We’re almost exactly two months away from the release of Billie Eilish’s highly anticipated second album, Happier Than Ever, which is set to drop on July 30. She has offered some previews of it so far and now Eilish has revealed that next week, we’re getting another advance look with a new song.
This afternoon, Eilish took to Instagram to share a silent five-second video of herself looking off-camera. She wrote in the caption, “new song out next week,” followed by four flushed face emojis. Finneas confirmed the news as well, tweeting after his sister’s announcement, “New billie song coming very soon.”
There’s no indication from Eilish or Finneas about which song she’ll be dropping. However, fans have speculated that Eilish shared what may be new lyrics in another Instagram post from a few days back, which she captioned, “if they listen through the wall.”
So far, Eilish has released “My Future,” “Therefore I Am,” and “Your Power” from Happier Than Ever. So, that leaves “Getting Older,” “I Didn’t Change My Number,” “Billie Bossa Nova,” “Oxytocin,” “Goldwing,” “Lost Cause,” “Halley’s Comet,” “Not My Responsibility,” “Over Heated,” “Everybody Dies,” “NDA,” “Happier Than Ever,” and “Male Fantasy” as Happier Than Ever songs that could be revealed next week. Of course, it’s also possible (albeit unlikely) that her new song isn’t from the upcoming album at all.
Happier Than Ever is out 7/30 via Interscope. Pre-order it here.
This weekend is unofficially the start of summer 2021. You know what the last 15 months have been like. So let’s skip rehashing that and get to the drinks. This summer calls for a serious drink to, well, party your face off with. And there’s really no better highball on earth to truly let loose with than the Long Island Iced Tea.
Much like “Hawaiian” Pizza hailing from Canada. The Long Island Iced Tea is from Tennessee. Moonshiner and barman Charlie “Old Man” Bishop devised the drink back during Prohibition to pack a punch and goddamn did he succeed. Though Bishop’s original recipe is slightly different from the bar standard of today, it’s undeniably a classic through and through.
We’ll make Charlie’s classic Long Island Iced Tea another time. Today, we’re making the standard, make-it-in-the-glass Long Island Iced Tea you can get at every bar from the Pacific to the Atlantic. It’s a powerful concoction of white rum, blanco tequila, dry gin, vodka, triple sec, simple syrup, lemon juice, and Coca-Cola. It’s… a lot and it’ll get you ready for dancing under the full moon all night, hell, all summer long.
Uproxx’s 2021 “Drink Of Summer” — Long Island Iced Tea
Zach Johnston
Ingredients:
0.75-oz. white rum
0.75-oz. blanco tequila
0.75-oz. dry gin
0.75-oz. vodka
0.75-oz. triple sec
0.75-oz. simple syrup
0.75-oz. fresh lemon juice
1-oz. Coca-Cola
Lemon wedge
Ice
Use the bottles you have on hand. I just pulled what was at the front on my shelf and that ended up being Absolut Vodka, Havana Club 3 Anos Cubano Rum, Artingsall’s London Dry Gin, and Sierra Blanco Tequila. It really doesn’t matter beyond using spirits you actually like drinking. This is a mish-mash of flavors that somehow work a special sort of alchemy in the glass to really pop.
Other than that, I’m using classic Coke. You can use Coke Zero if you want. It’s perfectly fine. I actually used to love these with Cherry Coke Zero. But that was another time. You can also use Jarritos Mexican Cola or any bespoke cola you have in your area.
The last note I’d like to point out: Measure this out. Don’t be overly generous. This is already a powerful highball with a lot of booze. There are over three ounces of alcohol in this drink, making it a strong double. Add in the sugar high you get, and you have a drink that can put you on your ass pretty quick.
Zach Johnston
What You’ll Need:
Highball glass (pre-chilled)
Paring Knife
Hand juicer
Jigger
Straw
Method:
Cut a thin lemon wedge and cut the lemon in half.
Grab your glass from the freezer.
Fill with ice.
Add the rum, tequila, gin, vodka, triple sec, syrup, and lemon juice.
Drop in a straw and gently stir two or three times.
Top with Coca-Cola and give it another gentle stir.
Garnish with a lemon wedge.
Serve.
Bottom Line:
Zach Johnston
Ah-ha!
