Cousins makes Warriors debut and rest of NBA issues collective sigh
There was a moment during the Golden State Warriors’ morning walk-through Friday that Shaun Livingston, even after his 14 seen-it-all seasons in the NBA, felt a need to pause in admiration of what was happening.
So Livingston stared out onto the floor at Staples Center and tried to process that DeMarcus Cousins had indeed joined the starry quartet of Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green to run through some defensive instructions — as a unit.
“I’m not going to lie,” Livingston said. “I saw the five of them together and for a second, I was like: ‘Wow. That’s a fantasy squad.’”
The rest of the Warriors would go on to enjoy their own fantasy-becomes-reality moment Friday night. Finally making his debut with the two-time reigning champions, after nearly a year in injury exile, Cousins frankly looked as joyful as we’ve ever seen him in an NBA game, logging four effective stints for a total of 15 minutes, 3 seconds in a 112-94 road rout of the Los Angeles Clippers.
There were a few awkward drives to the rim, more than a few of his familiar grumbles to the referees and six fouls in those 15 minutes, but Cousins also racked up an impressive 14 points, six rebounds and three assists. Despite Cousins’ rust, Golden State outscored the Clippers by 21 points in his time on the floor before he fouled out.
“This is his night,” Curry said afterward.
Indeed it was. The 6-foot-11 former University of Kentucky star hammered home a vicious dunk for his first basket as a Warrior, ran the floor with aplomb, hounded the various Clippers he guarded one-on-one into 0-for-7 shooting, found a cutting Curry for a layup with a nifty bounce pass out of the post, took a charge against a driving Tobias Harris and, most notably, drained three three-pointers.
Two of those threes, early in the fourth quarter, “really broke the whole game open,” Warriors Coach Steve Kerr said.
Most of all, Cousins smiled. He smiled and laughed a lot. He soaked in a celebratory water-dousing on live TV from Curry and Thompson, proudly awarded the game ball to his mother, Monique, and came away from his first real game action in 355 days by proclaiming it “probably one of the best days of my life.”
“Like a kid on Christmas,” Cousins said.
And that might be the most ominous aspect of Cousins’ long-anticipated bow with the juggernaut he joined on a bargain deal via free agency last summer. That deal, worth just $5.3 million, came amid leaguewide concern about how Cousins would respond to a torn Achilles tendon in his left foot, historically one of the sport’s most devastating injuries. That skepticism wiped out most of his free-agent market.
Curry, meanwhile, was the first to say that Cousins’ on-court role, as smoothly as things worked out against the Clippers, is still very much “a work in progress.” Yet Cousins, just one game into the experiment, already looks so content and comfortable with this group.
If that continues?
“Things should only get better from here,” Curry said.
Said Kerr of Cousins’ teammates: “They all love him. He’s a really good teammate. He’s an emotional guy, but he’s loved.”
Even with a playful nickname like Boogie, there have been few happy occasions in the pros for Cousins, who has played more NBA games (536) than any other active player without a taste of the postseason and had been sidelined since he shredded his Achilles as a member of the New Orleans Pelicans on Jan. 26, 2018.
But his desire to find a productive role with the franchise that has won three titles over the past four seasons was very clear Friday night. Playing in short bursts to start every quarter, Cousins, 28, still found the time to flash every facet of the versatile skill set that, when it neutralizes the emotional side that Kerr referenced, has long made him one of the league’s most tantalizing talents.
“He’s going to help them,” Clippers Coach Doc Rivers said forlornly. “He does so many things.”
In the 46th game of what Curry himself described as a “very dramatic” season for the Warriors, Cousins’ return also helped Golden State get rid of the aftertaste from its last visit here to play the Clippers — when a nasty argument on the bench between Durant and Green led to Green’s one-game suspension without pay and considerable tension afterward.
Those scenes seemed particularly dated Friday even as Curry cast a wary eye on all the gushing sure to emerge in coming days about how mighty Golden State now looks with all five of its reigning All-Stars in uniform.
“We’re not going to drink all the Kool-Aid,” Curry promised.
Still, no NBA team has been able to trot out a lineup featuring five All-Stars from the previous season since the 1975-76 Boston Celtics. Well aware of such history, Kerr tried before tip-off to persuade his players to tune out the external noise.
“There’s going to be instant judgment, analysis and criticism,” Kerr said after the morning shootaround. “We’re either going to be, at the end of the night, unbeatable or in big trouble.”
Asked after Friday’s emphatic triumph if it was thus safe to proclaim his team unbeatable, Kerr joked: “Yes. Please go ahead. Season’s over.”
While things aren’t quite that hopeless for the league’s other 29 teams, it sure seems as if a new season just started for the Warriors, whose 32-14 record, while hardly overwhelming, does put them atop the Western Conference. The Clippers might have been short-handed without the injured Lou Williams and with a hobbled Danilo Gallinari, but the Warriors’ ability to slot Cousins in among their marquee foursome or mix him in with trusted reserves such as Livingston and Andre Iguodala makes them look as dangerous as they ever have during their championship run.
Noting that he wasn’t being double-teamed no matter what the lineups on the floor were, Cousins called it “a first” in his career.
“I can get used to this,” he said.