Andrew Bogut dunks en route to 14 points, and he added 21 rebounds, four blocks, three assists and a bit of nastiness.

Andrew Bogut dunks en route to 14 points, and he added 21 rebounds, four blocks, three assists and a bit of nastiness.

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle

Bogut gives Warriors newfound attitude

1 / 2

Back to Gallery

This all started with Andrew Bogut, all this nasty and disturbing trouble the Warriors are stirring up in the Western Conference playoffs, and it's all going to end with Bogut, good or bad - maybe in the series against the Spurs, maybe ...

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The NBA playoffs are supposed to be about the glamour players, the LeBrons and Kobes and Stephens, and they are.

However, the Warriors' playoff hopes right now ride with the least glamorous player in the playoffs, Bad News Bogut.

How non-glamorous is he? Bogut opened his postgame news press conference by saying, in reference to the nerd fake eyeglasses that are all the rage among NBA stars, "Sorry, I don't have any glasses I can wear to fit in with the other NBA guys."

Glamour? Bogut is a $75 cab ride from glamour. But if this playoff series was the Indy 500, the hero was a bus driver named Bogut who took a wrong turn onto the track and smoked all the pretty boys, and was so impolite he didn't use his turn signals.

Not revealed until just after the game, when I spoke to Bogut outside the locker room: He almost shut himself down earlier in the day, and in desperation, he took the first painkilling shot of his life, in his right ankle, to be able to play.

"I don't take shots," Bogut said, "but I had no choice. I wasn't moving well at the shootaround. I had to stop."

He said he wouldn't know how his ankle held up until the shot wears off.

The Warriors will be anxious, waiting to see how he holds up, because he's carrying this team on his back, like a rhino carries hitchhiking birds.

Before the game, Denver head coach George Karl talked about a type of ballplayer, whose game is doing the dirty work. Karl called him the "ass/elbows guy." Those are this player's primary tools, his skill set.

Bogut brought all three of those objects to the party Thursday. He had 14 points and 21 rebounds, both season highs. He had four blocks and three assists.

The Nuggets are greyhounds, yes, but they led the league in points in the paint with 58 per game. On Thursday, they got 42. That painted area? That's Bogutville, mate.

The Warriors-Nuggets series, supposedly a glamour matchup, was about nastiness, emotion, aggression and dirty work, and early in the series, Denver's Andre Miller attributed the escalation of anger to the Warriors. To Bogut, really.

"They kind of brought the physicality to this series, and we stopped being the receiver," Miller said.

On Thursday, the Nuggets were back to receiving. Bogut, the Big Thundermental, had by far his best and biggest game of the season, and of his career.

In the third quarter when the Warriors took over the game, Bogut and Stephen Curry worked together like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, destroying the Nuggets with their passing, rebounding, hustle and daring.

The Warriors led 47-44 when Bogut-Curry began their dance. Bogut assisted Curry for a three. A minute later, Bogut dunks off a Curry feed (57-49). Then a Bogut tip-in. Then a Curry miss, Bogut rebounds and the ball is knocked out of his hands, to Curry, who feeds back to Bogut under the hoop for two (61-53).

In that Game 5 slugfest in Denver, Bogut earned himself a lifetime of Rocky Mountain hate by pushing Kenneth Faried off the court with a two-hands-to-the-neck shove. One Denver columnist called Bogut a yellow coward in 800 angry words.

I watched a replay 35 times, and I swear I can't tell which man started that little scuffle, because Faried also was going for a two-hand throat shot. Faried won that battle, by getting the foul, but Bogut won the war.

His performance Thursday was a near miracle, considering how he was hurt and/or ineffective most of the season. He had not played a game even faintly resembling what he threw at the Nuggets.

Bogut is still recovering from ankle surgery. On Thursday, he called his struggles coming back, "An absolute nightmare. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. It was pitch black for six months."

He said he even had to give up beer, because booze made his ankle swell. An Aussie giving up beer?

The Warriors really have no business heading to San Antonio for the second round of the playoffs, with a full head of steam and a monstrous sense of destiny, but there they go.

The plane will be sardine-packed with heroes, but the Warriors are not making that flight without the big bloke. And they're not a match for the Spurs without Bogut.

When the Warriors get around to putting up statues, like the Giants do, they'll erect one to the Unknown Front Office Guy who traded Monta Ellis for Bogut last season (the Warriors' suits like to share that credit).

And if the W's put up a statue of Bogut, it will be modern art. Seven feet of marble, elbows and ass.