The Golden State Warriors are battling a ton of injuries, from Kevin Durant to Klay Thompson to Kevon Looney and others. They received good news with the return of DeMarcus Cousins before Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
Cousins suffered a torn quad injury in Game 2 of their first round series with the Los Angeles Clippers and he worked hard to return for the Finals after originally being ruled out for the rest of the season.
He made a big impact in the Game 2 win over the Toronto Raptors (11 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, two blocks, plus-12). Since then, however, he had four points and three rebounds with a plus/minus of minus-12 in Game 3 and six points and four rebounds in the Game 4 loss.
While it’s certainly admirable that Cousins worked so hard to get back into shape, amping up the rehab to help his team in the Finals, he has almost become a detriment for this Warriors team. He doesn’t have any of the explosiveness that made him one of the best players in the game pre-injury.
Golden State will need something out of Cousins as they begin this climb to come back from 3-1 on Monday on the road in Toronto.
