Month: June 2021

Can we just take a second and celebrate how good this series has been? Beyond being historic — never before has the road team won the first six games of a best-of-7 series — every single matchup between these two squads has been much-watch. They battled in the Orlando Bubble, and if anything, this series has felt like an extension of that six-game slugfest.

Luka Doncic is continuing his ascent towards earning the title of the best player in the world some day. Kawhi Leonard did a whole bunch of Kawhi Leonard stuff in Game 6, snatching the souls out of the Mavericks faithful to send the series back to Staples Center. Players around them have stepped up, understanding the magnitude of this series cannot be shouldered squarely by one person. The expectations were high coming into the series, and somehow, these two teams have managed to exceed them.

It’s win or go home, with the victors moving on to challenge the Utah Jazz and the losers getting to enjoy the sun in either Dallas or L.A. a little bit earlier than they would like.

Game 7 TV Info

Tip Time: Sunday, June 6; 3:30 p.m. ET
TV Network: ESPN

Game 7 Betting Lines (via DraftKings Sportsbook)

Spread: Clippers -3.5 (-113), Mavericks +3.5 (-109)
Total: Over 212 (-109), Under 212 (-113)
Money Line: Clippers (-265) , Mavericks (+215)

The Philadelphia 76ers will play host to the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday afternoon for Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinal tilt. The series should be really good no matter what happens, but one gigantic question looms largely before the two teams take the floor at the Wells Fargo Center: will Joel Embiid play?

The Sixers’ MVP big man suffered a meniscus injury during the team’s first round victory over the Washington Wizards. While Philly was able to take the one game it needed off of Washington without Embiid, the Hawks will be a far more difficult challenge. Big man Clint Capela is fresh off of thrashing the New York Knicks’ frontcourt, Trae Young is playing some of the best basketball of his career, and Atlanta’s stable of shooters gives them enough offensive firepower that they can get into track meets and feel good about their chances.

The Sixers are really good, and even if Embiid doesn’t play, their team defense, Ben Simmons’ ability to take over games, and the scoring punch guys like Seth Curry, Danny Green, and Tobias Harris can bring gives them a shot. But they would very much prefer to play this series with Embiid on the floor.

Game 1 TV Info

Tip Time: Sunday, June 6; 1 p.m. ET
TV Network: ESPN

Game 1 Betting Lines (via DraftKings Sportsbook)

Series Prices: Sixers (-200), Hawks (+160)
Spread: Sixers -3 (-109), Hawks +3 (-113)
Total: Over 220.5 (-112), Under 22o.5 (-109)
Money Line: Sixers (-139), Hawks (+116)

The Inside the NBA crew doesn’t do a ton of laughing at themselves, but when they do, it’s because something they really like happens. An example of this came on Saturday evening after the Brooklyn Nets took down the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, with Charles Barkley hooting and hollering about an impression someone did of him.

A video made its way around the internet in recent days of Washington, D.C.-based comedian Danny Rouhier doing an impersonation of Chuck providing analysis of a game between the Portland Trail Blazers and Denver Nuggets. If you have not seen it:

Pretty good! Anyway, the Inside crew played it for Barkley who delighted in the whole thing.

My favorite part is “Michael Junior Porter,” but regardless, my take does not matter here. The only thing that matters is whether or not Chuck likes it, and fortunately for Rouhier, the Hall of Fame inductee smiled, clapped, and said “that’s pretty good right there!” Now the challenge for Rouhier is to top this with impressions of Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith, but if he decides to have Barkley be the only Inside analyst he impersonates, he can take solace in knowing he did a terrific job.

The Brooklyn Nets have drawn first blood in their Eastern Conference Semifinal series against the Milwaukee Bucks. Despite seeing one member of their three-headed monster go down with an injury early on in the contest, the Nets were able to buckle down on both ends of the floor and defend their home court, picking up a 115-107 win that was nowhere near as close as the final score indicated.

