Month: May 2022

The first of two Game 7s in the NBA conference semifinals arrived on Sunday afternoon in Boston as the Celtics played host to the Bucks in what has been the most consistently competitive series of the postseason. Each team has won on the road, in thrilling comeback fashion, and the two leading stars have been nothing short of spectacular, as Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jayson Tatum have traded 40-point games and huge individual performances throughout the series.

Game 7 started with the Bucks taking the first swing, jumping out to an early lead as Giannis Antetounmpo did a bit of everything, scoring or assisting on 24 of Milwaukee’s 26 points, and piling up 10 points, eight rebounds, and six assists in the first 10 minutes of the game. Aiding Giannis was Brook Lopez, who was the beneficiary of a number of those assists, as the Bucks’ big man finally seemed to be asserting himself in a series where his size is an advantage Milwaukee has not exploited fully.

However, the Celtics had the answer on the other end in the form of Jayson Tatum, who matched Giannis with 17 first half points and led Boston on a second quarter charge that saw them swipe the lead away from the Bucks.

Aiding in the Celtics run to close the half was Grant Williams, who started off ice cold but connected on three triples in the first half to provide a lift, as Milwaukee clearly made their gameplan to let him shoot and try to force someone else to beat them. Along with Williams, Marcus Smart chipped in with some very Marcus Smart play, orchestrating the offense when needed and provided his usual defensive effort (and grifting) to put the finishing touches on the half by somehow getting three shots off of a foul by Giannis on the Bucks side of the court.

It was Boston that came out of the halftime break firing from three, with Williams, Tatum, and Jaylen Brown all burying triples to push the Boston lead to double-digits with haste.

The Bucks would limit the damage briefly with a couple buckets at the rim, but they were bringing a knife to a gun fight as Boston continued to pour in threes — as Grant Williams hit his fifth and sixth triples of the night — while Milwaukee missed, at one point, 13 consecutive threes before a Bobby Portis make finally broke the streak.

The fourth quarter started as the third ended, with Giannis missing two more point blank shots (after missing two in the third) and Grant Williams poured in his seventh three-pointer to push the lead back out to 16.

After another empty possession for the Bucks, it was Payton Pritchard’s turn to bury a three and push the Boston lead to 19 with 9:35 to play as it became apparent there would not be another Game 5-like run in Milwaukee — followed by two more Pritchard threes that served as the daggers in what became a 109-81 Boston win.

The story of this game, and the series overall, was the ability of the Celtics’ “others” to step up and supplement what the stars were doing in a way Milwaukee simply couldn’t as players were thrust into expanded roles in Khris Middleton’s absence. Boston got wins on the backs of huge shooting nights from Al Horford (Game 4) and Grant Williams (Game 7), while every Bucks win was almost entirely reliant on Giannis and Jrue Holiday to do everything. In a series where Holiday struggled with his efficiency, they just didn’t get enough shooting to keep up with Boston’s ability to pour in threes, and that proved to be the difference in Game 7.

Grant Williams finished 7-of-18 from three, outshooting the Bucks entire team from beyond the arc, while Payton Pritchard chipped in a 4-of-6 night from distance off the bench. Overall, the three-point shooting numbers painted the picture of the game, as Boston shot 22-of-55 from deep while the Bucks were an almost impossibly bad 4-of-33. Boston’s commitment to running their offense and trusting everyone on the team was rather incredible, as Milwaukee dared the “others” to beat them. For a quarter it looked like that would work, but to Tatum, Brown, and coach Ime Udoka’s credit, they didn’t alter the gameplan or panic after a rough start, and kept creating those same open looks that eventually started falling and created the avalanche the swept Milwaukee away.

Boston now heads off to the Eastern Conference Finals where they will try to get over the hump and into the NBA Finals for the first time in over a decade, taking on the Miami Heat in what should be another heavyweight fight between two teams that play physical defense — and once again three-point shooting variance figures to play heavily into who advances to the Finals.