There’s that summer “let’s get f*cking crazy…” vibe I was looking for. This used to be my go-to drink when I got off work in the summers after busting my ass during double shifts at a Neapolitan pizzeria in D.C. Those were the sort of summers where the temperature was 90 degrees and the humidity was 100 percent and I was working next to an insanely hot, wood-fired pizza oven. But I knew I could head out after tip out and drink $4 Long Island Iced Teas in Adam’s Morgan ’til the sun came up. Good times.
This drink pulls off a crazy balancing act of marrying all the alcohols into a slightly citrus-forward base that’s countered by the sweetness of the cola and syrup with a touch of that Coke fizz keeping it light. It’s bold-yet-bright and yet you still know you’re drinking a strong drink.
Does this go down too easily? Of course. That’s the rep it has and it deserves that claim. Should you make a batch every weekend this summer? I think you know the answer to that.
Over the years, Russ and Rexx Life Raj have developed an easygoing and prolific creative chemistry, with Rexx appearing on Russ’s “On 10” and Russ returning the favor to appear on Rexx’s Father Figure 3 track “Falling.” Now, it’s back to Russ on the newly released “Private,” which Russ initially planned to release back in 2019 or 2020. However, the breakout success of his song “Best On Earth” with Bia — which caught the attention of Rihanna, among others — meant pivoting to work that record instead. Fortunately, as an independent artist, Russ is completely in control of his own release schedule.
PRIVATE drops @ midnight
Produced by Illmind Featuring Rexx Life Raj
this was the song I was gonna drop after Best On Earth but then it went nuts so I never got around to it…special one!! pic.twitter.com/Qh1tTpSxa4
The previously shelved song has a light melody, employing soft organs and keys as the backdrop for a romantic entreaty on which Russ raps and Raj sings, wisely splitting their shared talents between them to avoid cluttering up the track. It works as their prior collaborations have because it plays to both artists’ major strength: Emotive storytelling that doesn’t feel forced or corny — as seen on Russ tracks like “Hard For Me” and “Bankrupt” and Rexx Life singles “Built For Everything” and “Your Way” with Kehlani.
While Russ hasn’t mentioned any new projects in the works, he’s clearly got a backlog of strong songs just waiting for a home — even if he’s never truly embraced a traditional release format. Meanwhile, Rexx just released a three-song set of his own, which you can check out here.
over these past months i haven’t been able to make a lot of music. but of the few i made these have been on repeat, helping me through these times.
3 new songs out now. truly appreciate all the love and support. means the world fareal. thank you.
I’m still not entirely convinced Jim from The Office is directing these movies, but let’s say for the sake of argument that he is: John Krasinski is doing a solid job bringing back pulp filmmaking.
Certainly, A Quiet Place is a “gimmick” series, about aliens who can’t see but have acute hearing — the invention of writers Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, whose spec script Krasinski read in 2016. Krasinski, Woods, and Beck apply this basic conceit in service of an alien invasion movie that’s shot more like a horror movie than an action blockbuster. The scale is intimate, the CGI minimal, big battle scenes non-existent. It’s a popcorn movie shot at human scale, and in cutting out all the superfluous bullshit it manages to remind us that going to the movies can be fun.
At a time when imagery is more mundane and dime-a-million than ever, A Quiet Place provokes rapt attention to every frame, creating old-school Hitchcock suspense where the crunch of a leaf or the tumble of a pebble take on life-or-death importance. Gimmick or not, forcing the viewer to pay close attention to every frame is about the greatest trick a movie can play. It helps that Polly Morgan’s cinematography is lucid and captivating — you have to look, but you want to, too.
Picking up where A Quiet Place left off (I assume, I actually never saw it), A Quiet Place Part II follows Emily Blunt’s Evelyn, her deaf daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds), son Marcus (Noah Jupe), and baby, whose name isn’t really important, as they set out from their woodsy home in search of… like, stuff to help them survive in the post-apocalyptic alienscape and whatnot (again, honestly, not that important). Regan has one weird trick that aliens hate — sticking her cochlear implant next to an amplifier to create shrieking feedback (good thing she never saw A Sound Of Metal, which would’ve almost certainly dissuaded her from getting a cochlear implant. And then where would this movie be?).
