How badly did Demarcus Cousins (above) want to take the last shot in Sacramento’s Saturday night loss to Oklahoma City? Badly enough that he’d allegedly take a swing at teammate Donte Green after the game, since Green had the gall to entrust Tyreke Evans with a would-be buzzer beater. While Green tells the Sacramento Bee’s Jason Jones, “I was always taught to never hold grudges,” the Kings’ beat writer reminds us that Cousins — booted from the team flight prior to Sunday’s visit to Phoenix — is compiling quite an anger mismanagement resume.
Before the season, Cousins was fined following a verbal altercation with the team’s strength and conditioning coach. He was kicked out of a November practice and fined and benched for making a choking taunt in a loss in December.
Cousins being upset that Evans took and missed the last shot is the latest rumbling about Evans commanding the ball in the fourth quarter.
One of the criticisms of head coach Paul Westphal has been he doesn’t coach Evans with enough force to prevent him from holding onto the ball too long.
“Well, to me that’s a perfect example of when somebody plants innuendo and it grows into something that it shouldn’t,” Westphal said. “It couldn’t be farther from the truth. I don’t know anybody that can say that it has any substance to it. But here I am having to answer questions about it, and it’s ridiculous.”