Five takeaways from the Lakers’ 97-96 loss to Sacramento

Lakers guard Lou Williams scored 19 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter Tuesday night, but it wasn’t enough to offset Sacramento forward DeMarcus Cousins, who scored 16 of his 40 points in the final period and hit the winning free throw with nine seconds left. Here are five things we learned from the Lakers’ 97-96 loss to the Kings in Staples Center.

1. The Lakers looked a little disorganized, a little frantic, on their last possession, which ended with Williams’ 30-foot heave barely drawing iron at the buzzer, but Coach Luke Walton didn’t necessarily want a do-over.

Cousins made the first of two free throws with nine seconds left to give Sacramento a one-point lead, and he missed the second, with Williams corralling the rebound along the baseline. The Lakers had two 20-second timeouts remaining and could have huddled to set up a play, but Walton let them play on.

Williams dribbled across midcourt and, while drifting to his right, threw up a shot from just in front of the Lakers bench that was well off the mark.

“If he made [the second free throw] we would have taken a timeout,” Walton said. “With a miss, especially when I saw Lou come up with the ball, anything we drew up was gonna be for him at that moment anyway.

“I’ve seen enough basketball in my experience that if you get the guy you want with the ball in his hands and you cannot allow a defense to get set, good things can happen. …

“I like letting it go, see if in the chaos he can break away and come up with a shot. He’s not gonna get a wide-open look no matter what we draw up for him, so he’s going to have to make a challenging shot, either way.”

2. The Lakers had no antidote for the 6-foot-11, 270-pound Cousins, who, in addition to his 40 points grabbed 12 rebounds and had eight assists. Cousins made 13 of 24 shots from the field and 12 of 19 from the free-throw line.

Lakers center Tarik Black fouled out in only 21 minutes guarding Cousins. Timofey Mozgov, Ivica Zubac, Larry Nance Jr. and Julius Randle each took turns on Cousins, with little luck.

“He’s an All Star-caliber player, the best player on that team, one of the best bigs in the league,” Williams said. “He did everything he was supposed to do tonight.”

3. Williams’ name has popped up in trade rumors, and it’s easy to see why. The reserve guard is a prolific scorer, as he showed again Tuesday night, fueling a fourth-quarter run in which the Lakers erased a 13-point deficit in the final 10 minutes.

The Lakers trailed, 79-66, with 9 minutes, 46 seconds left, but Williams scored 14 of the team’s next 25 points, including a 26-footer from the top of the key with 1:45 left that tied the score, 91-91.

Williams actually stepped on Darren Collison’s foot before the shot, nearly stumbling while the defender fell down, but Williams regained his balance, elevated and made the clutch shot.

“I just hoop, and I let the powers that be deal with that,” Williams, who is averaging a team-high 18.4 points, said of the trade rumors. “I’m a little old-school in my approach. I play for the team that I have the jersey on for. I don’t really deal with hypotheticals, so if something happens, it happens, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t, and I’m gonna compete for the Lakers.”

4. Just because you start the game for the Lakers, that doesn’t mean you’ll finish it. Neither Randle, a forward, nor point guard D’Angelo Russell played in the fourth quarter, while Williams, Jordan Clarkson, Nick Young, Nance and Luol Deng spurred a Lakers comeback.

“They earned that chance,” Walton said of the closing group. “With the team that we have, we’re gonna try to get experience minutes for these young guys, but we were down by 16, and that group fought back and gave us a chance to win the game. At that moment, I was rewarding the players that started playing together, bringing that energy, attacking on defense and making plays.”

5. Black was credited with the first three-point basket of his career with 3:21 left in the fourth quarter, but that doesn’t mean the Lakers center is now a three-point threat. With the shot clock expiring, Black found himself with the ball at the top of the key, and his desperation shot was short of the basket.

But Cousins leaped and deflected the ball as it was about to hit the front of the rim, and he was called for goaltending.

Asked if Black is now a three-point weapon, Walton said, “I hope not. I know that’s the way the NBA is going, but if Tarik starts floating around that three-point line and shooting them, we’re gonna have to have a long talk. But he did recognize the clock. I’ll take that shot over a shot-clock violation.”

mike.digiovanna@latimes.com

@MikeDiGiovanna