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'4-foot-9' J.J. Barea can't help but laugh after ejection for pushing Blake Griffin

Dan Devine
·Senior NBA writer

It’s like the old saying goes: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the anger about being jostled around and physically screened above the 3-point arc midway through the third quarter of a five-point game in March.”

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OK, so maybe the saying was different where you grew up. Anyway, here’s fun-sized J.J. Barea snuffing jumbo-sized Blake Griffin during the Dallas Mavericks’ meeting with the Los Angeles Clippers on Thursday night:

With the Mavs holding a 63-58 lead over the visiting Clips at American Airlines Center, Griffin and center DeAndre Jordan sidled up to the diminutive Barea to set a double-screen allowing point guard Chris Paul to get downhill and start attacking into the teeth of the Dallas defense. It’s a set we’ve seen L.A. run countless times, except this time, the Mavericks point guard took exception to Blake shoving his hand away and giving him an extra bump as he worked his way into screening position.

Like, kind of a lot of exception.

J.J. Barea would very much Blake Griffin to step off.
J.J. Barea would very much like Blake Griffin to step off. (Fox Sports screen shot)

Barea shoved the bigger Griffin up high, Blake hit the deck, Jordan shoved J.J. out of the way, and the refs raced in to sort through the fallout before things could get too out of hand. After a lengthy review, they hit Barea with a flagrant foul-2 for unnecessary and excessive contact above the shoulders, prompting an immediate ejection from the game.

Barea wasn’t mad; in fact, he found it funny.

“That’s just basketball,” Barea said of the encounter after the game, according to Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com. “I got pushed from both [Griffin and Jordan], and maybe Blake a little more. I was getting smushed, and my guy was going to be open. I just gave him a push to see if I could stop the play, and it went a little over the top.”

Griffin appeared to be smiling after the play, too, which didn’t escape the notice of Mavs head coach Rick Carlisle:

After the game, ESPN.com’s Tim MacMahon served as a pool reporter to ask referee Bill Spooner why the charitably-listed-at-6-feet Barea was ejected for what Dallas legend Dirk Nowitzki judged to be a “weak” flagrant-2:

“The contact was to the shoulders and above the throat,” crew chief Bill Spooner said to a pool reporter. “That is deemed as a flagrant penalty 2.”

Spooner declined to say whether he believed Griffin flopped on the play.

“That is not really relevant to our judgment of the play,” Spooner said. “It has nothing to do with the merits of the play.”

Despite losing Barea, who had scored five points and dished three assists and logged a team-high +11 in 12 minutes off the bench, Dallas persevered. In fact, Carlisle claimed after the game that the ejection energized the Mavs, who withstood a pair of fourth-quarter bursts from the Clips to score a 97-95 win thanks to a pair of big late plays by forward Harrison Barnes:

After Barnes stonewalled Griffin on a post-up that could have gotten the Clips a game-winner — a play Barnes later said he knew was coming, thanks to a head’s up from the Mavs’ coaching staff — and ripped the ball away for a steal, the Mavs sweated out one last potential dagger in the form of a J.J. Redick corner 3 that rimmed out, allowing Dallas to hold on to improve to 31-40 and stay within three games of the Denver Nuggets for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

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The Clippers, meanwhile, saw a three-game winning streak snapped, and fell to 43-30, dropping 1 1/2 games behind the Utah Jazz for the No. 4 spot in the West and home-court advantage in the opening round of the playoffs, and sitting just one game ahead of the sixth-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder.

“Yeah, this time of the year, losses I think impact you a little bit more because you can actually see the standings and see the race come down to the final however many games it’s going to be,” said Griffin after the game, according to Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times.

While the Clippers fight for seeding, the Mavs are fighting for their postseason lives … and, one night at least, they took their cue from their pint-sized backup point guard.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!