The family eventually finds a family friend, Emmett (Cillian Murphy), who helps them hide inside a mostly sound-proof furnace under three feet of concrete in an old factory. One day while fiddling with the dial on a transistor radio, Marcus comes across a radio station that only plays one song — “Across The Sea,” which Regan thinks might be a clue to where it’s broadcasting from. If she can get to the station, they can maybe find new people to chill with, and she might be able to do her feedback thingy on a massive scale, turning all transistor radios into potential stun guns and thus democratizing the means of killing bad guys.
And with that, I’ve described basically the entire movie. The fact that the story is straightforward is part of what makes A Quiet Place II work so well. Even the title is a clue to the film’s sensibilities. Before the film, I saw trailers for countless sequels, from Top Gun: Maverick to The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, and if you asked me to put the MCU movies in chronological order I’d probably have a nervous breakdown. How refreshing, how retro, how gloriously logical it is, then, for a sequel to just be called “Part II.”
The plot, which is essentially just a slightly less dumb version of Signs, is a basic framework into which Krasinski (allegedly) and Polly Morgan stuff all kinds of formalistically classical vignettes. The film is far more about the suspense of individual scenes than exactly where the characters are going and why. Shot vividly on 35mm film, A Quiet Place II is never not a master class in composition. It creates always a fully realized awareness of whatever space in which each scene takes place, with clear perspective and a dynamic range of different shots. The plot makes you study each frame intently, and the execution of each shot is so effective that your eyes never get bored. It’s just fundamentally sound, meat-and-potatoes filmmaking.
With its edge-of-your-seat suspense and ever-present tension, A Quiet Place II is the perfect movie to see in a theater, totally immersed and not checking your phone (though I will admit, there was a disgusting, round-bellied slob a few seats behind me open-mouthed chewing his popcorn more loudly than I’d previously thought possible during my screening).
With its lack of explosions, CGI, and giant battle scenes, perhaps the most important thing A Quiet Place II does is understand that the future of theatrical spectacle isn’t in trying to make movies “big,” it’s in making them small. It shrinks the alien invasion movie down to a human scale. Did I mention that the run time is 97 minutes? More of this, please.
A Quiet Place II is in theaters now. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.
Tucked inside The Hollywood Reporter‘s mammoth feature on “Hollywood’s Top 100 Attorneys” is an interesting nugget for fans of 2019’s controversial, yet highly lucrative Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix. In a blurb on power lawyer Warren Dern, THR reports that he inked a deal with Warner Bros. for Todd Phillips to “co-write the next Joker installment.” While this is exciting news for Joker fans who have been itching for a follow-up movie, there are no further details and Phillips has stepped in and denied overzealous reports of a sequel in the past.
Following Joker‘s surprising billion-dollar success at the box office, Phillips spoke candidly about the chance of a sequel, and he’s made it clear that there are two major hurdles that have to be cleared: First and foremost, Phoenix’s involvement, which is in no way guaranteed, and a story that can match the “resonance” of the first film. Via Deadline:
“When a movie does $1 billion and cost $60 million to make, of course it comes up,” he laughed. “But Joaquin and I haven’t really decided on it. We’re open. I mean, I’d love to work with him on anything, quite frankly. So who knows? But it would have to have a real thematic resonance the way this one did, ultimately being about childhood trauma and the lack of love, and the loss of empathy. All those things are really what made this movie work for us, so we’d have to have something that had an equal thematic resonance.”
Of course, having a story that can get Phoenix on board is key, and if Warner Bros. is eager to get a Joker sequel going, we may be witnessing the beginning steps of that process by commissioning Phillips to co-write a compelling script for the actor.
Elton John has achieved a lot during his lengthy and illustrious career, so he was a natural choice to be given the iHeartRadio Icon Award at the 2021 iHeartRadio Music Awards last night. iHeartRadio went all out with honoring the legend, too, as they pulled out all the stops.
The award was presented to John by Coldplay’s Chris Martin, who ran through some comedic fake facts about John. Lil Nas X then joined in to pay tribute. After the award presentation, there was a tribute performance from Demi Lovato, HER, and Brandi Carlile. HER started by playing “Bennie And The Jets’ at a piano, when then segued into Carlile performing “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me.” Lovato wrapped things up with a rendition of “I’m Still Standing,” and John himself even joined in during the song’s climax.
