MINNEAPOLIS (NBA.com Exclusive) --  Their legs were the reason the Celtics nearly lost for the first time on Wednesday. Their heads were the reason they didn't.

Boston's stifling defense was absent nearly all night, a symptom of an aging team playing the back end of a difficult back-to-back. But the Celtics mustered their shutdown mode for one final push, holding Minnesota to just one basket in the final 4:37, and rallied to stay unbeaten with a 92-90 escape in Target Center.

"It was just our experience," said Boston coach Doc Rivers, whose veteran club improved to 6-0. "It's nice, on a night when we didn't play well at all, to call upon that experience. Nobody panicked. We just hung in there."

They did, despite an opponent clearly energized by the opportunity to upset a former NBA champion -- and spoil Kevin Garnett's annual visit to his longtime home. Minnesota's major weapon was third-year center Oleksiy Pecherov, who posted a career-high 24 points. But Wolves forwards Al Jefferson and Ryan Gomes, the remnants of the trade that sent Garnett to Boston in 2007, combined to score 19 points in the first half and help Minnesota build a 10-point lead early in the third quarter.

None of which surprised Rivers, not after his team cranked up the defense one night earlier to blow out Philadelphia. The veteran-laden Celtics were obviously running short on energy by the time they reached Minnesota, which the coach noticed right away.

"I was watching Rasheed -- he had threes that I would take all night. And every one of them was [hitting the] front rim," Rivers said of the 35-year-old reserve forward, who made just two of his seven 3-pointers. "So what I was urging for him was, attack the basket because clearly he had no legs. None of our jump shots were going to go."

Indeed, Boston made only 44.6 percent of its shots, including a 3-for-12 night from Paul Pierce. They made just 26.3 percent of their 3-pointers, including Ray Allen's 1-for-7. "It's nice to have adrenalin," Rivers said, "but every team has nights like these."

And, he didn't have to say, the good teams win anyway. That's what Boston did, despite a Minnesota team exploiting its youthfulness and relative rest; the Wolves had not played since Monday. "You could see their young legs," Rivers said. "But in the end, we won with defense on the last couple of possessions. That was nice."

Particularly since it had been absent until then. Boston leads the NBA in defensive shooting percentage, and had held four of its first five opponents below 40 percent. But Minnesota hit at least half of its shots in each of the first three quarters and finished at 52 percent for the game -- the main reason the Timberwolves held the lead for most of the game despite committing 18 turnovers.

Pecherov, acquired from Washington over the summer, took advantage of Boston's lethargic defense to nail nine of his 14 shots, most of them from 15 feet or beyond, and easily shatter his previous career high of 15. Making just his third career start, the Ukrainian 7-footer also grabbed eight rebounds and frustrated Garnett's efforts to guard him.

But the Celtics never allowed the Wolves to pull away. When Pecherov scored on a turnaround scoop shot from six feet away with 4:37 to play, giving Minnesota an 88-87 lead, Boston simply amped up the defense. Minnesota went 1-for-7 the rest of the way -- including a couple of Pecherov jumpers and a Corey Brewer drive to the basket in the final minute that resulted in a jump ball -- and Boston held on for the victory.

"Those decisions are ones where I'm kind of biting my lip," Minnesota coach Kurt Rambis said of his team's down-the-stretch offense. "We'll try to continue to improve on those. It's tremendous for their growth to understand how hard you have to play to win games against quality teams. It's so hard for young teams to win close ballgames -- they just don't have the experience in those situations."

Minnesota didn't get the win, but Rambis hopes his team, now 1-4, got something more important: Experience.

"Absolutely, it's encouraging. We had opportunities. I told the team in the locker room, it's little things, it's a turnover here, it's a pass that should have been made and wasn't. It's the little things that good teams don't let happen," Rambis said. "I'm proud that they're frustrated, they're angry, they're ticked off. I like that. They should be mad, because it'll encourage them to keep working harder so we make those plays like the great teams do."