Rivers said Garnett was a little sore Friday and that the team isn't taking any chances with him.

"We can't play him any more," Rivers said of the current time restriction. "You can see that right now. It's just a tough one.

"We hope by next week we can increase his minutes and see if he can play a stint and then come back in that same half and play. But right now it's just not the time to do that.

"We realize we don't have a lot of practices. If we thought we had a ton of practice time, we probably wouldn't play him in some ways. But we're using this for him as his spring training. For everybody else, it's playing games."

Rivers said the increased playing time will amount to about another four minutes each half.

"Once he gets through that, then he's good," Rivers said. "Obviously playing Orlando and Atlanta we would love to (play him longer), but it's not worth it. It really isn't."

Garnett is ready for the increased workload.

"That's fine," he said. "I'm with whatever the program calls for. At this point it's about getting better and getting healthier. We're still a work in progress."

CELTICS 99, HAWKS 93: Glen Davis stepped up with 19 points and 12 rebounds in Kevin Garnett's absence, leading the Celts to a win in Atlanta Friday night. Davis had 10 points and 10 rebounds by halftime, and the Celtics led by as many as 20 early in the fourth quarter. The Hawks staged a comeback that forced the Celtics to put Paul Pierce in the game. The hosts got as close as four points, but Pierce hit four free throws in the last minute and Ray Allen had a key offensive rebounds to hold Atlanta off.

"Just mental toughness," said Doc Rivers. "We've got a group that believes they're going to win games no matter who's on the floor. They were talking about winning. I didn't hear anybody talking about injuries."

The win brought the Celtics to 3-0 against the Hawks this season. They finish 2-0 in Atlanta, where they lost all three playoff games in last year's first round.