Month: February 2021

The Washington Wizards came into Sunday 3-12 on the season, battling myriad issues on and off the court, and with the Brooklyn Nets in town, even without James Harden, it seemed unlikely a reprieve was on the way.

However, despite falling behind by as many as 18 in the first quarter, Washington battled their way back into the game and their energy was able to bring Bradley Beal out of his first half funk, as the NBA’s leading scorer put up 37 in what was the most stunning win of the season in the NBA. While Beal erupted in the fourth, it was Russell Westbrook who led the way for Washington, as he always enjoys squaring off with Kevin Durant and went off for a season-high 41 points, along with 10 rebounds, and eight assists.

Those two played a pivotal role in the most improbable sequence any game has seen this season, as the final 10 seconds were truly outrageous. Beal got things started with a deep pull-up three with the Wizards down 5 and 7.6 seconds to play. Then, on the inbounds pass, Garrison Mathews got a steal, stayed inbounds, and found Russell Westbrook who hit a rare three-pointer to take a 147-146 lead.

From there, the Nets had their own chance to get a game-winner of their own, and after Westbrook tipped the initial inbounds play out on the baseline, Brooklyn was able to get Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot wide open at the basket for a layup that, somehow, didn’t go down.

Beal would hit a pair of free throws to give Washington a 149-146 lead and, with no timeouts, Brooklyn’s only hope was a Kevin Durant heave at the buzzer that went begging.

It was a truly astounding game, as Westbrook and Beal combined for 78 points, despite Beal being completely disinterested for much of the first half. The Nets had four players score 23 or more in the game, led by 37 points from Kevin Durant and 30 from Joe Harris, but as has been the case often for Brooklyn, they simply couldn’t play enough defense to run away with what should’ve been a rather easy victory.

Full credit to the Wizards who played incredibly hard, at least on offense, all night, led by Westbrook’s energy which got Beal involved and saw some solid contributions from much of the rest of the roster. The 149-146 final isn’t even the highest Wizards score in the last two seasons, as the Rockets beat them 159-158 in October 2019, but is representative of exactly where these two teams are at. It’s a big win for Washington that can hopefully give them a much-needed morale boost, while Brooklyn will be devastated to give that game away and has real questions on the defensive end of the floor.

The 2020-21 season has been a disaster for the Washington Wizards on just about every front. They have battled injuries, positive COVID-19 cases that shut them down for almost two full weeks, and even when healthy and on the court together, have struggled to put together wins, scuffling to a 3-12 start.

For Bradley Beal, who entered Sunday leading the NBA in scoring at 34.7 points per game, it has been yet another season that has tested his patience as he puts up Herculean efforts on the offensive end to no avail on a near nightly basis — Washington has lost the last 10 games, dating back to last season, in which Beal has scored 40-plus. On Sunday, the Wizards welcomed the Nets to town and after falling behind by 18, they clawed back to take a brief second quarter lead before going on to trail by six at the half. Brooklyn was without James Harden, but it was still a pretty solid half for Washington — even if they gave up 71 points.

However, for Beal, he got off to a slow start and seemed wholly disinterested in, well, doing much of anything when he wasn’t directly on the ball on either offense or defense. The NBA’s scoring leader had just 11 first half points and his body language on the court was, well, noticeable as this compilation of clips from the first half shows the very apparent frustration.

It’s hard to blame Beal for his frustration, which he’s been candid about when speaking to the media but insistent that he wants to stay in Washington despite trade rumors swirling and gaining momentum with each shot of him looking despondent on the bench late in another loss. He will surely get a question about this from someone after the game and will likely offer some form of explanation, but it’s rarely this noticeable during a game when a player is frustrated and one would think something more than just the cumulative struggles of the Wizards caused it.

Freshman Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has been in the news almost constantly since she took office in early January, and for good reason: She’s a QAnon supporter with a long history of dangerous social media posts, from spreading conspiracy theories to calling for the execution of people who are now her colleagues. Calls have been ramping up for her to resign or be expelled from Congress, but on Sunday night, she tweeted out what she alleged was a sign of support. Problem is, no one believed it was legit.

As the Northeast was blanketed in snow, Greene took to Twitter, posting a picture of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, with the Washington Monument looming in the background. Someone had written a hashtag in the snow: #StandwithMTG.

Thing is, pretty much no one believed that it was the work of a stranger who wanted to show their support for a widely deplored congressperson. Instead the many who quote-tweeted her lodged the same accusation: That she had almost certainly done it herself, taken a picture of it, and passed it off as someone else’s handiwork:

Some simply posted the beloved Nathan Fielder image of him claiming to be hanging with friends who are obviously just off-screen.

Some made jokes about her anti-Semitic theory about space lasers causing California’s wildfires.

Others responded in kind.

And others did not think someone who has harassed survivors of school massacres should get the luxury of jokes.

The biggest non-presidential story of 2021 isn’t even close to over yet. It’s the stock market saga involving amateur Reddit investors who gamed the system, turning flailing businesses like GameStop and AMC Theatres into cash cows and prompting angry responses from Robinhood Marketing Inc., the app that helped fuel it, and billionaires angry that non-billionaires were making money. And though the story is only a week old with no end in sight, Hollywood is already turning it into a movie.

