Nobody has had a day quite like DeMarcus Cousins did Tuesday.
First, he was fined $50,000 by his own team for publicly berating a Sacramento Bee columnist.
Next, he took out all that frustration on the overmatched defense of the Portland Trail Blazers, scoring 55 points on 17-of-28 shooting, leading the Kings to 126-121 win over the team they are chasing for a playoff slot.
Near the end of the game, Cousins got ejected after barking at the Trail Blazers bench and his mouthpiece coming out — one referee thought he either spit it or threw it at the Blazers bench and gave him a technical, Cousins’ second. He sprinted to the locker room to avoid doing anything stupid. Then the officials talked, decided the mouthpiece coming out was accidental, and rescinded the technical. See the whole thing below, decide for yourself if it was an accident.
Here is the official explaination — the referee says he thought Cousins threw his mouthpiece.
Here's referee Brian Forte's explanation of the final tech/non-tech on DeMarcus Cousins pic.twitter.com/TxjBXoxR7a
— Mike Richman (@mikegrich) December 21, 2016
Then after the game, Cousins went off on a “ridiculous” rant about the ejection, how he’s treated by referees, how other teams are playing him, and... then the mic cuts off.
That sounded a lot like the broadcast cut off the mic on Cousins to squelch his rant — which quickly became a popular theory on Twitter — but the woman holding the mic said that is not the case.
The mic was NOT cut. Trust me, on TV you don't cut away from something like that. Issue was battery pack connection being jostled loose https://t.co/f3bf7u5mrs
— Kayte Christensen (@kayte_c) December 21, 2016
Whatever happened with the mic, nobody has ever had a day quite like Cousins did Tuesday. Not even Oscar Robertson.
