Besides the opening five minutes of Thursday's game against the Philadelphia 76ers, DeMarcus Cousins did not fare as well as he might have wanted against rival Joel Embiid, limited to seven points and a 3-of-10 shooting night. Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr wasn't surprised Cousins wasn't as dominant as he was in his recent game against the Indiana Pacers, where he trotted out a season-high 22 points.

“It’s a different matchup when you got Embiid down there,” Kerr said, according to Anthony Slater of The Athletic. “He’s a tough guy to score over. Last game, DeMarcus got several duck-ins and rim-runs and sprinted the lane and got layups. But he didn’t get any of those tonight. It was a more athletic and more physical team that we played against, so not really that surprising.”

Cousins knows his year-long absence has had some effects in his play, making it a matter of regaining his feel and adapting to situations instead of reacting purely out of muscle memory.

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“It’s just feel,” Cousins said. “It’s feel. You wake up and you’re so used to just doing something almost that feels naturally and then you get away from it for a year, you just kind of lose it. Just finding it again.”

Embiid put out a 26-point, 20-rebound effort in the 113-104 win, but he surely was forced to work for it, shooting only 8-of-24 from the field, 0-for-5 on threes and coughing up eight turnovers.

Cousins will have his share of growing pains throughout the season and this is just one of them. Adapting, on the other hand, will be his toughest task as he hones into playoff form.