HOUSTON – A half hour after the Punch That Didn’t Land, Charles Bassey strolled back into the Golden State Warriors locker room, repeating the same two words that are in rapid danger of becoming his catchphrase.
“Fake toughness,” Bassey proclaimed. “Fake toughness.”
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For all intents and purposes, however, this was real toughness, on Wednesday night. Late in the third quarter of a hotly-contested matchup between two longtime Western Conference foes – a matchup already crackling with the tension of Stephen Curry‘s first-quarter injury – Houston guard Marcus Smart and Bassey became entangled and exchanged words near midcourt. The recollections of what happened thereafter vary slightly, depending on which side you asked.
“He said, ‘Hey, don’t do that,'” Bassey said, after Houston’s 115-108 win over Golden State. “I’m like, ‘Do what? It’s a grown man’s league.'”
Smart “said they got wrapped up,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said in a postgame press conference, as multiple Houston reporters shared. “And his elbow, that he had hurt, got bent up. And so he said something to him. And Bassey said, ‘What are you going to do?’ And he did it.”
Well, not exactly. From nowhere came a punch. A right jab, to be specific. Bassey ducked his head, just so that Smart’s hand caught nothing but air. A cohort of Warriors, led by rookie Yaxel Lendeborg, quickly intervened to pull Smart away. And the 32-year-old Smart headed for the locker room before referees even had the chance to eject him, which they did, of course.
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Bassey, a reserve center who has infused the Warriors’ bench units with life, decried the whole incident postgame. Fake toughness. Smart was “playing dirty the whole game,” Bassey said, and alleged the guard grabbed his knee and hand earlier in the night.
“I knew he was gonna do something,” Bassey said. “I baited for him to do something, because I knew he was going to do something. I don’t think he was trying to play. I think he was trying to get himself out of the game. He wasn’t trying to play … I think he was trying to chill. He wasn’t trying to hoop, bro.”
There is a pattern forming, here, win or loss. Draymond Green, Golden State’s emotional ringleader, repeated “I don’t know” when asked why these Warriors continue to find themselves in a bevy of early-season skirmishes. Reason or not, they continue to add up.
There has been Green’s takedown of Suns big Khaman Maluach, and Georges Niang’s noggin-to-noggin barking, and technicals for rookie Yaxel Lendeborg. Lendeborg, on a recent online stream, declared these Warriors the “remodeled Bad Boy Pistons” and predicted at least “10 more ejections” in Golden State’s future.
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Warriors head coach Steve Kerr has talked, in the recent past, about how his team has yet to find its identity. His players, though, appear to have found one. At least, in collective spirit.
“Yeah, that’s how this gon’ be,” Green said Wednesday night, asked about Lendeborg and others coming to Bassey’s defense after Smart’s punch. “You up against one, you up against all. That’s the way we rocking.
“So, love the way that all the guys got in the mix. We always talk about that. Something going on with your team, get in the mix. And guys got in the mix. That’s important.”
Green, for all his reputation, has found himself in a strange place early in Golden State’s 8-4 start: one of the Warriors’ less-frequent instigators. There was the Phoenix takedown of Maluach, sure. That was done more in long-term calculation to prove a point, fair or not. Green is now sharing a locker room, however, with a rookie in Lendeborg who in his first game told the NBA’s leading scorer he “sucks,” and a veteran in Niang who is hovering around 0.5 skirmishes-per-game this season, and a reserve center in Bassey who seems to be attracted to fresh beef like a cloud of flies.
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This, on Wednesday night, was a unique circumstance. It happened so quickly that multiple players didn’t actually see Smart swing in real time.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that,” Niang said of the punch. “I was shocked. But, sometimes, you never know – not saying that it’s OK, you never know what’s going on in people’s lives outside of here. This is a big, like, ball of energy in this arena, in this game, right. And sometimes those emotions get the best of you. I don’t think Marcus Smart is a horrible person to say the least, right? I actually have a pretty close relationship with him. It’s just unfortunate that it had gotten to that.”
It is undeniably clear, though: if tensions rise, these Warriors – one way or another – will take it there.
“I try to use my stuff wisely,” Green said, asked on the concept of being a Warrior who’s less-involved in on-court extracurriculars. “But I like it. I like the attitude. I think – I’m cool with that attitude.
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“I’d rather it be that way than the opposite.”
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This article originally published at Warriors center Charles Bassey decries Marcus Smart’s attempted punch as ‘fake toughness’.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
