With 1:46 left in a doomed game (the Nuggets beat the Rockets 116-101), Michael Malone ordered a change: Davon Reed came on for DeMarcus Cousins. The crowd rose to its feet and the applause thundered as Malone hugged the center, who at 31 has been reunited with the only coach who seemed to understand him in the Sacramento Kings. Cousins had played 23 minutes and 33 seconds and had been thrown, in the absence of Nikola Jokic (ill) to the Nuggets behind: 31 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals. 10/14 in shots, 3/4 in triples, 8/9 from the free throw line and a +10 on court. Like old times.
The old times. When Cousins was one of the great, if always misunderstood, talents in the NBA. four times in a row all star (2015-18), an integral of Team USA (World and Olympic champion in the 2014-16 cycle). An unlimited ceiling player for whom everything went wrong on January 26, 2018, when his Achilles tendon ruptured. He formed, after his ugly time in the Kings and a tumultuous exit, a tremendous couple with Anthony Davis in the Pelicans. a luck of new twin towers. Six days before the injury he had made a game of 44 points, 24 rebounds and 10 assists. He averaged 25.2 points, 12.9 rebounds and 5.4 assists e He was on his way to a summer in which he was going to sign a super extension, almost certainly more than $150 million.
The massive money never came, nor did the level return all star. Cousins went to the Warriors, where he caught the season of misfortune (injuries to Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson) and he himself had a muscle problem that drastically hampered him in the playoffs, where the Bay team were left without threepeat. Later he signed for LeBron’s Lakers and, again, Davis, but he never debuted in the year of the bubble ring because he suffered a very serious knee injury in a summer party. From there, a journey: Rockets, Clippers and, this season, 17 games with the Milwaukee Bucks and three ten-day contracts, a meritorious more, before earning continuity until the summer at the Nuggets.
So the standing ovation, Malone’s hug and the 31 points, for the first time more than 30 since that distant 2018, mean a lot for a Cousins who seems to have finally found a home, not just a team, in this long-suffering second part of his career. It was the big news, the special moment of a game without much history, broken by the Nuggets in the third quarter (36-24), with advantages of 17 points in the fourth and few problems against the worst team in the NBA, some Rockets (15-48) who have 12 straight losses and are close to the 15 they linked at the beginning of the course. At least Jalen Green is still making progress (18 points, 7 assists, 7/14 shooting). That’s left to them.
The Nuggets won without Jokic but with Cousins. And they have seven wins in eight games. Just a rare skid against the Thunder on that stretch. They are (37-26) sixth in the West, one game behind the Mavs and with the Wolves and the play in under control: two and a half games away, although the Minneapolis team pushes. In addition to Cousins’ outburst, Will Barton got another ovation when he surpassed JR Smith and became (769) the player with the most triples in Nuggets history. And Facundo Campazzo, with one foot out of the rotation lately, had 19 minutes in which he didn’t score and dished out 4 assists. It’s something.
