Rest may be key in restless matchup

Who knew the NBA playoffs could be so relaxing?

Granted, around here, we’re not experienced with extended NBA postseasons, but the pace seems a tad mellow. The Giants squashed a championship run into a calendar month. The NFL is a march through January into early February. But the NBA asks teams to win 16 games in, oh, 62 days, give or take.

The Warriors, who haven’t played for a week and who will play exactly two games in 14 days, have been on a working vacation.

Spa-treatment days are over. Things are about to change, with the physical Memphis Grizzlies coming to town.

“This is going to be an ice-bath series,” Andrew Bogut said. “Lots of bruises, scratches, niggles. That’s just the way it’s going to be.”

That’s the way Memphis likes it. Ice needed. Bruises. Scratches. And

lots of niggles — whatever those are, but assume it must be Australian for something painful.

That’s one reason that, prior to this season, the Warriors were on a 4-16 run against the Grizzles, 1-9 on the road in Memphis’ aptly nicknamed Grindhouse.

Physical matchup. Bad matchup. Scary matchup. Completely and utterly different from those sweet New Orleans Pelicans, who put up a nice fight but succumbed in four games.

“It’s a very different team, totally different matchup,” head coach Steve Kerr said. “They’re not going to jump out on the high screen-and-roll to harass (Stephen Curry). They'll try to clog the paint and take away our driving lanes.”

This is going to be a “paint game,” played under the basket, and the Grizzlies will try to slow it down and muddy it up. Which means that noted Warriors detractor Charles Barkley expects Memphis to win.

The Warriors aren’t intimidated by playing that way. This season, the Warriors were 2-1 against Memphis, undefeated with Bogut in the lineup. They’ll bring in Festus Ezeli and Marreese Speights, whose face lit up at the prospect of the pending physicality, “because I might get a chance to play a lot.” David Lee is healthy and will give Kerr more options.

The Warriors are still favored in this matchup, but this is the postseason. And that brings out a special quality in the Grizzlies.

“The biggest difference is, they’re a team that's been there,” Kerr said. “They’re experienced, they’ve been in the playoffs the last several years, conference finals, seven-game series. They’ve seen it all. Their experience will serve them well.”

That experience includes twice knocking off the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference in recent years.

In 2011, the eighth-seeded Grizzlies took down the San Antonio Spurs 4-2 before losing in seven games to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

In 2013, the fifth-seeded Grizzlies beat the Clippers in the first round and then took out top seed Oklahoma City in five games. The Spurs got payback with a sweep of Memphis in the Western Conference finals.

“Yeah, it gives them a lot of confidence,” said Speights, who played in Memphis in the 2011-2012 season and part of the following season and is still close to many players there. “But it’s 2015. And we're a different team.”

Yes, but the core of the Grizzlies is the same that accomplished all of that: Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph and Mike Conley — who might play despite a fractured face (and you won't have to pay $100 on pay-perview to see him). The Grizzlies are vastly more experienced than the Warriors when it comes to postseason play.

“I think it’s a calming, relaxing feeling coming into the playoffs,” said Vince Carter, the Grizzlies’ 38-year-young swingman.

But the Warriors lead the Grizzlies in beauty rest.

“Can a long layoff hurt?” a rude reporter asked Kerr.

“Your glass is half-empty, Ann,” he said. “My glass is half-full. I don't think this is going to be a problem.

“But we know how it works. If we play well, it’s because we’re rested. And if we don’t, it’s because we’re rested.”

Probably. Rest seems to be a theme in the NBA playoffs.