The first major occurrence in this series took less than a minute, and for the Nets, it seemed like the sort of thing that could cause the wheels to come off completely. James Harden, who has been perhaps the team’s best player when he’s been able to take the floor, appeared to aggravate the hamstring injury for kept him sidelined for essentially all of April and much of May. Harden stepped awkwardly after trying to pick a pass to Joe Harris, which led to him leaving the floor and, eventually, the stadium so he could get imaging done on the injury.

But losing Harden did not mean a death knell for Brooklyn’s chances of picking up a win. The Nets, so frequently revered for their ability to score, put the clamps on Milwaukee defensively. Add in that the Bucks generally failed to take advantage of the good looks they got and you have the recipe for a blowout.

The Nets forced 14 turnovers, blocked six shots, and made life difficult for Milwaukee’s offense. As a team, the Bucks shot 45-for-101 (44.6 percent) from the field, 6-for-30 (20 percent) from three, and a paltry 11-for-19 (57.9 percent) from the free throw line.

And of course, Brooklyn was flat-out good at putting the ball through the rim. With Harden out, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving led the way — Durant was the team’s top scorer, going for 29 points with nine rebounds, three assists, a pair of blocks, and a steal. Irving, meanwhile, had 25 points and eight assists. The most encouraging thing for Brooklyn with regards to these two, though, might be the fact that they imposed themselves on the game despite poor shooting, as Durant and Irving combined to go 23-for-51 (45 percent) from the field and 4-for-15 (26.7 percent) from three.

More encouraging than anything was the fact that Brooklyn had players step up and fill Harden’s void. The most prominent example of this was Blake Griffin, who was outstanding on both ends. Offensively, he scored 18 points and hit four triples while keeping the ball moving to get the team better looks, as he’s wont to do. Defensively, Griffin played his heart out, flying around and cutting off anything and everything the Bucks wanted to do in his vicinity. He had a double-double on the evening, as he pulled down a game-high 14 rebounds.

Joe Harris was his usual self, scoring 19 points while making five threes, while Mike James had 12 points and seven rebounds off the bench.

For Milwaukee, Giannis Antetokounmpo led the way with 34 points, 11 rebounds, four assists, and two blocks, while Brook Lopez’s 19 points and five rebounds deputized him.

Both Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton struggled from the floor, and while they found other ways to contribute, their woes as scorers were ultimately too much for Milwaukee to overcome. Holiday’s 17 points came on 7-for-19 shooting with a 2-for-7 clip from three, with nine rebounds and six assists. Middleton’s struggles were mightier: 13 points on 6-for-23 shooting with 13 rebounds and four assists. A 41.4 percent three-point shooter during the regular season, Middleton did not hit any of his five attempts from deep.

Game 2 will take place on Monday evening from the Barclays Center. The game is scheduled to tip off at 7:30 p.m. EST on TNT.

Chrissy Teigen is beloved by millions for her social media accounts and various lifestyle lines, but a controversy over her past tweets involving Courtney Stodden has now impacted at least one of her roles on TV. It’s the latest in a series of controversies involving Teigen, internet toxicity and criticism of the model and influencer’s presence on Twitter.

Teigen left social media earlier in the year following criticism of a number of things, deleting her account before returning to the platform after what she called a “terrible” few weeks away. That return was not as warmly welcomed as she hoped, however, after TMZ published several tweets and direct messages from 2011 between Teigen and Stodden, most famous for marrying a 51-year-old man at age 16. The tweets, which included references to Stodden taking a “dirt nap” and Teigen saying “i hate you,” drew outrage from shocked fans.

Earlier in the month, Teigen apologized to Stodden and called herself an “insecure, attention-seeking troll” for harsh tweets aimed at Stodden over a series of years. And now she’s reportedly stepping away from at least one role in the aftermath of the bullying accusations. As Variety reported on Friday, Teigen was set to provide voiceover work for Never Have I Ever‘s second season. But that’s now shelved amid the controversy that’s unfolded on social media in recent weeks.

Teigen opted to drop out of a planned voice role in one episode of the upcoming Season 2 of the Netflix coming of age comedy from Mindy Kaling. The series features voice-over narration for key characters performed by guest actors.

“Never Have I Ever” revolves around a first-generation Indian American teenage girl navigating high school while dealing with the loss of her father. A spokesman for the show said the role is expected to be recast.

