There wasn't a whole lot of revenge talk in the Celtics' locker room prior to Friday's game with the Raptors (in fairness there wasn't much talk at all. The highlight was probably Nate Robinson reading the birthday card he gave Avery Bradley, who turned 20 on Friday). Sure, last Sunday's 102-101 defeat at Toronto fell in the "mild shocker" category, but a veteran-led team isn't going to get too worked up over any November loss.

But come on, there had to be some need to get back at these guys, right? Isn't that human nature?

Ray Allen stood in front of his locker about an hour and a half before tipoff and denied, denied, denied, telling the assembled media folk that "this is a long, long season. One loss is just one loss." And Doc Rivers wasn't buying any revenge angle either, telling reporters that "once the game starts, all the stuff from last week doesn't matter."

And you know what? After Friday night's 110-101 win over the Raptors at TD Garden it's still unclear how much of a factor revenge really was, save for Kevin Garnett, who was in full fire-breathing mode and admitted after the game that the performance of Andrea Bargnani last Sunday motivated him to his best offensive night of the young season (26 points, 10 rebounds). 

But the problems that plagued the Celtics in Toronto were still lingering on Friday, as the team gave away early double-digit leads, received a less than stellar effort from the bench and were out-rebounded by the Raptors for the second time in a less than a week. 

The Celtics will take the win, though, and enjoy a couple of days off (no practice the next two days, and the team does not play until Tuesday). And it's much needed for this group, who welcomed back an injured star on Friday. And that seems as good a place to start as any:

RAJON RONDO RETURNS AND LOOKED A LOT LIKE RAJON RONDO (AT LEAST EARLY)

Before the game, Rivers was quasi-coy about the possibility of Rondo returning to the lineup after missing the last three games with a left hamstring injury, teasing that he might Tweet the news right before tipoff.

But Rondo was in fact a go, and immediately returned to game-changer status. The hamstring didn't appear to be a factor in a brilliant first quarter that saw the point guard hand out eight assists in his nine minutes on the floor (against just a single turnover). He penetrated at will against an overmatched Jose Calderon, kicking the ball out to an open Ray Allen for a trio of first-quarter 3-pointers. Alley-oop passes to both Shaquille O'Neal and Kevin Garnett? Done and done. 

Admittedly it was pretty sloppy after the opening quarter for Rondo, who finished the game with 14 assists (which will bring his season average down) and eight turnovers. But the big picture news was good: Rondo told reporters after the game that he felt "tired but fine," and Rivers said he saw no sign of Rondo being in any way slowed by the injury.

--

ANOTHER NIGHT, ANOTHER LESSON FROM KEVIN GARNETT

Garnett embarrassed Josh Smith on Monday night, putting up 17 points on 8-for-10 shooting and 11 rebounds in just 23 minutes against two points and three boards in 22 minutes for Smith in their power forward face-off. 

On Friday another young frontliner -- Andrea Bargnani -- was the matchup for Garnett. Bargnani has (while still early in the season) looked an awful lot like a guy about to make the leap to stardom in 2010, averaging 21.9 points (on 44 percent 3-point shooting) a game, including 29 points in the win over Boston last Sunday. 

Garnett doesn't exactly need any more fuel to give him motivation (he seems to do OK on his own), but Doc Rivers let it be known that another big game from Bargnani was unacceptable.

"Doc has different ways of motivating me, and he pulled me to the side and told me he wasn't exactly happy with the Bargnani situation," said Garnett. "I wasn't really pleased with that either."    

And Garnett seemed extra-aggressive on offense, taking his game to the post on Bargnani and finishing with a season-high 26 points on 10-of-18 shooting while holding the Toronto forward to 11 points on 4-of-13 shooting.

"Tonight was more of a concentrated effort to make sure I kept him under control," said Garnett. "It doesn't take much to motivate me, I didn't get much sleep last night … I take defense very seriously. I don't want Bargnani to take it personally but if he does, [guess the expletive] it." 

The addition of Shaquille O'Neal, the leap into "best point guard in the NBA" discussion that we've seen Rondo make and the continued evolution of Glen Davis have all been huge factors in the team's 12-4 start, but story No. 1 for this team one month into the season is that Kevin Garnett looks -- if not exactly like the 2008 version -- awfully close to vintage. 

PAUL PIERCE COULD BE RIGHT

"We might be the worst second-quarter team in basketball," the Celtics captain said after Sunday's loss, a game that saw the Raptors outscore the Celtics by a 38-27 margin in the second quarter. 

So it probably wasn't unreasonable to expect the Celtics to play a clean (or at least extremely focused) second 12 minutes of basketball against this same Toronto team on Friday night. 

But that simply did not happen, as the Raptors put up 32 points against 27 for the Celtics to cut an 11-point lead to six points. Not a disgrace or a huge red flag, but certainly at least a minor surprise. The problem was not the offense, as Shaquille O'Neal and Kevin Garnett each put up eight points as the Raptors offered little resistance inside defensively, but the defense, which allowed Toronto to shoot 13-of-23 from the floor (56.5 percent). 

And a big reason for the failure was the struggles of the bench, as Doc Rivers was quick to point out (without being asked) in his postgame press conference.

"The starters tonight were fantastic," said Rivers. "Let's be unfair for a second. The first and third quarters, they scored 35 [total] points against our starters. And you can make the case in the third quarter because they [the starters] played the whole third quarter. The other two quarters were 32 and 34 [points], and that's our second unit."

Plus/minus isn't a perfect statistic, but it's tough to ignore the numbers from Friday night in the category. The combined plus/minus for the starters? Plus-96. The bench? Minus-51.