For Milwaukee, it’s the end of their title defense and they’ll have some serious roster considerations to make going into next year. Grayson Allen was dreadful all series offensively and got targeted on the defensive end, so his place as their sixth man has to be in question (even if they locked him in to an extension this season). Trading Donte DiVincenzo for Serge Ibaka looks like a poor choice in hindsight, and finding more wing help will be paramount as their lack of perimeter shooting and creation (obviously hampered by Middleton’s absence) was on full display in this series. Still, with Middleton this is a contender, but there are certainly some moves on the horizon to try and keep this title window as open as possible, as the East has become as strong as ever at the top.

Bad Bunny gets more and more popular by the year. At the top of 2020, he released his second album YHLQMDLG which became the highest-charting Spanish language album when it debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard albums chart. It took Bad Bunny less than a year to break that record as he did at the end of 2020 with the release of El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo which debuted at No. 1. Now, for the second consecutive time, Bad Bunny finds himself at the top of the Billboard 200 chart thanks to Un Verano Sin Ti, but he does so with his biggest first week.

For the Billboard 200 dated May 21, 2022, Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti went No. 1 with 2740,000 album units sold in its first week. That number is comprised of 261,000 streaming equivalent album units thanks to 356.55 million on-demand streams of the album’s songs. The album also posted 12,000 pure album sales. The first-week debut for Un Verano Sin Ti is the biggest of any full-length release this year, surpassing the previous mark set by Future’s I Never Liked You.

Un Verano Sin Ti also had the largest streaming week ever for a Latin album, the biggest streaming week of 2022 for any album of any genre, and the biggest streaming week for any album since Drake’s Certified Lover Boy.

Bad Bunny’s latest accomplishment comes after Un Verano Sin Ti had Spotify’s biggest-ever streaming day ever in the first 24 hours after the project’s release.

Un Verano Sin Ti is out now via Rimas Entertainment LLC. You can stream it here.

There’s a lot of shake-ups happening in the Doctor Who-verse. The nearly 60-year-old British sci-fi staple is set to get its first Black lead. Old showrunner Russell T. Davies is returning. Now this: As per Deadline, two of the show’s most popular actors are coming back for more.

That pair would be David Tennant and Catherine Tate. He was the Tenth Doctor, reigning from 2005 to 2010. She was his companion Donna Noble, first in 2006, then again from 2008 to 2010. Tate is a comedian, and she not only brought comic chops but shared great chemistry with the fun-loving Tennant.

The nature of their return has not yet been revealed, only that they’ll appear in the upcoming season led by Sex Education breakout Ncuti Gatwa. Davies, though, teased what lay in store. “It looks impossible – first, we announce a new Doctor, and then an old Doctor, along with the wonderful Donna, what on earth is happening?” he said. “Maybe this is a missing story. Or a parallel world. Or a dream, or a trick, or a flashback. The only thing I can confirm is that it’s going to be spectacular, as two of our greatest stars reunite for the battle of a lifetime.”

Meanwhile, Jodie Whittaker, who’s played the Thirteenth Doctor since 2017, is still set to appear in three more specials before passing the reins to Gatwa. Alas, you definitely won’t be seeing Hugh Grant.

(Via Deadline)

The Cincinnati Reds have been the worst team in Major League Baseball over the first 35 games of the season, as the only team still stuck with single-digit wins as we enter mid-May.

It has been a dreadful start, but there has been some signs of life lately, as six of those nine wins have come in the last two weeks. Unfortunately, the Reds took a step back on Sunday afternoon when they pulled off one of the rarest feats in baseball — losing a game in which you no-hit the other team.

Yes, the Reds managed to go into Pittsburgh, throw a no-hitter, and still lose the ball game — without committing an error, I might add — creating one of the most incredible looking box scores you’ll ever see. Hunter Greene was on the mound for the Reds and threw a beauty of a game, but was pulled in the eighth after walking two batters with one out and being 118 pitches into his afternoon.

From there, Art Warren came in and immediately issued a third consecutive walk to load the bases, bringing Pirates star Ke’Bryan Hayes to the plate, who managed to hit a soft enough chopper up the middle to score the runner from third on a fielder’s choice, beating out the double play throw to first.

That was it. The one “highlight” of the game from either team at the plate, as Cincinnati could only muster four hits of their own on the afternoon and Pittsburgh immediately popped out on the next at-bat to end the inning and the Reds could not do anything in the top of the ninth.

