ESPN.com -WALTHAM, Mass. — Kevin Garnett will miss at least the next four games with a sore right knee and may return for the final three games of the Boston Celtics‘ regular season.

The emotional leader and defensive star of the defending NBA champions has missed 15 of the last 19 games, including the last two.

Coach Doc Rivers said after practice Tuesday that the team would be “shutting down” Garnett for most of the remaining seven regular-season games because of continued soreness in the knee, first injured on Feb. 19 at Utah.

This is bad news for my Celtics. KG is the single most important player to this team, and while they should still have no problem dominating in the first round, Orlando and Cleveland will both beat them if they don’t have the big ticket. It’s unclear how serious the issue is, but I have been saying since he went down the first time to just lay off until they lose a game in the playoffs. Then you can ride a healthy big man long and hard to a championship.

There is no way, that they call him “Big Baby” because he acts like a….Big….Baby…is it? There has to be more to it than that, right? Well, apparently not. Check out the huddle with Garnett getting after the second string’s poor play in a Garnett led huddle on the sidelines.