DeMarcus Cousins beats Nuggets with clutch steals, 39 points
The Sacramento Kings have seen a steady decline in their fortunes over the past month-plus, to the point where a veteran-laden team that could have planned on making the postseason is now primarily interesting for the possibility that head coach George Karl will be fired whenever the front office gets on the same page for four or five minutes. (Don’t hold your breath.) A recent string of eight losses in nine games put the Kings well out of the playoff race and inspired fresh doubts about the long-term goals of the organization.
[Top half of your Yahoo Fantasy Hoops league? Enter free contest to win share of $10K]
Those concerns will linger for some time, but the presence of DeMarcus Cousins brings some hope that things will eventually get better. The All-Star big man is and probably will never be an even-keeled pro, but his equally obvious talent and passion raise the Kings’ ceiling much higher than those of other likely lottery teams.
[Follow Dunks Don’t Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball]
Cousins was the dominant force in Tuesday night’s tight game against the Denver Nuggets and former Kings head coach Michael Malone, especially in the final minute. With the score tied at 107-107 and just 50 seconds on the clock, Cousins picked the ball cleanly off D.J. Augustin in the backcourt and took it straight to the rim, where he was fouled and made both free throws. Cousins also put back his own miss after a stop to boost the lead to four, after which Nikola Jokic made a quick three-pointer to cut the lead to a single point. Things got dicey for the Kings when Darren Collison split a pair of free throws to boost the margin to a mere two points, allowing the host Nuggets to tie or win with nine ticks remaining.
Naturally, Cousins came up with the game-saving steal by stripping Darrell Arthur underneath the basket:
Nuggets fans have a decent case that Cousins fouled Arthur, but that’s a call that often isn’t made in the closing seconds. Arthur could have gone up stronger, at the very least. Collison made two free throws at the other end with 0.1 seconds left to finalize the 114-110 Kings win.
There is no doubt that Cousins won the game for Sacramento. In addition to his late defensive heroics, he scored 39 points (21 more than Will Barton, the game’s next-closest scorer) on 14-of-24 shooting.
It’s too early to predict a return to relevance, but the Kings have now won three straight (against the Nuggets twice and the Philadelphia 76ers) to draw within 3 1/2 games of the Utah Jazz for the last playoff spot in the West. A matchup with the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday will probably put a stop to that run, but the Kings could be a nice streak or two from getting right back into the playoff picture.
A losing streak should follow in short order, of course, but crazier things have happened in the last 27 games of the regular season. Maybe we’ll have to concede that the Kings have had some measure of success before we reach mid-April.
– – – – – – –
Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