This comes from Deadline, who report that MGM — the legendary Hollywood studio that at the height of its powers in the mid-20th century was one of the industry’s five biggest players — has purchased the rights to the forthcoming book The Antisocial Network. Mind you, this book hasn’t even been written yet. So far author Ben Mezrich only has a book proposal and he has yet to shop it around to publishers. In the meantime, the story will undoubtedly become even juicier in the coming weeks.

Among Mezrich’s other books include The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding Of Facebook, a Tale Of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal, which was turned into — you guessed it — The Social Network. There’s no word yet on who will direct, but surely David Fincher knows his way around not only a Mezrich tome but also scrappy young techies who wind up changing the world, if not always for the better. But again, it’s possible we’re only at the beginning of what could turn into a real game-changer.

(Via Deadline)

Morgan Wallen’s 2021 is off to a phenomenal start and it’s all thanks to his sophomore album Dangerous: The Double Album. The project netted a huge debut on the Billboard album charts, with 265,000 equivalent album units sold. It also earned the biggest streaming week ever for a country album, with 240.18 million on-demand streams. The following week, Dangerous held on to the top spot, and now it’s done so for a third consecutive week.

That means that it joins Taylor Swift’s Folklore as the only albums in the last 12 months to do so. Dangerous is also the first album to top both the regular album and country album charts since Swift’s Red did in 2012 and 2013. In addition to that, Wallen becomes the first male artist since Elvis Presley to spend their first three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and the country albums charts. Presley’s Elv1s: 30 #1 Hits achieved this feat back in 2002.

Wallen’s label, Republic Records, is also responsible for the next three spots on the charts. Pop Smoke’s Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon came in at No. 2, Swift’s Evermore at No. 3, and The Weeknd’s After Hours at No. 4. This marks the first time a label has held the first four spots on the charts since Interscope, which did so in 1996.

(via Billboard)

The Utah Jazz entered Sunday riding an 11-game win streak that vaulted them to the top of the Western Conference standings with a 15-4 record, and were doing so thanks to the NBA’s best three-point shooting attack in terms of volume and efficiency. However, Sunday provided a stiff test in the form of the rival Nuggets in Denver, a rematch of their thrilling first round series in the Bubble that the Nuggets won in seven games.

As was the case in the Bubble, the game started with some ridiculous shooting from both teams, which Denver managed to continue for the entire first half en route to a 25-point lead at the break. Nikola Jokic led the way with 33 first half points, including a 22-point effort in the first quarter that was nothing short of sensational as the Jazz tried just about everyone possible on defense to no avail.

The rest of the way, Jokic was steady, playing the entire third quarter as Denver tried to put Utah away, but the Jazz kept hanging around, cutting the Denver lead to as few as nine. They were never able to sustain a run, though, thanks to Jokic and the unlikely heroics of Facu Campazzo in the second half, as he had 11 points and five assists off the bench to stabilize things for Denver after Gary Harris left the game early and never returned.

Jokic’s final bucket of the evening was a fitting encapsulation of his afternoon, as he simply bullied his way to the hoop and calmly flipped the ball into the hoop despite the contest from two Jazz defenders.

The loss was the first in weeks for the Jazz, who played pretty well in this one but just couldn’t overcome the shooting onslaught they got hit with by the Nuggets early. Denver as a team shot 18-of-28 from three-point range and 54 percent from the field overall. Jokic finished the game 17-of-26 from the field, including a perfect 4-for-4 from three, racking up 47 points to tie his career high along with 12 rebounds and five assists as he picked up his 20th consecutive double-double to start the season.

Sunday afternoon’s performance in a semi-national contest against the league’s hottest team was quite the bullet point on his early MVP resume. As for the Jazz, they fall behind the 16-5 Clippers with the loss but can get back on level terms at the top of the West against the Pistons on Tuesday, as they look to start another winning streak before heading East.

Newt Gingrich hasn’t had any official political power since leaving the House of Representatives in 1999, but he’s remained an active — or at least loud — member of the GOP. Back in December, he made news after complaining that Georgia was making it too easy to vote, implying that Republicans only win by making it difficult. And on Saturday he decided it was a good idea to tweet out something offensive in at least two ways.

Offensive part, the first: Gingrich was defending Marjorie Taylor Greene, the new representative known for her QAnon views and declaring some of her colleagues should be murdered, among other horrific things. Offensive part, the second: He did so while saying Democratic lawmakers of color who have come out against her have formed a “lynch mob.”

That Gingrich would use such language to describe Maxine Waters, who is African-American, coming after a white woman did not go unnoticed on social media.

Others reminded him of an actual, more recent mob.

Some made jokes about his most un-conservative personal life.

While Gingrich was coming out in defense of someone known to drop anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, Mitt Romney — a Republican who’s still in power — was busy calling out her “nonsense.” But perhaps the GOP is more Newt than it is Mitt these days.