Month: June 2021

After the Clippers ran away with a big win in Game 3 to get into this series, the Suns came out eager to respond in Game 4, jumping out to a big first half lead, holding a 14-point advantage at halftime as the Clippers could not buy a bucket from three-point range, at one point going on a six-minute scoring drought in the second quarter.

Leading the way for Phoenix was Deandre Ayton, who was spectacular on both ends for a Suns team that desperately needed it with both of their backcourt stars looking out of sorts. Chris Paul continued to struggle with his shooting touch after more than a week off after testing positive for COVID-19, and Devin Booker’s dalliance with wearing a mask lasted barely into the third quarter of Game 4 before he took it off and chucked it away after missing a layup. After combining for a 10-of-40 night in Game 3, that duo wasn’t significantly better in Game 4, going 14-of-44 — although Booker started better and was able to get to the free throw line more effectively to get to 25 points.

As such, Ayton found himself needing to carry the load and he did so in a big way, scoring 19 points on 14 shots and hauling in an outrageous 22 rebounds in a game where neither team could shoot the ball.

In the third quarter, the Clippers turned their shooting woes around to claw their way back into the game, cutting the lead to one late in the period and trailing by just three going to the fourth. Reggie Jackson, as he has been all playoffs, was huge for the Clippers, having another 20-point game to provide L.A. with some needed scoring alongside Paul George.

George, like pretty much everyone in Game 4, struggled from the field at just 5-of-20, but had a solid third to help reel in the Suns, who went cold themselves. The Clippers star finished with 23 points and 16 rebounds — as seemingly everyone had a lot of boards in this one thanks to the numerous missed shots.

Ivica Zubac was also terrific for the Clippers with 13 points and 14 rebounds of his own, matching Ayton’s minutes almost throughout and giving the Clippers a needed presence inside as Ayton was feasting. The third quarter also produced the best moment of the game, which was Mike Breen’s call of “Kawhi Leonard is going CRAZY!” as the camera cut to a deadpan Kawhi in his luxury box during L.A.’s big third quarter run.

In the fourth quarter, the Clippers cut the Suns lead back down to one at 71-70 and then the score remained there for four minutes of game time as each team just completely shut down on offense (and, to give them credit, played some excellent team defense).

The drought was finally broken on an Ayton lob finish to mercifully put some more points on the board, which seemed to take the lid off the basket for both teams briefly.

However, things remained rough after that, with neither team able to mount any kind of run to take full control. The Suns were able to stay ahead, playing some incredible defense, but saw Devin Booker foul out in the closing minutes after a blocking call on Patrick Beverley was overturned following a review as their offense continued to stall out.

With a three-point lead, Mikal Bridges fouled Paul George with 13 seconds to play, with George hitting both free throws cutting the lead to one and Phoenix without one of their best free throw shooters. After the initial inbounds play got very dicey, with Cam Payne getting stripped out of bounds and there being no review on a play eerily similar to the one in Game 2 that got reviewed and overturned off of Devin Booker, Chris Paul got the ball and calmly knocked down both of his free throws to push the lead back to three.

The Suns chose to foul Paul George up three on the ensuing inbounds play and in a painfully similar spot to Game 2, he missed the front end. On the second, with George intentionally missing to give the Clippers a chance at a rebound and a tying three, DeMarcus Cousins was fouled by Dario Saric fighting for position and had a chance himself to make two to cut it to one with 5.8 seconds left. He made the first, but airballed the second. Chris Paul got the ball on the next inbound and got a foul call to go to the stripe — on a play the Clippers felt was a travel before a foul — and could only split his free throws, once again leaving the door open for L.A.

They again fouled Paul George immediately as he grabbed the rebound on the free throw miss, and this time, George hit the first and then purposefully missed the second again. The ball got batted around and eventually tipped out to Chris Paul by Dario Saric, with George fouling CP3 for one final time, icing the game for good finally in what became a somewhat hideous 84-80 win to put Phoenix up 3-1.

The shooting numbers for both teams were comical in Game 4. The Suns, who again won the game, were 4-of-20 from three (20 percent) and 31-of-86 from the field (36 percent). The Clippers were somehow worse in both areas at 5-of-31 from three (16.2 percent) and 27-of-83 from the field (32.5 percent). The difference though was really at the free throw line, where the Suns were 18-of-21 compared to 21-of-32 from L.A. — even considering some purposeful misses.

The fourth quarter was the worst of all of it, with the two teams combining for a 7-of-38 shooting quarter, with the shot charts just being a lot of blood.