Ahead of the performances, John also gave an acceptance speech and thanked the aforementioned artists for paying tribute to him. He also spoke about how stunned he was by American radio early in his career, saying, “When I first came to Los Angeles in 1970, radio was so important. I’d never heard radio in America before because I had never been here before, but it was just incredible to me. In England, we had one station. Over here, you’d have music coming out of the radio in all sorts of formats, all sorts of styles… I was a pig in sh*t, basically.”
Watch some clips from the show below.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Sometimes the best new R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm and blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the the best new R&B jams that fans should hear.
This week, Tone Stith released another slow jam titled “Like The First Time” in anticipation of his upcoming EP FWM, Justine Skye dropped off her song “Twisted Fantasy” featuring Rema, and JoJo shared her latest “Creature Of Habit.”
Tone Stith — “Like The First Time”
Tone Stith is coming into his own and the sensual “Like The First Time,” is an example of that. It’s the third single off his upcoming project FWM and is a great representation of the potential the talented singer-songwriter holds (as if his essentially perfect vocals aren’t enough) for the future of R&B.
Justine Skye — “Twisted Fantasy” Feat. Rema
Justine Skye‘s Space & Time with Timbaland is on the way and ahead of its release, she shares her visual for “Twisted Fantasy” featuring Nigerian star Rema. Space & Time is the follow-up to 2020’s Bare With Me: The Album and created over Instagram Live with Timbo during the pandemic. “My story and my sound finally unite,” she said in a statement. “I’ve never been as vulnerable or as candid as I am on this album. I’m really laying it all out, having fun, talking sh*t, and being me.”
JoJo — “Creature Of Habit”
JoJo‘s latest release “Creature Of Habit” is a relatable song that finds JoJo surrounding to the vulnerabilities one can have when dealing with a passionate yet toxic situation when the red flags can look like Six Flags. “‘Creature Of Habit’ is about someone who feels addicted to the habit of a relationship, even though they’re not truly happy in it,” JoJo explained in a statement. “Having experienced my own cycles of habits allowed me to find aspects of myself in the lyrics.”
Mereba — AZEB
Mereba’s AZEB features seven songs that live in a world where futuristic R&B reigns supreme. It’s a powerful project intertwined with an equally powerful message submerged in Black excellence. “This year has shown us that that is actually more of us than many people thought,” she said in a statement. “I want to remind people of love, too. The very thing we deserve the right to do and to be.”
Asiahn — “OMW”
Following The Interlude EP, Asiahn arrives with something fresh in the form of “OMW.” It’s an introspective slow jam that’s both comforting and motivating.
PxRRY — “Misbehaving” Feat. Eric Bellinger
Summer is here and it sounds like Pxrry and Eric Bellinger have the perfect summertime track with “Misbehaving.” Press play and find out why “Misbehaving” is a fan favorite.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
After an indefinite delay, Dying Light 2 has finally crawled its way out of development purgatory and has a new (and hopefully final) release date: Dec. 7, 2021. The news was announced by Techland during their Dying 2 Know livestream event on May 27, where the studio not only shared the new launch date, but also gave fans more footage and information on the upcoming title, as well as its new name, Dying Light 2 Stay Human.
A follow-up to 2015’s Dying Light, Stay Human is set over 15 years after the events of the first game and follows new protagonist Aiden Caldwell as he traverses Europe and meets up with a group of survivors known as the Nightrunners. In PlayStation’s most recent blog post, they elaborated further on the game’s plot, stating:
“A glimmer of hope emerges in The City, one of the last bastions of mankind in Dying Light 2 Stay Human—for the survival of the entire human race, but also for you, a wandering pilgrim, serving as a connection between the scattered settlements. Driven by a promise of unveiling the secrets of your past and finding the one you’ve lost, you pause your travels and begin forging your own legend there.”
While the game retains all of the elements that made the first game so popular — cooperative multiplayer, fast-paced gameplay, a vast open world — Stay Human is billed to provide a significantly more narrative-heavy experience, with player’s choices having a greater impact on the story. According to PlayStation, “the City is a complex organism that will react to your decisions. Depending on whom you support, the setting around you will change, offering you new opportunities, but also posing many new challenges.”
In addition to this story glow-up, the map is said to be four times bigger and filled with even more buildings to navigate and implement as your make your way past hordes of the undead and to your objectives. The game is also said to have new tools and powers for players to experiment with, which you’ll need as the game is loaded with ” brutal fights and unexpected encounters.”
