Kevin Garnett and Rasheed Wallace jockey for position during Celtics practice Monday in Waltham, Mass.

AP photo / Winslow Townson

The Celtics’ bench is deeper than ever and the Big Three aren’t getting any younger, but don’t expect Boston coach Doc Rivers to limit the playing time of any of his stars save for Kevin Garnett, who is returning from knee surgery and battling shin pain.

While Rivers said it sounds good in theory to limit his starters to less than 30 minutes a night to prevent injury and excess fatigue before the postseason, he believes that holding them back would do more harm than good.

“You have to play your starters for a certain amount of minutes,” Rivers said. “People think that if you can play them 28 minutes a night that’s good, but that’s awful. If you look historically, Michael Jordan never played under 37 minutes a night. There is a reason for that — rhythm. You have to keep your rhythm during the season. [Playing fewer minutes] sounds like a great idea, but if you play them 28 minutes to conserve them, then you throw them out of their rhythm.”

Celtics captain Paul Pierce and fellow All-Star Ray Allen both said they don’t want to play fewer minutes to conserve themselves for the postseason if it means the Celtics are going to lose games.

“That doesn’t make sense to me,” Pierce said. “I’m trying to win every game we play. … When I step out on the court and the other guys step out on the court, we play to win.”

“We’re going to be who we are,” Rivers said. “We are not going to apologize for it. We are going to play every night to win games, and at the same time, because we have a bench, the minutes will be fairly good.”

Rivers said that ideally he would like to play his starters somewhere between 32 and 36 minutes a night.

“Everybody’s different and you don’t know what it is until it starts,” Rivers said. “With Kevin, with injuries, you might have to do it less. … I think Paul is one of those guys that you can play any stretch of minutes, but Kevin and Ray need minutes. That’s what they need to get going to get their plays.”

With a stocked bench that is “light years” better than it was last season, Rivers will have the opportunity to play Boston’s starters fewer minutes this season, but don’t expect him to unless the Celtics have a big lead.

The Celtics have three players on their bench — four-time All-Star Rasheed Wallace, Marquis Daniels and Glen Davis — who were regular starters last season.

“Our second unit could be a starting unit for a lot of teams around the league,” Pierce said.

“The guys we’ve added, they know how to play,” Rivers said.

Rivers said he doesn’t expect Wallace to have a problem coming off the bench.

“The bottom line is just to win, so that pretty much persuaded me to come over here,” Wallace said.

Wallace will have a similar role to what James Posey had during Boston’s 2008 championship season. Posey was a sparkplug off the bench that season. He was a catalyst on both ends of the floor.

Like Posey did at times, Wallace could be on the floor in the fourth quarter with Garnett and Perkins, which would give the Celtics a big lineup that would be tough to defend during crunch time.

“Rasheed will be there in the fourth quarter just like [James] Posey was,” Rivers said. “The difference in some ways, and it is a better difference in some ways, we would go small in the post [in 2008] and the three would have to guard the four, but now we can stay tall with Rasheed at the three and the five would have to guard him. I think teams are going to have to decide how [to defend us]. … Rasheed is such a smart player that anytime you put a four on him he would post him up, and every time you put a five on him he would stand behind the 3-point line.”

Daniels, meanwhile, will run the point with Boston’s second unit. He will also get a chance to play with most of Boston’s starters when he gives either Allen or Pierce a breather and the rest of the first unit is still on the floor.

“With the type of unit that we have, the unselfishness out there with these guys, [individual statistics are] not going to matter,” Pierce said. “We are all out there to try to win ball games. Even if my minutes go down, I don’t really mind, because it’s all about winning at the end of the day.”

The Celtics want to win games, capture home-court advantage in the playoffs and raise championship banner No. 18 at the end of the season.

“I have total confidence in this ballclub,” Pierce said. “I just know that if we are healthy [winning the title] is going to happen.”

“Our goal is to win the championship,” Rivers said.

roblee@projo.com