It should have been a night of redemption for Kevin Garnett.

After sitting out the entire 2009 playoffs with a knee injury, Garnett made his return to the postseason on Saturday night in Game 1 of the first-round series with the Miami Heat. 

And while he wasn't quite vintage KG (think 2000-08,) he wasn't close to the cover band version of Garnett that we've seen over the last two years. In 33 minutes Garnett posted a 15-9-3 line (shooting 6-of-10 from the field) to help the Celtics pick up a come-from-behind 85-76 win and take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.

Without question, it was shaping up to be Garnett's finest moment since Game 6 of the 2008 Finals (26-14 in the clincher.) He was, once again, a factor. Nothing spectacular, just a real solid night of work. If you entered the game on the fence when it came to the idea of Garnett being "finished", what he was able to produce on the court should have put that notion to rest. 

All the stuff that you love about Garnett -- the energy, the defense, the shooting touch, the aggression, the athleticism -- were on display during the first 47 minutes and 20 seconds of a nice comeback win over the Heat to kickoff what some folks in the Celtics locker room have told us is the start of the real season.

That should have been the story. 

But then Quentin Richardson just had to walk over…

And Kevin Garnett's night of redemption turned into a meltdown.

Hope that elbow to Quentin Richardson's mug was worth it, KG, because if history is any indication (think Dwight Howard in last year's playoffs) you are getting suspended for Game 2. 

Look, Garnett is 34 years old. He has played in nearly 1,200 NBA games. The bottom line is this: He has to know better. If Quentin Richardson wants to talk trash to Paul Pierce, let him talk trash to Paul Pierce. Who cares? What does it mean? Did anyone really think that Richardson was going to attack Pierce physically at that point? The game is over, get off the court and start worrying about Game 2. Any veteran worth a nickel would tell you that. I know Kevin Garnett would be the first to tell you that.

I can't think of another player of the last 20 years that one could argue Garnett is on a level with historically that would react as he did in that situation. Would Tim Duncan? Kobe Bryant? Did you see Dwyane Wade throwing elbows in the middle of that fracas?

And sure, I understand that he was initially defending a fallen teammate. Swell. But after he made sure that Pierce was OK, he should have left the rest to the refs and moved as far away from that situation as possible. Nothing good was going to come out of a conversation with Quentin Richardson. For whatever reason, he doesn't like the Celtics and they don't like him. 

You'd like to think that Garnett is composed enough to resist the desire to jaw with a supporting actor like Richardson. All "Q" wants is to stir up some trouble at that point in the game. Garnett has to realize that A) in a big-picture sense the playoffs mean a whole lot more than some feud with Richardson and B) he's getting paid $18 million a season to win a title, not to act as a bodyguard 

But Garnett -- who is a team-first guy 99.9999 percent of the time -- acted selfishly. He let his need to get into it with a Grade A instigator take over. And he has potentially put the Celtics -- who should have walked away from Game 1 with nothing but momentum and positive vibes -- in a spot that would see them undermanned in Game 2. Are you ready for 35 minutes of Rasheed Wallace? 

I know that some people are going to break out the old "The NBA has gone soft" card when Garnett is suspended. And I'm not sure I totally disagree with that sentiment. But it's irrelevant to what happened Saturday night. If you or I had asked Kevin Garnett an hour before tipoff what the punishment would be if he threw a flagrant elbow and hit another player above the shoulder I'm almost positive he would tell you that he would be suspended. So, yes, Kevin McHale wasn't punished for the Kurt Rambis takedown and Robert Parish wasn't kicked out of the game when he clocked Bill Laimbeer with a right hand. 

But that's the way it was then. And probably because stuff like that was allowed, this is the way it is now. And Kevin Garnett knows that. 

"I gotta use my head," lamented Garnett after the game.

I watched the press conference and believe that Garnett was legitimately contrite. If he could jump back into the DeLorean (or are we now at the point where a Hot Tub Time Machine reference is has to be made?) and avoid any contact with Richardson --verbal or otherwise -- I'm sure he would. Now that temperatures have cooled a little and he has time to think I'll bet all the money in my pockets against all the money in yours that he is sick about what happened. And embarrassed, even.

But it's hard to shake the idea that this isn't exactly a galloping shock. And when Garnett is done and the debate about where exactly he sits at the table of the all-time greats is considered stuff like the Richardson incident matters. It just does. Is it pushing it to call Garnett "mentally fragile?" Maybe. But you can get into his head, and that has been proven more than once in his Celtics career, forgetting the decade-plus he spent in Minnesota.

"You make your bed, you have to lie in it," Garnett said Saturday. "It just is what it is. If I see any of my teammates down, I want to make sure they are all right. So if I have to deal with it, than that's what it is."

The bed is made. 

And my guess is that Kevin Garnett will need to wait until Game 3 for another shot at redemption.