It was not a pretty game, nor a particularly good one from most anyone outside of Deandre Ayton, for the Suns, but they got the win and that’s what matters. They will now head back to Phoenix looking to wrap things up and advance to the Finals with a win in Game 5. The Clippers, meanwhile, have to be kicking themselves. They took advantage of an awful Booker-Paul game in Game 3 and somehow got another gift from those two in Game 4 and could not capitalize on a perfect opportunity to even the series. George and Jackson were a combined 3-of-18 from three-point range, and their inability to figure out how to consistently get any kind of quality looks inside against Ayton and the Suns length was their ultimate downfall (along with free throw shooting). Now they have to regroup and figure out how to get a win in Phoenix, which will be rocking for Game 5, against a Suns team that will be feeling very good about themselves after gutting out a win in a game where they really weren’t close to their A-game.

The Phoenix Suns were in control for much of Game 4, taking a 14-point lead into halftime as the Clippers came out flat offensively and struggled to knock down outside shots, but much like Game 3, the third quarter saw L.A. come alive, making an extended run to cut the lead down to as little as a one-point game late in the period.

Midway through the quarter saw the Staples Center crowd reach a fever pitch, with Paul George hitting a tough midrange jumper to cut the Phoenix advantage to six points as L.A. started to really get it going on the offensive end. Mike Breen, the master of matching his call to the intensity of the moment noted that the crowd was going wild and ESPN made the incredible choice to cut to Kawhi Leonard showing absolutely no emotion in his box seats at that very moment, leading to an all-time great Breen call.

Breen’s emphasis on “Kawhi Leonard’s going crazy!” is just sensational, and gets a laugh out of Mark Jackson who enjoyed the joke about the ever-stoic Leonard just sitting there, taking it all in as the crowd is in total pandemonium. Breen isn’t known for his levity, particularly compared to contemporaries like Ian Eagle or Kevin Harlan, but when he does make a joke it is almost always a delight for that very reason because it feels so unexpected. Leonard provided the perfect opportunity and Breen knocked it out of the park.

Disc golf has become a wildly popular sport, at least in the world of niche sports, and that boom is partly because it was a thing people could play outside during the pandemic, gaining more and more popularity over the last year and a half.

On Saturday, the Professional Disc Golfers Association World Championships took place in Ogden, Utah where it turned into a battle between James Conrad and Paul McBeth down the stretch. McBeth looked to be in control, as when Conrad arrived at 18 he needed a birdie to force a playoff and found himself 247 feet out and needing a miraculous shot to have a chance at a world title. The result was absolute pandemonium in Utah, as he pulled off an impossible shot to send it to extra holes.

I am not a disc golf expert by any stretch, but I feel confident in saying this is a ridiculous shot. Also, look at that crowd! They are fired up for my guy’s heave. This seems like the basketball equivalent of a three-quarter court heave catching nothing but net to force overtime. McBeth had to watch that and hit a par putt from a pretty decent distance to force the playoff himself, and did so pretty calmly — which is impressive given what had just happened around him.

In the playoff, Conrad got the win on this short putt to close out McBeth in a wild turnaround from where he was on 18 needing a miracle just to have a shot to win his first world championship.

It’s an incredible finish and, honestly, makes me want to watch some disc golf in the future because that shot from Conrad was one of the wildest things I’ve seen in sports this year.

On Saturday, while much of America was enjoying yet another semi-post-pandemic summer weekend, Donald J. Trump held his first rally since losing a second term as president. He’s been lying low the last six months, which is to say he’s been living, it seems, alone in various resorts, peddling strangers with unhinged tales of a “stolen” election. But don’t call it a comeback. Indeed, arguably the closest thing to a big breakout wasn’t from him but one of his hype people, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who spent part of her time at the mic railing against her arch-nemesis in Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

At the rally, in Wellington, Ohio — which was ostensibly to support White House aide-turned-representative hopeful Max Miller, who’s running against incumbent Anthony Gonzalez — Greene fell back on some good old fashioned Republican red meat. “I didn’t go to Washington, DC to make friends,” she said in reference to her being booted from committee assignment after another based on her dangerous rhetoric, which involved conspiracy theories and even threatening language. Then she turned her ire towards AOC, whom she used to harass before they became colleagues.

