DeMarcus Cousins was ejected in his previous game for calling a referee a bleeping female, according to Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee: “Before that, (the referees) tell us if you have a problem with them, come talk to them. They give us permission to do that. I tried to wait until the play was over. I waited until the play stopped, I went up to the ref…he kept telling me, ‘Don’t talk to me, don’t talk to me, I don’t want to talk to you.’ So I waited until halftime. He said the same thing…he was saying, ‘Don’t talk to me.’ So my response was, ‘You don’t have to act like an effing female.’ I shouldn’t have said that. That’s about it.”
Kevin Garnett bleeds green and doesn’t think rumors about him should be taken seriously, from A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE: “Danny made it obvious . . . that he was going to do what’s best for this organization,” said Garnett, who came to Boston in 2007 via trade from Minnesota. “He’s always made it apparent, so I’ve always understood that.” But a trade involving Garnett would have to involve him agreeing to forgo his no-trade clause, something that it appears Garnett isn’t necessarily willing to do right now. “I bleed green; I die green, that’s what it is,” he said. “But it is a business. If it crosses the path, I’ll deal with it. But trades are a part of this league. Every year, you’re going to hear things.” But as far as trades involving his name, Garnett said, “If I were y’all, I wouldn’t read too much into it.”
Lionel Hollins doesn’t sound too thrilled about not having enough bigs on his roster, from Geoff Calkins of Commercial Appeal: “One of the issues that I have is that neither Darrell or Ed (Davis) are fives. We don’t have another big guy. We weren’t able to play big and have two bigger people across the board because we don’t have a bigger guy to put in the game.” In other words, Hollins no longer had Mo Speights or Hamed Haddadi because they were traded away. Did Hollins mean it as a shot? It almost doesn’t matter, honestly. When the head coach spends part of his press conference lamenting what he no longer has on his roster, that’s not a good sign.”
David Stern believes the NBA will soon test for HGH, from Ben Golliver of SI: Commissioner David Stern said Wednesday that he expects the NBA will follow Major League Baseball’s lead by adopting blood testing for Human Growth Hormone (HGH).“We watch what’s going on in baseball, we watch the negotiations that are going in with football, and it is my expectation that by next season [we] will be doing blood testing for HGH,” Stern told WCCO radio in Minnesota. “Our players have been terrific. They lead this in some ways, saying, ‘ We do not want to have anything less than the best.’ That’s been the way it’s been since 1983.”
Doc Rivers is tired of silly and sometimes false trade rumors, from Mike Petraglia of WEEI: “When I wake up in the morning and I hear a trade rumor I haven’t heard in my office that’s silly. And that’s what happens.” Does he address it with the team? “I don’t even address it,” he said before Tuesday’s practice before the team left for Wednesday night’s game in Toronto. “I really don’t. I rarely do. I don’t 99.9 percent of the time because some of it is so silly.” The “Inside Track” in the Boston Herald reported Monday that Rivers, Chauncey Billups, Garnett and Pierce had dinner recently as the Clippers were in town to play the Celtics. “I heard one report, I honestly did, that me, Chauncey, Kevin and Paul had dinner,” Rivers said. “I was like, ‘Well, I wish I would’ve known about it. That would’ve been terrific because I would’ve made them pay and I could’ve had a free dinner.’ It’s just silly what goes on.”