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The Celtics were as intimidating as they had been the last two seasons. Perhaps more so, with the addition of the league’s misunderstood mascot for anger management, Rasheed Wallace.

But they didn’t impose themselves with words, they did it with defense.

From the time Kendrick Perkins swatted Felton not once but twice on equally listless baseline drives early in the first quarter, the tone was set. It took Charlotte nearly five minutes to score their first basket.

“I think we had eight turnovers in the first eight or nine minutes, and that led to a lot of their points,’’ Brown said. “Then we got back in the game, cut it to 5 with the ball, and then all hell broke loose.’’

The Celtics held the Bobcats to 3-of-15 shooting in the first quarter, 3-of-17 shooting in the third quarter, and 23-of-74 shooting for the night.

One of the statistics Celtics coach Doc Rivers has his assistants track is deflections, and he said, “It was as high as you could possibly get it at halftime, and I thought we carried it over.’’

Playing in just his second home game since injuring his knee last February, Kevin Garnett reveled in seeing the Celtics’ defense suffocate another team.

“We work on it every single day,’’ said Garnett, who had 10 points and seven rebounds in 26 minutes. “When you shut a team down, that’s hard work and effort.’’

The Celtics went into the locker room up, 42-31, and halfway through the third quarter the Bobcats were still stuck on 31, thanks to another scoring drought that lasted 6:08.

Meanwhile, a Celtics offense that wasn’t perfect (43.4 percent from the floor, 11 of 29 from 3-point range), was at the very least opportunistic, scoring points off fast breaks (16), second chances (12), and taking advantage of the Bobcats’ 21 turnovers by turning them into 27 points.