It is the sixth time a team has been no-hit and won the game since 1901, with the Angels doing so most recently in 2008, making this about as rare a feat as there is in baseball.

I’m not sure who deserves more credit for this, the Pirates or the Reds, but both did some incredible work today to ensure history was made in Pittsburgh.

When Drew Brees announced his retirement after the 2020 NFL season, he immediately inked a deal with NBC to join the network’s Sunday Night Football coverage, with NBC hoping he would eventually move into the lead analyst role alongside Mike Tirico.

However, Brees did not make for a particularly good in-game analyst, struggling to provide the same level of insight into the game as a Tony Romo or Cris Collinsworth, while also not being a particularly engaging personality. That’s a rough combination for the broadcast booth, and the result was Collinsworth staying in his position as the lead game analyst as Tirico takes over for Al Michaels, with Brees remaining somewhat in limbo.

Some clarity on Brees’ situation arrived on Sunday afternoon, when Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reported Brees was leaving NBC in what was described as a “mutual” split, noting NBC wasn’t particularly thrilled with his performance and Brees was not wanting to just do studio coverage. Marchand reports Brees could be in the mix to join Fox’s coverage, as they need an analyst after Troy Aikman’s departure, but with Tom Brady on his way into the lead booth whenever he retires on a record deal, it would at-best be a spot job before being bumped down a notch — and that’s if Fox sees him as a better option than Greg Olsen, who has proven himself as a better analyst to this point than Brees. However, it’s not a surprise to hear Brees wants to find a new analyst job, as what’d be the point of getting that TV hair if he just left after a year.

From a network point of view, Brees’ struggles in making the transition from star QB to the booth and quick ouster from NBC might cause them to pump the brakes at least a bit on blindly assuming that’s a move every top quarterback can make, and will at least make Fox a bit sweaty about the Brady deal which they are clearly banking on being a slam dunk.

America’s rightwing has not been well for a while now. They peddle voter fraud lies, they start fights with Disney, they continue to tolerate Marjorie Taylor Greene. Then there’s Roger Stone. The longtime Republican fixer and Twitter bannee, who has a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back, has been going around telling Trump supporters that there’s a “satanic portal” above the White House.

Last month, Stone appeared on the MAGA-friendly show Elijah Streams, where he said that a friend showed him pictures of some kind of hole that formed as soon as Joe Biden took office. The portal allows “those who are evil” to escape into our world and make it worse. He added, “only by closing it will we be successful in saving this nation under God.” He said he wasn’t kidding. “This is not some practical joke. This isn’t some conspiracy theory. I’m absolutely convinced that this is demonic.”

Stone repeated the claim during a rally in South Carolina on Friday. “Yes, ladies and gentleman, there is a satanic portal above the White House, you can see it day and night,” Stone told the crowd. “It exists, it is real, and it must be closed, and it will be closed by prayer.”

Does Stone actually believe in this “satanic portal”? Hard to say. But the important thing is that MAGA folks do.

(Via Raw Story)

Few games require the level of skill needed to win a match in Valorant. While there are cool abilities and unique characters that even the playing field a bit, a match in Valorant often comes down to who has the best game sense and the quickest reflexes. Thanks to that, the best players in the world are able to use the game’s various abilities to make some really incredible plays that even stuns other pros.

On Sunday, we saw one of those pros in action when YaBoiLewis, a player for Fokus Clan, pulled off what can only be described as a double jump double kill with the character Raze. In Round 18 of a 9-8 map, Fokus was looking to tie up the match with a crucial victory over their opponent, G2. They already had an advantage when G2 player, Meddo, went down. That’s when Lewis went to work and finished off the remaining four players on G2’s squad. He starts off by winning a 1v1 against AvovA and from that point on it’s just a highlight reel.

This dude double jumped into a 2v1, came out on top, and then managed to tag off the final player on G2’s squad to secure the victory. He made it look so simple, but listen to the broadcast’s reaction and you know that he just pulled off a pretty legendary highlight. While he never had a shot at the Ace, because he wasn’t the one to take down Meddo, he’ll be satisfied with the play of the game and a map tying victory.

Unfortunately for him and Fokus Clan though, that round wasn’t enough to propel them to victory. G2 would compose themselves to earn the first win of a best of three series.