Dying Light 2 Stay Human will hit both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 exclusively on Dec. 7, 2021.
Every time Tyneeha Rivers thinks about it, her voice grows tense and tears spills down her face. She anticipated this moment would come, doing everything in her power to ensure it would arrive. Despite his being in the league for three years now, the emotions Rivers feels are as powerful as ever.
Her son, Mikal Bridges, is an NBA player, serving a critical role for the title-contending Phoenix Suns. He is entrusted to act as Phoenix’s defensive stopper, checking eventual Hall of Fame inductees every night. And yet her steadfast belief this would happen one day is not a safeguard for her emotions.
Overwhelming waves of gratitude pour in. This is her son, born when she was 19 and raised in a single parent household. They grew up together, learned to navigate life as a duo. Twenty-four years of love, resolute faith, and persistence converge with tears and choppy, breathless words.
“I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, what is my son doing guard LeBron (James)?’ … I just get so choked up when I see him out there guarding players like Kawhi (Leonard) and all those players that are just at their best and known to be All-Star, superstars,” Rivers says. “I have a friend who said to me, ‘Aren’t you used to it now? It’s his third year in the league and you still see him on TV and get choked up and cry.’ I think I’m going to always just be that way because I am so grateful.”
From the time Bridges was in the third grade, Rivers told anyone and everyone he was destined for the league. They all considered her ridiculous, another parent exaggerating their kid’s abilities.
Jim Nolan, Bridges’ high school coach at Great Valley High in his hometown of Malvern, Penn., heard Rivers’ refrain. Jay Wright heard it, too, imploring that first, Villanova’s coaching staff focus on making Bridges the best Wildcat he could be.
As a kid, Bridges reiterated his mother’s sentiment. Basketball was the priority. Video game consoles were buried in the trunk of her car until he finished shooting for the day. Hanging out with friends before time in the gym was a nonstarter. Whenever it snowed enough to blanket the courts in Malvern, his mom encouraged him to shovel the obstacle away — Rivers loved telling Bridges that his favorite player, Kobe Bryant, would do this, too.
Every summer, basketball sat central to his plans. Free time meant another chance to sharpen his game. Rivers sent him to the best camps she could afford and found coaches who would emphasize the tenets of hard work and accountability. She designed a plan that “entrenched” him in the sport at 3 years old, guaranteeing any potential hurdles on his path to the league were independent of his control.
“When he was younger, it was harder, especially being a young, high school teenager and you see the kids hanging out, they want to have fun and they want to do things,” Rivers says. “He’s like, ‘I need a break’ and I’m like, ‘No, no breaks, like get your butt out there and shoot that ball and dribble and work on your game.’ He was taught very early on at a young age that your current situation doesn’t have to dictate what your future holds. The only behavior you can control is your own.”
As a single mother, she earned everything, working and attending night classes for her master’s in human resources, all while caring for Mikal. Bedtime stories and help with homework were the norm, as was instilling in him the competitive drive that enabled her to juggle everything.
This meant Bridges would never be given an easy win. No matter the activity — sports, board games, miniature golf, whatever it may be — Rivers established the upper hand in an effort to foster a sense of determination.
“My mom was like, ‘What mother won’t let their child win?’ “ Rivers says. “I’m teaching him how to be competitive. I let him win? No, he has to earn it.”
By the time Bridges was a junior in high school, Rivers’ approach clicked for him. He understood why video games and hangout sessions never preceded basketball in daily routines. He understood why persevering through inclement weather mattered.
To achieve his self-described goal of earning a scholarship for a high-level college, the motivation needed to come from within. If these were truly his objectives, Rivers could not be the one constantly reminding him of his responsibilities.
Unprompted, he went to the court to shoot every day during the summer leading up to his junior year. No longer was Rivers demanding more of him than he expected of himself. The gravity of the opportunities ahead and the influence he wielded over those opportunities crystallized.
“I’ve coached gym rats. He wasn’t a gym rat,” Nolan says. “He wasn’t, but that’s not a bad thing. He was still growing, he was still learning and I think that kept coming and kept coming. … Into his junior and senior year, it definitely changed.”
Barry Gossage
You’re not working hard enough.