Greene called the representative “the little communist from New York City.” When the crowd launched into a kneejerk “love ‘er up” — although it’s not clear how Greene, much less Trump, can throw a colleague in jail — she joined in. “Yeah, lock her up, too. That’s a good idea.” She then questioned her patriotic bona fides, or at least did some dog whistling. “She’s not an American. She really doesn’t embrace our American ways.”

She then launched into a diatribe about the Green New Deal, which she confessed to not reading.

Greene’s comments soon came to the attention of its target, who took the time to clap back.

“First of all, I’m taller than her,” Ocasio-Cortez joked. For the record, the New York congresswoman is 5’4”, and Greene is a mere inch shorter. Still, the point remains. And besides, like she said, that’s just for starters.

Like a lot of Republicans, Greene knew what to say to get them worked up. She doesn’t do so well, though, when asked by reporters to give even a shred of evidence for her loony claims, as CNN’s Jim Acosta recently found out.

In 1991, Samuel L. Jackson’s turn in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever, as Wesley Snipes’ crack-addicted brother, was considered so strong that the jury brought back a category — Best Supporting Actor, which had only been awarded thrice before — so they could show him some love. A few years later he landed his first Oscar nomination for his proper breakthrough, as Jules Winfield in Pulp Fiction. That, absurdly, is also the only time over his long and storied career he’s been honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

But that changes…well, early next year. According to Variety, the Academy has already decided who will receive an honorary Oscars at next year’s ceremony. And one of them is the MCU’s resident Nick Fury. Jackson will be one of four to receive Governors Awards for lifetime achievement in the motion picture industry. The others are Danny Glover, who will also receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, actress/filmmaker Liv Ullmann, and actress/performer/filmmaker Elaine May.

“Sam Jackson is a cultural icon whose dynamic work has resonated across genres and generations and audiences worldwide,” read a statement from Academy president David Rubin.

May — who broke through as part of a comedy duo with fellow future filmmaker Mike Nichols, and whose unique director CV is comprised of only four films: A New Leaf, The Heartbreak Kid, Mikey and Nicky, and the once-maligned cult film Ishtar — was hailed for her “bold, uncompromising approach to filmmaking.”

Ullmann, meanwhile — renowned for her work with Ingmar Bergman, and whose own directed film include the 2014 Miss Julie, starring Jessica Chastain, Colin Farrell, and Samantha Morton — was singled out for her “bravery and emotional transparency” and her plethora of “deeply affecting screen portrayals.” And Glover was praised for his “decades-long advocacy for justice and human rights reflects his dedication to recognizing our shared humanity on and off the screen.”

The awards will be handed out early, on Jan. 15. Of course, just because Jackson — or the other three future winners — will eventually have Oscars doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be awarded mightily for their work in the future.

(Via Variety)

It’s been a little over a year since G Herbo delivered his last album, PTSD, which was hailed as one of the top hip-hop releases from that year. Fast-forward to the present and the rapper is already gearing up to share his follow-up. Titled 25, it was recently revealed that it will arrive next week, on July 2. A trailer also accompanied the announcement and in it, G Herbo shares the inspiration for his new album.

“I ain’t never seen myself going this far in life, I always wanted to be somebody since I was a kid,” he says in the opening of the video. “I’ve seen death way too many times. I’ve been shot, been to jail, I done been broke and I took everything that came with this street shit … all the killing, fear … overcoming that fear.”

He adds, “Now that I’m ’25,’ I feel like I’m at the top of my game. All the bad sh*t I’ve been through, that’s why I am the way I am I always just kept my head high, staying 10 toes down … I know it’s light at the end of the tunnel.”

You can view the cover art and trailer for 25 above.

25 is out 7/2 via Machine/Epic. Pre-order it here.

At the end of 2020, Beabadoobee shared her debut album Fake It Flowers. The project certainly made an impression on listeners across the pond as it cracked the top-10 of the UK album charts. The full-length effort, which was a completely solo effort from Beabadoobee, arrived after a string of EPs that included 2019’s Loveworm and Space Cadet. The singer continued that streak this week with the release of her EP Our Extended Play, which she promoted through a performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

The Filipino-British singer took the stage to perform “Last Day On Earth,” which was produced and co-written by Matty Healy and George Daniel, of The 1975. Beabadoobee’s set was curated to look like a performance in the middle of a party, with the packed with people mingling with each other.

As for Our Extended Play, Beabadoobee revealed in a press release that she wrote it with her labelmates “on the countryside” and that it was an effort where she wanted to “experiment on the sounds and sonics even more and the EP to me has a feeling of togetherness to it… how we’re all in this joined as one.”

