Kevin Garnett to sit out Saturday for rest

For the first time this season, 38-year-old veteran Kevin Garnett is taking a night off.

The Brooklyn Nets will have Garnett sit out Saturday's game against the San Antonio Spurs as a regular rest day, robbing fans of one of the last potential showdowns between Garnett and Tim Duncan.

It makes sense to monitor Garnett's workload, of course. He played just 54 games a season ago and has averaged 15.4 nights off over the past seven seasons. He's also played in all 12 Nets games so far, including an 18-minute stint against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday. This is par for the course and part of an 82-game plan.

Garnett is averaging 7.3 points and 8.3 rebounds on 45.7 percent shooting, all up slightly from his 2013-14 performance. The move back to primarily playing power forward has agreed with him thus far, though the Nets have played much better defense in this season's small sample when Garnett hits the bench.

It's unclear who may start in Garnett's place, though Mirza Teletovic has been the team's primary backup power forward.

The real issue here is missing out on Garnett and Duncan, a battle that's happened 43 times in the regular season and eight times in the playoffs since 1997. Duncan holds a significant edge in regular season wins, but their stats have been comparable.