Bridges did not want to hear those words, but he knew he had to hear them.
Amid a road trip last season, Bridges and Monty Williams sat down in Memphis for the type of discussion the Suns’ head coach holds with every player throughout the year intended to help them and the team.
After playing nearly 30 minutes per game as a rookie and starting 56 of 82 games under former head coach Igor Kokoškov, Bridges started only five of his first 45 games and was logging a tick over 24 minutes each night during Williams’ first season. He thought he deserved to play more and made that clear to his coach.
Williams, who later acknowledged he was doing “some things” that hindered Bridges, digested the second-year wing’s qualm and provided a sobering, candid solution: work harder. Since that conversation, Bridges has started the successive 102 games across two seasons, playing a crucial role in the Suns going from lottery fodder to championship contender.
“I don’t think either one of us realized how important it would be,” Williams says of their heart-to-heart. “He wasn’t comfortable at the time. He wasn’t playing as well as he could.”
That conversation reoriented how Bridges viewed himself as a player. Sure, the baseline work ethic existed, but it was just enough to carve out a role in the league, not enough to garner the respect he craved and tap into everything he could offer. Williams and Bridges knew it. The latter suppressed it, the former verbalized it. Together, they kindled an early inflection point in his career.
“He respects Monty for that,” Rivers says. “You can see the confidence that he has this season versus what he had last season. And I think I can credit that to Monty that really told him, ‘You gotta step onto that court, you got to have more confidence and believe in yourself.’ ”
There was no sweeping shift from Bridges after that day, merely an understanding to spend more time in the gym, maintain a calm demeanor, and be honest with himself about his work ethic. Everything Rivers sought to imprint on her son during his formative years came in handy.
“A lot of people could fold off that and be like, ‘He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he just doesn’t want to play me,’ and just to keep doing what they’re doing,” Bridges says. “It was just knowing what he said, took it to heart, fighting, kept getting better, and going harder than what I was actually doing. It got me to the position I’m at right now.”
That position: Starting every game for the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, a team that finds itself down, 2-1, against the defending champions in a hotly-contested series. Averaging career-highs in points (13.5), rebounds (4.3), and blocks (0.9). Shooting a career-best from deep (42.5 percent) and the field (54.3 percent). Potentially earning an All-Defensive Team honor this year and lucrative contract extension at some point in the offseason.
To glance at Bridges is to see limbs. To watch him dutifully — effortlessly bounding from baseline to baseline, draining threes, spiraling around defenders for layups, hounding offensive superstars — is also to see limbs at work, a 7’1 wingspan glued to a wiry, 209-pound frame. He’s heard all the nicknames: Stretch, Noodles, Inspector Go-Go Gadget, String Bean, Brittle, Praying Mantis.
He does not care for any of them, in part because he’s had long arms dating back to elementary school. Before a high school growth spurt as a sophomore caused him to sprout above his peers, from 6’3 to 6’6, his long arms stood out. Rivers advised him to put those sprawling arms to use.
“You have an advantage over those other kids,” she’d say. “You can block their shot, you could take the ball.”
Years later, Bridges still heeds his mother’s advice on the defensive end. He winds around screens and embeds himself to guys. Adapting across assignments like a chameleon, he defends anyone from Stephen Curry, to Luka Doncic, to Paul George. There are no easy shots around him, his arms a ubiquitous code for opponents to decipher.
“Some guys be like, ‘Damn, your arms are like so long, like, I didn’t know you could get back,’” Bridges says. “Trust me, I play against people with long arms as well. And I can already tell, I’m like, ‘Man, if I get guarded like this, I would be frustrated as well, too.’ I understand what length can do to a person and how much it could bother somebody, so just use it to my advantage.”
Getty Image
Bridges starts speaking but immediately backtracks. His last phrase wasn’t quite right, so he corrects himself to avoid a canned response that undersells playing with an all-time great point guard.
Chris Paul, the outspoken, doggedly determined leader and basketball player, aligned with what Bridges knew and heard prior to Paul joining the Suns this past offseason. The other stuff — friendship, leadership, locker room presence — was not something for which anyone could prepare him.
