The list of basketball players better than DeMarcus Cousins is short; the list of players better at working themselves into a state of righteous indignation is effectively nonexistent. By the time Tuesday night's game between the Sacramento Kings and the Portland Trail Blazers tipped off, Cousins had been steaming for the better part of a week; the feud he'd pursued with the Sacramento Bee over the newspaper's coverage of his brother had just resolved with a $50,000 fine and a gritted-teeth apology. The porous Blazers defense made for a ready outlet for Boogie's frustration, and the big man figured to have a big night. What he turned in, though, was something more than that: a one-off-his-career-high outburst, an emotionally captained comeback, a spit (or slipped) mouthguard, and a rescinded ejection. It was Cousins's best game of the season and, more than that, a perfect summary of his snarling ethos.First, the actual play. Cousins spent his 40 minutes of court time more or less pounding the Portland frontcourt into pulp. When he got the ball on the block, he drop-stepped, applied his shoulder to someone's sternum, and lifted finger-rolls and jump-hooks. When he got the ball behind the arc, he fired away. Each element of his line was preposterous: 55 points, 17 of 28 from the field, 5 of 8 from three, 16 of 17 from the free-throw stripe.Down the stretch, the Kings' offense was understandably one-note. When Sacramento trailed by a bucket with just under two minutes left, Cousins canned a triple. After a pair of free-throws put Portland back ahead, he did it again. Then, with the game tied and half a minute left, Cousins gave the Kings a lead they wouldn't lose, sizing up Mason Plumlee at the top of the key before driving left, spinning right, and muscling in a hook through Plumlee's fouling arms.Now, the extra intrigue. In celebrating the play, Cousins strolled past the Portland bench, and his mouthguard ended up on the floor. "I was talking to the bench and it came out," Cousins said afterward. Whatever the case, after some deliberation the referees gave him his second technical and an ejection. Then—"I conferred with my partners, and they confirmed that he did not throw the mouthpiece, and that it came out of his mouth," was official Brian Forte's explanation—Boogie came back, to gladiatorial applause. He hit the and-one free throw, swatted away a Damian Lillard layup on the other end, and the Kings sealed the win.Only one more element was needed to make it a top-grade DeMarcus Cousins night, and his postgame on-court interview didn't disappoint, braiding me-against-the-world grievance with pure uncut shit-talk. "It's ridiculous," he said of the tech that wasn't and, more broadly, of his relationship with the whistle-bearers. "It's obvious what's being done out here. It's on a nightly basis. I hope the world can see what's really going on out here." Almost as an afterthought, he took a moment to address his nominal opponents. "They're hyping up their big man over there; he thinks he's a stopper. It's not happening." And then, as if overpowered by the voltage of his grievance, his mic mysteriously cut out.Cousins was right, though. The press and the refs might give him some problems, but the Blazer bigs—bless the bruised and sunken chest cavities where their hearts used to be—can't.
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