those things I never run.

“They were just stuff that, when you get a chance like that, you’d rather have those opportunities when you’re winning but you can’t do that because you’ve got a big lead and that’s bad sportsmanship. But when you’re down you can actually call those timeouts and work on stuff. And you know we learned some things there. We saw some things that we probably could run.”

Marquis Daniels and Nate Robinson drove the offense during the late push. Robinson scored 11 points (including three consecutive 3-pointers) in less than 30 seconds; Daniels had eight points in less than four minutes. 

“It wasn’t a surprise, I mean it’s their job. It’s what they should do,” said Rivers. “ I was more surprised that they could be that effective sitting that long and then coming in and make shots. That’s always nice to see. I think Nate can just wake up and make shots. That’s who he is.

“And that’s, like I told you guys last week, Nate is not in our rotation right now but he’ll win a playoff game for us. There’ll be a game where we’re flat and we’re going to need somebody to come in and make something happen and Nate will do that. And I told him that yesterday, that there’ll be a game where he’s going to win this.  He’s going to win us a playoff game.”

As for Daniels, Rivers said, “It’ll depend on how the guys are playing and how he’s working and practicing and everything else.”