“Knowing just how he is as a leader, as a person … actually, not as a person,” Bridges says. “I didn’t know how good of a person he was. People did talk about it, but you just don’t know until you be around a person. If you feel like you need help or something, you can always ask him and he always can help you with this. I think that’s the biggest thing, is knowing I got him as a friend rather than a teammate just shows how good of a guy is, and he’s perfect for the team.”
As a nine-time All-Defensive Team honoree, Paul is well-versed in the trials of undertaking the opponent’s primary option every game and tutors Bridges for these tests before, during, and after they transpire. Prior to an early season game against the Golden State Warriors, Paul tapped into his extensive memory bank to give Bridges pointers on how to check Curry.
He told Bridges how to identify certain actions the Warriors run for the two-time league MVP, to stay tethered even when Curry doesn’t have the ball in his hands (being cognizant of off-ball screens was a point of emphasis), and to key in on the patented give-and-go sequences between Curry and Draymond Green.
Bridges and Paul are in continuous communication during games and practices. Early on, Bridges remarked to Paul about their unceasing dialogue, with Paul stressing the value of these interactions.
“Yeah, that’s how it’s supposed to go, like, we’re supposed to get on each other if somebody is messing up, get on that person,” Bridges recalls. “If you don’t agree, you’re not just gonna sit there and not say anything. Tell him what you think is wrong and right. And then, we’ll talk about it and come to an agreement.”
Consider a midseason game against the Portland Trail Blazers. Bridges is guarding Damian Lillard, one of the league’s preeminent scorers and a ball-screen wizard. Paul suggests Bridges steer Lillard away from the screen by opening himself up and funneling Lillard toward the lane. Bridges is dubious, retorting that if he does so, Lillard will not wait for the screen and simply pounce on the driving angle by zipping inside. If Bridges crowds Lillard, trying to close down his air space and any advantage from a screen, he risks committing a foul. They discuss all these options, cycling through the benefits and risks of each.
Bridges can only say one thing about these sorts of back-and-forths with one of the greatest to ever play the game: “It’s dope.”
A commitment to defense was instilled in Bridges during his days at Great Valley. He was not a good defender, Nolan says, when he arrived on campus as a sophomore. Not because his deficiencies stood out compared to his peers, but because few young players are taught the intricacies of that part of the game.
“Growing up through the sport, everything is offense, shooting, passing, dribbling — everything is offense. And so when you get to a program that’s going to really emphasize and teach defense, man-to-man defense, it becomes culture shock,” Nolan says. “Defense is just not something kids like to do.”
The nuances of on-ball defense — arms spread wide, sitting low in a stance, watching the opponent’s belly button to forecast their next move — were preached. Tendencies such as communication, boxing out, precise closeouts, help-side rotations, taking charges, and ball denial were enforced. Players jumped rope to improve their foot speed. Every practice, a minimum of 45 minutes were dedicated to defense.
Bridges quickly saw the work translate to success on the floor. As a junior, he averaged more than one steal and block per game, merging keen instincts and budding defensive knowhow with his God-given length. Many nights, he’d foretell a pass, dart in front of the ball, and snag it for a breakaway jam. Or, he’d rotate inside and elevate for a block that always seemingly occurred at a vital juncture of the game.
“It was such a momentum-builder to have somebody that could do that,” says Michael Gregory, Bridges’ teammate at Great Valley. “We didn’t have anybody else that could do that on our team.”
When it came time to work on the other end of the floor, Nolan had his players perfect his pass-and-screen offense, saturated with ball and player movement. Practices rarely involved scrimmaging. Two, sometimes three hours were devoted to refinement via hands-on instruction.
They learned how to set and maneuver off-ball screens. Lead your man into the pick. Take a tight route around it. Read how defenders position themselves. Back-cuts and back-screens were hallmarks of the offense. Off-ball separation and proper floor-spacing were imperative. Everyone touched the ball each possession, often multiple times. Pick-and-rolls or isolations were footnotes. Great Valley made their opponents work. They loved it. The other team hated it.
“That’s where I learned all my cutting from, was in high school,” Bridges says. “Literally on a possession, the ball might not even touch the ground but like five times.”
Once Bridges emerged as a 20-point scorer and the team’s undisputed best player his junior year, the path to buckets remained the same: passing, cutting, screening. Identify soft spots in the defense, shift them off-kilter, and strike. Today, playing alongside Devin Booker and Paul, he still scores in a similar manner, bolting to the rim when defenders turn their head, attacking closeouts and blazing in transition for smooth finishes.
