Boogie Man doesn’t faze Valanciunas
Toronto’s Jonas Valanciunas swears he doesn’t remember, but at some point in his career he did DeMarcus (Boogie) Cousins wrong and the New Orleans Pelicans big man has never forgotten it.
Maybe it was that elbow in the 2014 semifinals of the FIBA World Cup. Valanciunas planted one right into Cousins’ adam’s apple and Cousins made like he was going to take a swing at the Lithuanian centre who was already turned away and ducking away.
Cooler heads prevailed, but something had to spark this fire that burns within Cousins every time he matches up with the Raptors’ centre.
Or maybe it was something else, but few would argue Cousins has a special place in his heart for Valanciunas when it comes to inflicting whatever hurt he can.
He’s constantly bumping, brushing, chirping at, growling at, or just glaring at the Lithuanian big man.
Conversely Valanciunas barely looks at the Pelicans’ big man other than to size up his intentions on a drive or a three-point scoring attempt.
But to Valanciunas’ immense credit, he refuses to take the bait. Bump after bump, jibe after jibe, shove after shove, Valanciunas plays through it and refusing to engage.
“I don’t have nothing against him,” Valanciunas said after taking on the consensus best centre in the game twice in the same week and helping his team come out on top both times. “I even like to play like that. See him barking all the time. It’s fun. It’s a different matchup. He’s a good player but he barks a lot.”
It’s not just the barking with Cousins. It seems every chance he gets to bump shoulders with an opponent or make contact, he goes out of his way to do so. It could be our imagination but he seems to do so with even more fervour with Valanciunas, seeking him out after a basket as he turns to get back up court just so he can give him a subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle shot.
Valanciunas says it’s not the first time he has had to deal with this kind of bully behaviour.
“I found Kevin Garnett like that,” he said of the then Celtics big man who also enjoyed taking on Raptors although he was an equal opportunity hater with Chris Bosh, Andrea Bargnani and even Jose Calderon all taking their turn as the focal point of Garnett’s attention. Valanciunas was probably the last Raptor to receive it both when Garnett was with the Celtics and then again when he moved on to the Brooklyn Nets.
“I had a chance to play against him and he was like that, maybe tougher, but now we got Boogie. It’s fine with me. I’m enjoying it, too. That just motivates me even more.”
Valanciunas says it’s not a matter of him keeping his composure as much as it is just using that behaviour to make him play even harder.
“I’m telling you that is what motivates me more,” he said. “He gives me that shot. He’ll say something. I’m not a talker. I don’t talk on the court. We won two games in a row against them. That’s all I need to say, right?”
As much as their two paths have crossed and clashed on the court, Valanciunas admits he’s never met Cousins, a guy who has befriended both Raptors’ Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan off the court.
The question was put to him: if he had the chance would he like to meet Cousins off the court?
Valanciunas doesn’t hesitate. “Nah, I got my own problems,” he said.
But what Valanciunas does on a night-in, night-out basis with these bigger, more physical centres is not lost on his head coach. And Dwane Casey points out Cousins is a special case and it has nothing to do with any real or perceived grudge he might have with Valanciunas.
“The problem is you rassle with him, you battle him down, there’s so much, then you have to go out and guard his three-ball,” Casey said. “That’s the difference, that’s the change of pace you’ve got to have and I thought JV did an extra special job. It was the one time we didn’t have to talk about ‘are we going to double-team’ or what do we do?”