You can watch Beabadoobee perform “Last Day On Earth” in the video above.

Vin Diesel may be built like a brick s*ithouse, and he’s long been typecast because of it. But he has dimensions. Layers. While promoting F9, the long delayed (and reliably ridiculous) Fast and Furious ninequel, on The Kelly Clarkson Show, he wound up talking about his foray into recording music. Later his host circled back, asking him if he’d be into a “full-on” musical version of Fast and the Furious. It may have sounded like a wacko question, but, actually, Diesel was into it.

“Well, I’m dying to do a musical,” Diesel giddily responded, adding that he’d spent his high school doing musicals. “I’ve been dying to do a musical my whole life. I was this close to doing Guys and Dolls with Steven Spielberg, but we ended up not doing that.”

It’s too bad that didn’t work out, though at least Spielberg — whose only brushes with the genre have been in one dance set piece in 1941 and the dazzling opening “Anything Goes” number in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom — got to do one with his forthcoming take on West Side Story. Sure enough, when Clarkson asked him about his dream musical, he went right back to the classic show about gamblers and their dames.

“For the longest time, I thought the Nathan Detroit role in Guys and Dolls would be a very interesting one to revamp — the character that Frank Sinatra played,” he said, citing the 1955 movie adaptation, which also starred noted non-singers Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons.

Diesel has occasionally tried to break out of the mould Hollywood has long had him in. He was quite good in the courtroom crime drama Find Me Guilty, for legendary director Sidney Lumet, and ditto in Ang Lee’s war film Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

Diesel also expanded on his upbringing, which was not spent working on his pecs in gyms but among a family into the arts. “My grandmother loved musicals,” he told Clarkson. “My family is artistic, and I’m blessed to have that, and I’m blessed to have been in a family that’s supportive of these crazy dreams.” He added, “Definitely dream crazy. But support people that want to think outside of the box and dream something impossible, because there’s’ great beauty in that.”

Speaking of dreaming crazy, F9 includes a scene where the crew finally drives a car into space. And after a long, pandemic-instigated delay, that craziness is now in movie theaters. You can watch Diesel talk with Clarkson above. The musical business begins around the 15:10 mark.

(Via EW)

At the end of last month, New Hampshire police publicized an arrest warrant they had in place since October 2019 for Marilyn Manson, who had failed to turn himself in on assault charges. The singer is accused of spitting on a cameraman during a show at the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion. TMZ obtained video of the incident, which resulted in Manson getting hit with two charges of simple assault. Now, according to the Los Angeles Times, the singer will finally turn himself to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Gilford Police Chief Anthony Bean Burpee shared the news in a statement that was shared on Friday. It’s unknown when exactly the singer will turn himself in. As for the incident in question, police said a videographer was hired to shoot the concert on camera, which was meant to provide a live feed for those in attendance. At some point during the show, Manson spit on the camera, with some of it landing on the videographer, which prompted them to press charges.

According to Burpee, the videographer reported the alleged crime to the Gilford police department the day after the concert occurred. However, the arrest warrant was not filed for nearly two months as this was the time that was needed for officers to complete their investigation into the incident.

When the arrest warrant was made public in May, the Gilford police department emphasized that it was in no way connected to Manson’s recent string of domestic violence and sexual assault accusations.

The Portland Trail Blazers made the decision to hire Chauncey Billups as their next head coach on Friday evening. Billups’ name has popped up in coaching searches for a few years now, and after spending a year on Tyronn Lue’s staff with the Los Angeles Clippers, he’s getting his chance.

But the hire is not coming without waves of criticism. Back in 1997, Billups and then-Boston Celtics teammate Ron Mercer were accused of sexual assault, and while no criminal charges were filed, the pair settled a civil suit with the accuser several years later. Billups’ hiring has led to an outcry among Blazers fans, some of whom are upset with Damian Lillard, who reportedly had Billups on his list of preferred candidates earlier in the search and was in communication with him during the process.

In response to this, Lillard took to Twitter and offered up a defense of himself, saying “I don’t support Those things” along with the claim that “I wasn’t aware of their history.”

When pushed on this, with the original poster conceding it’s possible Lillard wasn’t originally aware of the allegations Billups faced but that “I just can’t believe that you weren’t aware before the decision was made,” Lillard did not directly respond.

There is no word on whether the response to the hiring will lead to the Blazers considering someone other than Billups, as the team has not formally announced his appointment. But reports from Friday indicated he’s their man, despite the controversy that news has created this weekend.