Los Angeles Lakers center DeMarcus Cousins admitted on the latest episode of the All The Smoke Podcast with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson that he probably shouldn't have played in the 2019 NBA Finals with the Golden State Warriors.
Cousins tore his left quad in the first round of the 2019 playoffs against the Los Angeles Clippers. Boogie, eager to play in the Finals, rehabbed his quad in just six weeks:
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– DeMarcus offered that in the Finals last season, he wasn’t healthy enough to play but as a professional athlete, it’s “what you live for” and he had to give it whatever he had.
— The Lakers Review (@TheLakersReview) February 20, 2020
Cousins played in all six games of the Finals against the Toronto Raptors, a series Toronto won in six games. Cousins averaged 8.3 points and 4.7 rebounds while shooting 42.5 percent from the field and 22.2 percent from beyond the arc in 18.0 minutes per contest.
The Warriors were bitten by the injury bug bad in the 2019 playoffs. First Cousins got hurt, followed by Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson. Most pundits believe the Warriors would have defeated the Raptors if Cousins, Durant and Thompson were at 100 percent.
The Warriors, after losing Durant to the Brooklyn Nets in free agency this past offseason, decided not to re-sign Cousins. The All-Star big man signed a one-year deal with the Lakers, but the bad luck continued for the Alabama native when he tore his left ACL during a pick-up game in Las Vegas.
The Warriors will miss the playoffs this season for the first time in the Steve Kerr era. Cousins, meanwhile, is rehabbing his ACL injury and holding out hope he can play for the Lakers in the postseason.
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