The move makes sense given the context of the show and the fallout Teigen has seen. The celebrity voiceovers for Season One of Never Have I Ever were a fun quirk for a show about a seemingly ordinary high school girl, and Teigen’s image is, at least for now, far less fun and quirky than it was before this year’s controversies. It’s unclear if any other roles will be lost in the wake of all this, but just expect to see another celebrity take her place on the show when Season 2 starts streaming.

[via Variety]

Marjorie Taylor Greene has a long history of believing wild things that are simply not true. From the sprawling QAnon conspiracy to Jewish space lasers and the fact that Donald Trump had the 2020 election stolen from him, Greene knows a falsehood to support when she sees one. But while her latest flub may have not have been intentional, it definitely fit the bill for the congresswoman from Georgia.

The latest Twitter moment from Greene to go viral came at the expense of Anthony Fauci, who conservatives have hounded for months over any number of things as the federal government deals with the still-ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Josh Hawley has also barked up this tree in recent days, saying Fauci should resign while others pointed out that’s what he should have done for encouraging insurrectionists at the US Capitol ahead of and on January 6. But Greene’s letter to the White House drew particular ire because she apparently believes in another thing that doesn’t exist: a 31st day in June.

The letter, which included a long list of coronavirus and pandemic falsehoods too lengthy to counter, was dismissed outright by many. But those who actually got to the end of the rambling missive managed to note that Greene demanded answers on “June 31” of this year. Which is, of course, a date that doesn’t exist in the Julian calendar.

At this point the best assumption to make is that these mistakes are actually part of a strategy to get more attention for the already toothless congresswoman, who can’t serve on committees and is essentially left sending inane letters to the Biden administration she’s refused to admit actually has any authority to run the country a number of times in the weeks and months since Trump’s loss in the 2020 election.

Still, that didn’t stop plenty of folks for dunking on the June 31 and the letter in general.

At least when this joke gets made on Parks and Recreation the result is a lot funnier than the reality of Taylor Greene actually holding office in America, which is still a thing that happened in real life.

As of this writing, three NBA head coaching jobs are open: Boston, Orlando, and Portland. The Celtics’ gig came open under unique circumstances — Brad Stevens got moved into the team’s front office following Danny Ainge’s decision to leave the organization, leaving a vacancy on the bench — but for the other two, the wording used to describe their ousters raised plenty of eyebrows.

Both Steve Clifford and Terry Stotts saw their tenures end not by firings, but via a mutual parting of ways. Plenty of folks pointed out that this is a curious phenomenon that overwhelmingly occurs to one group of coaches over another, with Charles Barkley joining the chorus on Saturday night before the Brooklyn Nets and the Milwaukee Bucks faced off at the Barclays Center.

“Mutual parting of ways in Portland and in Orlando,” Ernie Johnson said. “Steve Clifford out with the Magic, Terry Stotts out with the Portland Trail Blazers…”

“America, that means they were white,” Barkley said. “They fire brothers, they don’t part ways.”

While Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith laughed at Barkley saying this, there has been plenty of discourse in recent years about how Black coaches oftentimes don’t get opportunities — both to get in the door or weather bad stretches of play — that white coaches do. Amid all of this, hopefully the way we use “fire” vs. “part ways” can be put under the microscope in the future, too.

The pesky hamstring injury that plagued James Harden during the final stretch of the NBA’s regular season appears to have reared its ugly head. Less than a minute into the Brooklyn Nets’ Eastern Conference Semifinal tilt against the Milwaukee Bucks, Harden walked to the locker room after awkwardly planting his foot on a drive.

Harden, while pushing the ball in transition, whipped a pass over to Joe Harris in the corner. But Harden immediately came up limp, holding his right hamstring as he walked off the floor. Play was stopped shortly after due to a Nets foul, at which point the former league MVP walked to the locker room.

A previous hamstring injury, one that was believed to have been completely remedied, cost Harden 20 games between April and May. The only game he played in that period of time only saw Harden take the floor for 4:22, at which point the hamstring injury caused him to leave the Nets’ game against the New York Knicks.

