Prior to Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday, DeMarcus Cousins last played on April 15, in just the second postseason game of his nine-year NBA career. He tore his quad on a hustle play early in the first quarter and missed the subsequent six weeks of the playoffs.
Against a formidable Toronto Raptors’ team that features dominant two-way players in Kawhi Leonard and Marc Gasol — and with back-to-back Finals MVP Kevin Durant still out with a calf strain — Cousins’ return couldn’t have come soon enough. The concern, though, was that his return would not be marred by setbacks.
He only played eight minutes in Game 1 (three points, two steals and two assists), but Mark Medina of The Mercury News reported Warriors coach Steve Kerr as saying Cousins is “fine” and, most of all, pain-free.
Cousins appeared visibly winded in Game 1, and struggled to get up and down the court. The intensity of the playoffs had picked up through the course of the first round against a pesky Los Angeles Clippers team, in the second round against the Houston Rockets and in the Western Conference Finals against the Portland Trail Blazers.
Courtesy of a big Eastern Conference Finals title over the Milwaukee Bucks after beginning that series in an 0-2 deficit, the Raptors are high on momentum. They handled Golden State mightily in Game 1 and hope to do the same in Game 2. Can the Warriors redeem themselves? Or will they face an 0-2 deficit of their own when they return to Oakland to play Games 3 and 4?
The Warriors tip off against the Raptors in Game 2 today, Sunday, June 2, at 8:00 p.m. ET on ABC.