Selena Gomez is not unfamiliar with the Saturday Night Live stage. Back in 2016, the singer made her debut on the show where she served as the musical guest and performed “Hands To Myself,” “Same Old Love,” and “Good For You.” Six years later, the multi-talented act found herself back on the SNL, but this time, with different responsibilities. Gomez took over the latest SNL episode — which featured Post Malone as the musical guest — as the show’s host, and she wasted no time entertaining her audience. It began with her opening monologue where she gave her best Miley Cyrus impersonation.

The opening monologue began with Gomez explaining that her role as host for the show was “a big moment for me” as she grew up watching SNL every week with her mother. Gome also revealed that she asked one of her “oldest friends” Miley Cyrus, who’s hosted SNL several times, for hosting advice prior to the show. She then went into a full impersonation of the Plastic Hearts singer telling her to just be herself and “have fun.”

Elsewhere in the SNL episode, Post Malone performed “Cooped Up” and “Love/Hate Letter To Alcohol.” The first performance was done with Roddy Ricch on stage while the second was of a track that’s set to feature Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes.

You can watch Gomez’s full opening monologue in the video above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

When James Harden first arrived with the Sixers, he came promising “scary minutes” whenever he and Joel Embiid shared the court together, and the early returns were promising, as they piled up wins and paraded to the free throw line together.

Brief regular season success, as we all should know by now, isn’t an indicator of greatness, but in the world of pundits, hot takes are necessary and plenty got carried away in the moment. Among the common refrains among those bullish on the Harden-Embiid pairing was that they could be the modern day Shaq and Kobe, a title that has been passed down over and over again whenever a star guard and star big man share the floor together, despite there having not been a single duo that’s been able to reach those heights since.

Shaq himself was asked about the comparisons and made clear that Harden and Embiid were “not close” to he and Kobe, and would have to do an awful lot for a sustained period to even get in that conversation. With the Sixers exiting once again in the second round this week, Shaq decided to remind everyone of those midseason takes and issue a decree that there will never be another duo like he and Kobe, and that comp needs to be retired.

The best response to Shaq’s post was from ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins, who offered an earnest apology to the big fella for getting caught up in the moment, and blaming Harden for it all — while showing that he’s clearly been spending too much time around Stephen A. Smith with a “that damn Harden.”

Shaq is right that we should just retire the Shaq-Kobe comparison, for a variety of reasons. For one, Shaq and Kobe are fairly comfortably two top-20 players all-time, which most all of these duos that get that comp are not. On top of that, the game has changed considerably and it’s hard to dominate the game as a guard-big combo in the same way as Shaq and Kobe did, and as such a great guard-big combo is likely to look pretty different than those two. Finally, Shaq and Kobe spent nearly a decade together and authored one of the most dominant three-peats the league has seen, so making the comp before a duo has won at least two titles is just begging to look silly eventually. On this one we should listen to the Diesel and find something else to compare the next budding guard-big duo to.

Selena Gomez is now one third of one of TV’s most beloved current trios, so when she hosted SNL, it was bound to feature one of her Only Murders in the Building co-stars. Sure enough, during a pre-taped sketch, the actress, non-retired singer, and internet non-user was joined by Steve Martin in a fake documentary about whoopee cushions.

Gomez plays host to a documentary series called American Inventors, which devotes three minutes to one Archie Gizmo (Martin), a prolific inventor of prank do-dads. In the ‘60s, he’s a struggling inventor looking for his big break. “I knew it would be funny to have your boss sit down and [have] a noise come from his butt,” Martin’s Gizmo says, “but I just couldn’t figure out what noise.”

Gizmo then finds his muse: an accident-prone woman named Dina, played by Aidy Bryant. “Her energy was magnetic; her eyes were endless,” he say, “and every time she sat down, gas.” He quickly surmised that “the funniest noise that could come out of a butt was a fart.”

But whoopee cushions are only the start. Dina’s clumsy antics inspired Gizmo to also invent googly-eyed slinky glasses, the hand buzzer, and more. “Dina was the prize,” Gizmo says, “and the greatest gag she ever goofed was marrying a guy like me.”

You can watch the sketch in the video above.