Cousins' huge numbers all for naught in Pelicans debut vs. Rockets

As elite as DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis are as perhaps the two most imposing and skilled big men in all of basketball, they cannot carry the New Orleans Pelicans to the Promised Land over in the Western Conference without some help along the way.

One game does not make a season, and it's obviously going to take some time to incorporate Boogie into the team's schemes, but following a 129-99 blowout loss to the Houston Rockets at the Smoothie King Center, it's clear there's going to be some growing pains at the start of the Boogie and Brow era in the Big Easy.

Related - Watch: Cousins introduced as a Pelican for the first time

Cousins fell one block shy of finishing with a rare 5x5 line on the stat sheet in his Pelicans debut. He scored 27 points on 11-of-19 shooting from the field, grabbed 14 rebounds, dished out five assists, stole the ball five times, and blocked four shots in 34 minutes of action.

Related - Watch: Boogie opens scoring in Pelicans debut

New Orleans - now 23-35 on the season, and still chasing the eighth seed - was outscored 70-39 in the second and third quarters combined, resulting in the largest deficit entering the fourth quarter (33 points) of any Hornets/Pelicans team in franchise history.

Davis was one of only two other players (Omri Casspi) to score in double figures, leading the way with 29 points and nine rebounds of his own. The seven other players who saw the floor for the Pelicans only contributed 31 points.

It was an ugly night overall for New Orleans, and one the team would soon like to forget coming out of the All-Star break. Even so, there are positives to be taken away here, especially when it comes to Cousins, his productivity on both ends, and how he was still able to maintain his absurd numbers playing next to someone the caliber of Davis.

"It takes two to make a thing go right" couldn't be further from the truth, because as deadly a combination as fire and ice can be, those elements alone simply won't be enough.