KF10 wrote:SacKingsPejaFan wrote:I'm not going to take Cousins' performances this season for granted. He's unstoppable.
Yeah, Cousins ripped Bogut a new one today.
The only way to get Cousins off his game is to get under skin!
Full credit to Cousins, a really good comeback game after being beaten a couple of times in a row by Bogut, he clearly won the matchup tonight. I suspect Malone gave him some help with his close knowledge of Bogut's defense - really the only way to get Bogut off balance defensively is to hit a couple of 15-20 foot jumpers early, Bogut is very reluctant to leave the paint because his instinct is always to be in a position to help on team defense, something he does exceptionally well. If you can hit a few long jumpers on him early you can then get him into no mans land a bit, and Cousins did just that very well tonight.
Bogut still made some big plays including the game winning block when he was doing exactly what I described above, but Cousins took the personal matchup.
As for the 'getting under his skin' thing, Bogut definitely gets under his skin but I feel like Cousins puts him there. All Bogut does is play tough physical D and for some reason Cousins really takes that as a personal insult, particularly when he doesn't get whistles. Even that collision tonight, Bogut is coming forward to try to defend the long court pass and stop the break, Cousins is trying to run down the floor and get in on the break, neither guy is looking at each other and they collide - yet for some reason Cousins gets way hot under the collar and gets lost for a play while Bogut just brushes himself off. I feel like Cuz has taken being beaten in a few matchups with Bogut very personally - that kind of banging on D happens in literally every single game so it's weird watching one guy look angry about it from the first minute to the last.
Anyway tough loss, just wanted to drop in and say good performance by Cousins after I'd praised Bogut in a thread with you after their previous matchups.
