
SACRAMENTO -- Somewhere in the noise of the Sacramento Kings incredibly crazy week of turmoil, it seems that DeMarcus Cousins decided that it is his time to put up or shut up.
The 25-year-old center dropped 33 points points and grabbed nine rebounds against Detroit Pistons center Andre Drummond Wednesday night. He backed up that performance with a huge 40-point, 13-rebound game in the Kings 111-109 victory Friday night.
“He’s the best big man in the league skill-wise,” Quincy Acy said. “Nobody can matchup with him and when he has his mind made up, he can do whatever he wants. It’s just impressive to see and it’s impressive to be part of.”
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Cousins started the game sluggish, shooting just 1-for-10 from the field in the first half on his way to 10 points. The Kings were trailing 60-54 and looked every bit a team ready to drop to 2-8 on the season.
But Cousins came out a new man in the third and dominated the game like very few have the ability to do.
“Caron [Butler] talked to me, told me to just stay aggressive and shots were going to fall,” Cousins said. “That’s what I did, and luckily they fell.”
And fall they did. Cousins destroyed the Nets frontline in the third, scoring 21 points in 11 minutes of action on 8-of-11 shooting. At one point, he rattled off 19 straight points for the Kings as they took a three-point lead into the fourth.
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“He’s one of the reasons why I came here,” Rajon Rondo told CSNCalifornia’s Kayte Christensen. “He’s a special talent. He’s a special person. He’s one of my good friends on the team and we follow as he goes.”
[INSTANT REPLAY: Big night from Cousins, Rondo lift Kings past Nets]
On Friday night, he went beast mode and not even the Kings could keep up. Once he hit his first 3-point shot, the Nets seemed lost. When they tried to collapse on him, he bull rushed by them and when they left him room, he dropped in another long range shot.
“Cuz is quicker than people think he is and he’s stronger and longer than people think he is,” Karl said.
Cousins has scored 73 points over his last three games and the Kings will likely need him to keep up the incredible scoring pace while they await the return of Rudy Gay (illness) and Darren Collison (hamstring).
THE GOOD:
Every once in awhile a player buried deep on an NBA bench comes in and makes a huge impact on a game. While his statline won’t jump off the page, Quincy Acy was that player for the Sacramento Kings on Friday night.
The 25-year-old forward logged just 22 minutes on the season over three games coming into the game against the Nets. He hadn’t missed either of his shot attempts, and had even dropped in a 3-pointer, but to say his stats were meager is an understatement.
A consummate professional, Acy has waited patiently on the bench for his moment to shine. And for one night, he got that opportunity.
“Rondo’s preached from Day One that every guy in the locker room counts,” Cousins said following the win over Brooklyn. “There’s going to be games where the last guy on the bench is going to win the game for us and I think when Q came in the game, he changed the whole game for us.”
In 19 minutes of action, Acy scored three points, grabbed a single rebound and picked up two steals. Again, the numbers are modest, but his impact on the flow of the game was immense.
“We started off sluggish, lazy,” Cousins added. “Q brought energy and just kind of lifted up the whole team. It just shows that everybody in this locker room can have some type of impact on the game.”
The first words out of George Karl’s mouth during his postgame conversation was praise for Acy. And the rest of the team had similar sentiments when asked.
Known for his locker room presence and calming demeanor, Acy has made himself into a jack-of-all-trades kind of player. He plays defense, rebounds, can hit a 3-ball and his ability to bring the crowd to it’s feet with thunderous dunks makes him a fan favorite.
“I miss getting dunks in front of this crowd,” Acy said after crushing one over Brook Lopez in the third quarter. “So it felt good to come back out there and get a dunk and get the crowd pumped up.”
After a DNP-CD on Wednesday against Detroit, Acy made the most of his minutes in a must win for Sacramento. He isn’t guaranteed anything going forward, but his team leading +13 in the plus/minus category shows that he can make an impact without jumping off the stat sheet.
“Just provide a spark, whatever that entails,” Acy said. “It doesn’t really have a definition or a role, it’s just whatever I can do to make an impact on the game, I come in and try and do it.”