Kurtenbach: Cousins steps up.
The Warriors have, at times, struggled to find a balance between the diametric styles preferred by their top scorers, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, causing the team’s enviably large offensive gears to grind. Adding a third offensive alpha to the mix, DeMarcus Cousins, the past two months has only created more frequent screeches.
That erstwhile warning had finally come to pass: There is, indeed, only one ball, and the Warriors — at least with their new starting five of Cous- ins, Curry, Durant, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson — had reached a state of critical mass when it came to deserved touches.
But with Durant sidelined by a bad ankle Wednesday, that issue was alleviated, at least for a night, replaced by the need for his teammates to step their game up in his absence. Cousins certainly did that. His performance in the Warriors’ 106-104 victory at Houston on Wednesday night was far and away the finest of his short Golden State tenure. It was a dizzying display of preternatural skill and physical superiority that hinted at extra levels of dominance the defending champions could reach once they decide to get out of their own way with waning focus and lax efforts.
Cousins was often the maypole for the Warriors’ offense — the hub of an offensive celebration, distributing the ball and disrupting the Rockets’ defense with a stunningly tight handle and a deft passing touch befitting a player nearly 100 pounds
lighter than him. But there were other times where the maypole was pulled out of the ground and used as a 6-foot-10, 280-pound battering ram, taking on two or three defenders in the low post and often winning.
The Rockets didn’t know what hit them. It felt revelatory to the Warriors, too.
Cousins scored 27 points on 68 percent shooting to go with eight rebounds and seven assists (six coming in the first half), and Golden State’s starting lineup, with Andre Iguodala in the place of Durant, posted a 136.7 offensive rating, a plus-30.2 net rating, and an absurd 86.7 assist percentage in 15 minutes Wednesday.
Yes, it’s one game, but you can’t ignore those lineup numbers after considering that the Warriors’ typical, fullsquad starting lineup has a net rating of plus2.2 in 14 games (at 12 minutes per contest) this season.
Oh, and Wednesday’s new-look second unit — Thompson, Livingston, Jordan Bell and Quinn Cook around Cousins — was excellent as well, posting a net rating of plus-38.1 in 11 minutes.
On the defensive end, the bugaboo for the big man so far this season, Cousins was effective if unspectacular. The Rockets tested him in targeted pick-and-roll action early in the contest, but he handled it well, leading to the Rockets abandoning the concept. By my count, he was isolated only nine times Wednesday, the majority of which came in the first quarter.
The Warriors would love to replicate all of it in a possible playoff series.
In all, Cousins might have been the best player on the court for the Warriors against Houston, a distinction we haven’t been able to make since his first few games in blue and gold.
Wednesday, Cousins re- minded us that his best — and in turn, the Warriors’ best — is going to be worth the wait.
“We have to remind ourselves that it’s still pretty early in the process,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “We’re all learning, me too. I gotta learn how to use him better.”
It is, of course, laughable to suggest this team is better when Durant is out the lineup. But this Cousins breakout of sorts could prove to be a turning point for the Warriors, who haven’t won back-toback games in a month.
Cousins flashed his improving physical abilities and along with some long-awaited chemistry with Curry on Wednesday.
Can he and Curry continue that when Durant comes back into the fold? Can Cousins expand that verve to include KD, too?
If he plays the way he did against Houston, looking to create for the team instead of himself, then the answer is an em- phatic “yes.” And if he proves to be the bridge for Curry and Durant’s genius, not a divider, well, then it’s game over for the rest of the league.
That two-point margin of victory against their top rivals on Wednesday? It becomes a double- digit one.
The big question going into this critical fourgame road trip for the Warriors was how much they could rely on Cousins, given that he had, at times, looked unplayable in recent weeks. The game against Houston’s isolation-heavy guards, in particular, was a huge test.
It’s only one game, but Cousins passed that big test Wednesday and might have provided an answer to the overarching question in the process (though there are 15 more games in which to confirm that): Can the Warriors count on Cousins. Yes, they can. And perhaps they should count on him more.