It was certainly the reaction many expected. No one was surprised DeMarcus Cousins got ejected for a flagrant foul two after elbowing Mike Dunleavy in the head. Dunleavy had done a good job of boxing Cousins out who fell awkwardly and got up limping.
"I'm not going to begin to try and reason with someone like that," said Dunleavy. "I'm not even sure what I did, I thought I was just blocking him out. After the timeout he got in my face. In those situations, you've got to be ready. I felt like something was probably going to happen... It's too bad because he probably hurt the team more than he hurt me."
Despite the game being almost in their reach, the Kings fell to the Milwaukee Bucks 115-113. Demarcus led the way for Sacramento with 24 points and 10 rebounds but his night was cut short for going after Dunleavy. He probably would've had a 40-point night but his temper often gets the best of him. Cousins picked up his 12th technical foul and third flagrant-two of the season.
"You can give a person as much advice as you can, from us, to coaches, to Hall of Famers, to whatever," Jason Thompson said. "But at the end of the day, you're in this league because you are a grown man and you're going to do what you want to do."
Thompson picked up the slack scoring 14 of his 18 points in the second half. Immediately after Demarcus' ejection the Kings rallied back and were down by 3 points while trailing by 10 most of the game. Jimmer Fredette contributed 11 of his 14 points in just four minutes in the fourth quarter to spark another come back.
"I thought these guys rallied and put themselves right there in a position to win or tie the game," said Kings coach Keith Smart.
After an amazing start by the Kings, Milwaukee pulled away to start the second quarter and went on a 16-2 run. Monta Ellis led all scores with 29 points and 9 assists. Samuel Dalembert had 11 rebounds and Gustavo Ayon, Ekpe Udoh and Dunleavy combined had 21 rebounds.
"The biggest key to our success is our role players, they've been doing a great job this season and they've opened it up for myself and Brandon Jennings," Ellis said. "When they get going, it's really hard for teams to guard us. Our bench did a great job tonight, the biggest thing for us was to get defensive stops. We did enough to get the win tonight, it was ugly but we'll take it."
In the final four minutes of regulation, Sacramento erased a 15-point lead by Milwaukee. Fredette was fouled with 4.7 seconds left in the fourth. He made his first free throw but missed the second on purpose throwing the ball against the rim to get it right back. Tyreke Evans got the ball in the final final seconds but missed an off-balance three-point shot as time expired.
"Great play by him [Jimmer] at the end," said Bucks head coach Jim Boylan. "We knew he was going to miss, but to be that accurate with the miss and hit the front of the rim and have it come right back to him in no time. It looked like the Globetrotter play, with the fake free throw and the ball coming back so fast."