Kevin Garnett has been troublesome to the Trail Blazers, both with his play on the court and his talking. Or shall we say taunting. In fact, the last time the Blazers played the Celtics, in Boston, Garnett got down on all fours and mocked Jerryd Bayless late in the game.

I’m not sure this is the game when it’s going to happen, but at some point, somebody with a Trail Blazer shirt on is going to respond to this guy. And in a physical way. I can just feel it. At the very least, someone is going to have to send him a message, even if it’s just in the form of a very hard, but clean, foul.

(By the way, Anthony Peeler was once a teammate of Garnett and knew exactly how to handle him when his team met the Timberwolves in the playoffs one year. Remember this? Garnett didn’t know whether to spit or go blind.)

Portland coach Nate McMillan isn’t the kind of guy who will tell his players to go lay one on Garnett. What he’d rather have is for his players to stick it to Garnett where it hurts the most — on the scoreboard. But don’t take that to mean he’s told his players not to respond to Garnett in some way — with words or actions.

“I won’t tell them not to respond,” he said. ” You can’t put your tail between your legs. But the important thing is to just play. Talking is one thing, but you’ve got to play.”

People always talk about teams taking on the personality of their head coach and I think that’s happened in Portland, where the Trail Blazers don’t complain, they play hard and do things the right way — just as McMillan did as a player. But one thing is missing and that’s McMillan’s physical toughness. Trust me on this, as a guy who watched him play a lot of times, Nate McMillan took no guff from anybody.

And at some point, his players are going to have to pick up that physical toughness trait. When they do, they’re going to be a better team, not only against Kevin Garnett but against everyone else.

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