It goes without saying, but losing Harden would be absolutely brutal for Brooklyn’s hopes of taking down a really good Bucks team en route to winning a championship. We’ll keep you updated as more information comes out about his status moving forward.

Anonymous, which admittedly feels like it was a much bigger influence on the Internet a few cycles ago, has apparently set its sights on Elon Musk after another week of crypto shenanigans. The internet collective that has hacked and exposed countless groups and people issued a warning to Musk via a video where it scolded him for manipulating the cryptocurrency market and impacting the livelihoods of people investing in the market that’s fluctuated wildly in recent weeks.

In a video posted to YouTube on Saturday, a Guy Fawkes-wearing person with a masked voice issued a warning to Musk, scolding him for the way he acquired his wealth, his business practices and warned that the gleeful way he’s impacting the cryptocurrency market is impacting the actual lives of many people.

“For the past several years you have enjoyed one of the most favorable reputations of anyone in the billionaire class because you have tapped into the a desire that many of us have to live in a world with electric cars and space exploration,” the video said. “But recently your carefully-curated public image is being exposed and people are beginning to see you as another narcissistic rich dude desperate for attention.”

The video pointed out “intolerable conditions” for Tesla employees and others working at lithium mines around the world, as well as Musk describing himself as the “emperor of Mars.” Musk was criticized as less interested in saving the world and “more rooted in a superiority and savior complex than it is an actual concern for humanity.”

“There are plenty of companies working on space exploration and electric vehicles,” Anonymous said. “You are just the only CEO who has gained a cult following through sh*tposting and trolling the world on social media.”

The video pointed out that much of Tesla’s value comes from government subsidies from selling electric cars, not the vehicles themselves. They’ve also made a lot of money on holding Bitcoin.

“Reading from the comments on your Twitter posts it seems that that games you have played with the crypto markets have destroyed lives. Millions of retail investors were counting on your crypto games to improve their lives,” the collective said. “This is something you will never understand because you were born into the stolen wealth of a South African apartheid emerald mine and have no clue what struggle is like for most of the working people in the world.”

The video referenced some of Musk’s latest tweets, including a meme about “breaking up” with Bitcoin that seems to in part have caused a dip in the crypto market as well as an emoji-filled tweet that seems to have referenced an ejaculate-themed cryptocurrency used by adult performers.

“Your tweets this week show a clear disregard for the average working person. As hardworking people have their dreams liquidated over your public temper tantrums, you continue to mock them with memes from one of your million-dollar mansions,” the video said. “You may think you’re the smartest person in the room, but now you have met your match.”

Musk didn’t address the Anonymous video directly, but did tweet on Saturday about some crypto stuff and the world in general, including a tweet that said “don’t kill what you hate, save what you love.”

We’ll have to wait and see if Musk actually responds more directly to Anonymous, however that would happen, or if the collective actually follows through on its warning.

As someone who’s been a victim of the prison system, Meek Mill has spent the last few years advocating for reform that would provide fairer circumstances to those who have been incarcerated or face jail time. So it should come as no surprise that the rapper is in full support of a parole reform bill that New York State legislators will soon vote on. If passed, the Less Is More bill will eliminate incarceration for a large number of technical parole violations. And in a post on Twitter, Meek showed his support for the bill.

“I am calling on NYS Legislature to pass the Less is More Act before they leave town next week!” the rapper wrote. “We need meaningful parole reform in NYS now!”

In addition to eliminating incarceration for technical parole violations, the Less Is More bill would also improve due process, provide quicker hearings, and deliver earned time credits for people under community supervision. According to Revolt, the bill is currently supported by more than 275 community and advocacy groups in New York as well as several Democratic members in Congress.

According to LessisMoreNY.org, a site dedicated to the bill, there are “approximately 35,000 people under active parole supervision in New York State who at almost any time can see their efforts to successfully rejoin the workforce and reintegrate into their families and their communities disrupted by reincarceration for a technical violation.” It adds that this risk “drives up the population in the state prisons and local jails, wasting taxpayer money.”

You can read Meek’s tweet above.

Meek Mill is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.