Entering Tuesday’s Sacramento Kings center and reigning Western Conference Player of the Week DeMarcus Cousins had steamrolled his way to his team winning five of its last six games and recording back-to-back performances of 48 and 56 points.
None of that seemed to matter Tuesday night, however, when the Kings visited the Portland Trail Blazers at Moda Center. Portland’s frontcourt rotation of Mason Plumlee, Meyers Leonard, Ed Davis and Noah Vonleh combined to hold Cousins to just 17 points on 4-of-21 shooting from the field to help the Trail Blazers to a 112-97 victory.
One of the NBA’s most indomitable forces in the paint, a different level of physicality and toughness would be needed from the Blazers’ big men in limiting Cousins’ impact Tuesday night.
“I give credit when it’s due: [Cousins] is a very good player, able to score in many ways – down on the block, on the perimeter, etcetera,” Leonard said after the win. “But I thought for the most part, I did a good job on him and the rest of the guys did a good job on him – the guards digging, double team schemes a couple times, so we were really locked in to what we needed to do tonight and it was just a great team effort.”
Leonard added: “He’s one of four guys ever — Antawn Jamison, Michael Jordan and David Robinson — to have 100 points and 25 rebounds in two games. That’s big time… We approached the game tonight in a very big way: tough, locked-in and ready to execute.”
Seven blocks from the Trail Blazers frontcourt helped stifle the Kings in the paint as Portland also out-rebounded its opponent, 48-45. While guards Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum led the team offensively, Lillard gave credit to his teammates in the trenches.
“Our bigs did a great job,” the point guard complimented the frontcourt. “They played physical from the jump. They took the challenge… We’ve gotta give a lot of credit to our bigs and how physical they played. They challenged shots and they took fouls when they needed to, but they just did a great job.
“They gave us a chance to win the game.”
The matchup to watch all night was Leonard versus Cousins as the two battled on the block, scrapping for position and rebounds in the paint on every possession. Lillard once again credited the toughness of his teammates, singling-out Leonard’s play.
“What he did tonight defensively was huge,” Lillard said. “He realized we needed [toughness] out of him. There was going to be times on the court tonight where he had to take that challenge or DeMarcus Cousins would’ve just took over the game. I think it was just him man-ing up.”
