Every team needs a goon to advance in the NBA Playoffs. The Warriors had theirs all along.
That first round of the NBA playoffs is something spectacular, really: players of exceptional talent pitted against players of near-exceptional talent, for the most part, flexing superior genetics and skill in spectacular fashion. Stephen Curry smoking threes over the outstretched hands of the overmatched Pelicans, Chris Paul finally slamming the undead Spurs back into the Zombie Containment Unit and Derrick Rose finally turning a corner and regaining form at just the right moment for the Bulls.
The first round is the time for the featured solo by the best player on the most difficult instrument in the ensemble.
The second round, however, is when the virtuoso needs a break and the tuba player takes a solo, which is where we get to players like Matt Barnes. That thumping, farting sound? That's Matt Barnes taking the stage, blurting and blapping all over the beautiful game you might have wanted to play, hitting the random pesky three and swatting at your best players while calling them and everyone they are related to the most cartoonish profanities imaginable.
This is no exaggeration. In a step too far even for Barnes' tastes, the Clippers' veteran forward told James Harden's mom to "suck my dick, bitch" during Game 2 against the Rockets. It's not enough for Barnes to bump Harden all game long or try anything short of the Bulgarian Umbrella Trick to slow Houston's offensive centerpiece down. He's got to start shit-talking relatives, and Harden, and even Dwight Howard, who he dropped a "bitch" on while walking away in the Clippers' blowout victory Sunday night. He's got to say something grotesquely unacceptable. He has to find the line, then step over it and then dance on it until someone notices with an expression of theatrical disgust.
Barnes missed all four of his three-point attempts on Sunday night. But he did tangle up Dwight Howard, call him a bitch, and pull down eight rebounds, all while serving in his role as the motormouthed, profanity-spewing fly in Houston's analytically-perfect ointment. Barnes has been a professional pain in the ass wherever he's been, but at the advanced age of 35, Barnes has created his masterwork of sheer pestery. Watch every fight that never happens, and every post-whistle scrum, and every low-post sequence that ends with a shove or calculated elbow thrown. Barnes has only averaged nine points a game in the series, but that's never the point. Barnes' job is to annoy the hell out of whomever he's defending, and maybe a few people on the bench, and perhaps the general populace of the opponent's home city.
He's not just an obstruction. He's a traffic cone loaded with bees placed firmly in the path of oncoming traffic.
Barnes is not alone in being a natural, marrow deep goon. If the first round is the floor show for obvious transcendent talent, then the second round is the Hour of the Locust. It is the reckoning point when talent pools boil to an even level and teams have to seek other ways of tilting the table in their favor. Historically, it is when your eye drifts from Tim Duncan to the Bruce Bowens of the world, taekwondo-kicking their team forward to glory.
*Or if you prefer a playoff-specific occasion, the Robert Horrys of the world, willing to check anyone into the scorer's tablein order to win.
Barnes is just one in a cast of All-Star locusts doing playoff-level work. The Wizards have Nene, a nasty presence on a team that already has the verifiably nasty Marcin Gortat. The Hawks -- this year's perfect communist basketball team -- distribute their nastiness pretty evenly, though Paul Millsap just exudes it through his pores at a higher rate than his teammates. The Bulls have Joakim Noah and stealth-pest Mike Dunleavy. The Cavaliers have Kendrick Perkins, the original mean mug of all mean mugs, and the man who inadvertently created the Memphis Grizzlies' "We Don't Bluff" motto when Zach Randolph made a very real threat to beat Perkins' ass during a series with the Thunder.
The Memphis Grizzlies are the one team in the league bold enough to ask and answer the question "What if you made the whole team out of that guy?" The Grizzlies are the boot with no fewer than five heels, stomping through every game with a predictable and intractable gameplan based on punishment, defense and dominance in the paint. At their ugliest and most efficient, it's not even clear whether Memphis even cares that much about scoring. Mike Conley distributes, and Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph take turns swatting the ball in the air until it has no choice but to fall through the basket.
*Yes: exactly like a bunch of bears would if they played basketball, and did not just walk to the arena's dumpsters to begin feeding.
Until Monday night, it was unclear whether Golden State had anything close to the designated goon teams in the playoffs inevitably lean on in times of trouble. The Grizzlies pulled Game 2 and 3 off the Warriors by daring them to defend in the paint and smothering the Warriors' perimeter game. Randolph abused Draymond Green, Gasol cycled through low post scoring moves effortlessly and Tony Allen destroyed Golden State's passing lanes. (He also blew open lay-ups, but counterintuitively that's a sign the Grizz offense is working.) The Warriors got bullied one-on-one and played directly into the hairy, cruel paws of the Grizz.
The Warriors found their mean men, though, or at least changed their dialogue enough to pass them off as proper villains for a night. Andrew Bogut stuck close to the paint, all but ignoring Allen on the perimeter. Allen was allowed to shoot at will, which is a lot like handing a hyperactive 8 year old a loaded pistol: he's going to do something with the opportunity, but you're not sure what, and in the end it probably won't add up to anything good. Bogut banged around happily with Randolph and Gasol for most of the game, getting help from Green and Harrison Barnes, and generally becoming the one thing Golden State needed most against the Grizzlies: a nasty, shot-altering obstruction.
Bogut only had four points on the night, and it didn't matter a bit. An obstruction and nuisance draws attention and opens up space, which was Bogut's job and will be Bogut's job for the rest of the series. He's not a natural, obvious goon on the level of Matt Barnes. Bogut in this role, combined with cameos from Green and others, is more like a goon-like substance. Or, to paraphrase Zach Lowe, Bogut serves as a stealth goon with high-grade dirty tricks that have quietly but consistently helped the Warriors all season long. He's had to amp that up to new levels against the Grizzlies, and become something close enough to a proper obstruction to tie them up where they like to work best.
Even a less-than-obvious obstruction like Bogut makes a team like Memphis, reliant on thumpy lay-ups and hustle play, just a hair slower on the scoring trigger than they need to be. Against Golden State, that kind of margin can balloon to an obese lead before you blink. Throw in Green's lightning start and outsized defense on the night, and you have the Popovich-approved gameplan to turn the Grizzlies into a team dependent on three-point shooting.*
*Draymond Green fought off Z-Bo and Gasol numerous times despite giving up 2 and and 6 inches in height to each, respectively. Draymond Green could have fought a moose last night and walked off wearing antlers.
This is a dark, dark prospect for Memphis, a team that could be gently described as "totally without steady perimeter shooting, except for the dude who currently wears a plastic mask around his face." This prospect is darker: Andrew Bogut's ribs were negative for injury after last night's X-Rays, taken as a precaution after a full night of punishment in the Grindhouse. This is how teams add up under stress: they are only as strong as their weakest link, and right now the weakest link for the Warriors (Andrew Bogut's possibly breakable ribs) might be stronger than the Grizzlies' (their roulette wheel of a perimeter game.)
It's the kind of grim, macho pablum stats-phobic NBA watchers adore, but there's an element of truth to it. To win against the Grizzlies, Andrew Bogut will have to endure some serious punishment and give out just enough to keep the roads clean for the Warriors. If Steph Curry is able to continue dreaming up beautiful threes and driving jump shots from 15 feet against Memphis, it will be because rough men stand ready in the paint to accept violence on his behalf. Get Andrew Bogut a flak jacket. He is so going to need it.