“He has great spatial awareness,” says George Halcovage, Villanova assistant coach. “He’s a really good cutter off the ball.”
Barry Gossage
Devin Booker keeps bugging Mikal Bridges.
“You haven’t been on a game in a while,” the All-Star guard says.
Both guys are Call of Duty connoisseurs. They’ll often play together. Bridges deems Booker the best on the team, but stresses this is only because he has not played in a while.
Recently, he’s been preoccupied tending to his 5-year-old retriever and lab mix, Sonny. Between taking Sonny for walks and bathroom breaks, COVID testing, road trips, games, and practices, Bridges is drained of the requisite energy to battle against his teammate.
“I feel like a father over here taking care of this dog sometimes,” Bridges says. “I just be tired.”
When Bridges was in the fourth grade, he and his mom briefly owned a golden retriever named Frosty until they moved and gave the dog to a family friend. Shortly after, when he was in middle school, Mickey, also a golden retriever, entered their lives and was with the family until he passed away after Bridges finished high school. “That was my favorite dog,” Bridges says.
As a sophomore in college, he begged Rivers for a new dog, saying he would take care of Sonny after he graduated if Rivers did so until then. The two agreed, but after Bridges was drafted in 2018, Sonny remained in Philadelphia with Rivers. A newly minted professional basketball player assimilating to radical life changes, Bridges insisted he was too busy to house a dog full-time.
“I’ve been tricked,” Rivers says.
Earlier this year, Bridges dearly missed Sonny. FaceTime calls were not an adequate connection. So, Sonny headed westward to Phoenix in February and has lived with Bridges over the past few months.
“They have this special bond,” Rivers says. “Even though I get all the work raising Sonny, Mikal will always be Sonny’s favorite and Sonny will be Mikal’s favorite.”
Once the offseason begins, Sonny will travel back to Philadelphia and provide his papa the space to center himself solely on basketball. Rivers tries to tell her son he is not the only NBA player or Phoenix Sun with a furry friend. Dog walkers and dog sitters are part of the agenda. Her efforts, at least for now, are futile. To hone his craft, Bridges needs to clear his schedule; Sonny does not allow for that.
Fathering Sonny is the only responsibility he can skirt. If Rivers has a say, every other venture he clamors for would come to fruition — not through her doing, but through his own patterns of accountability and discipline. They’re foundational traits belabored and practiced since the day Bridges expressed his goal of being an NBA player nearly two decades ago.
“I might’ve been too hard on him,” Rivers says. “But I think it paid off.”
Tomorrow is National Burger Day (technically it’s national Hamburger day, but go ahead, cheese it up), which means whether you like cheeseburgers, bacon cheeseburgers, double cheeseburgers, hamburgers, or plant-based burgers, it’s a day reserved for you to celebrate by chomping down. And since National Burger Day comes just ahead of Memorial Day weekend, it’s really more of a National Burger weekend, so — go HAM and change your diet to nothing but burgers for the next four days!
Unless you don’t like burgers, in which case go ahead and enjoy a Memorial Day salad we guess, no judgment. We’ll just be over here debating about what the best cheese for a burger is. You know, normal Memorial Day conversation.
As is the case with every National Food day, there are food deals out there that’ll get you fed on the cheap. We’ve rounded up all the best deals out there from the national food chains, some of the deals will get you a free or cheap burger, and some of the deals won’t get you burgers at all, but hey, free food! That’s a cause for celebration in itself.
All BFF club members will receive a free medium sundae when purchasing any burger. It’s not a free burger, but we think free dessert is just as good if not better!
Receive a free order of medium fries when placing an order via the McDonald’s app on May 28th. It’s not a free burger but who cares? McDonald’s fries are the real star of the show anyway.
Papa John’s what the hell are you doing here? This isn’t really a National Burger Day deal but we thought it was worth mentioning — save 25% off your Parmesan Crusted Papadia when checking out with the promo code PARMCRUSTED.
Red Robin will be offering BOGO 50% off deals on all of their Gourmet Burgers to members of the Red Robin Royalty program. Buy a burger, get one half off for your friend, or you know, yourself.
Sign up for the Craver Nation loyalty program and receive a free White Castle combo from now until May 31st.
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