It appears things have been up and down for Zach Bryan over the past couple months. He performed with Bruce Springsteen in March, but more recently he and girlfriend Brianna LaPaglia apparently got into a serious crash.
LaPaglia, better known as Brianna Chickenfry, shared the story on TikTok, saying in a video:
“I’m just going to rant for a second because I think I’m nearing a mental breakdown and I’ve been living on a bus for the past month, so that doesn’t help the mental. […] Two nights ago, Zach and I got into a traumatizing side-by-side car crash. It flipped a bunch of times, everything shattered, and thank God we had our seat belts on, but there was a lot of blood and we thought we were saying goodbye to each other. After the ambulance came and he got all stitched up, we were like, ‘Oh my God, thank God, it didn’t hit an artery.’ It was just a huge gash, we were OK, we are happy and alive.”
Based on LaPaglia’s phrasing, the crash either involved two vehicles positioned side by side, or it involved a side-by-side, a type of recreational vehicle often used off-road. Either way, Bryan himself has yet to publicly acknowledge the incident.
For a long time, Zachary Cole Smith has wanted to make what he calls a “political shoegaze record.” As you might expect, this was not an easy assignment. First, there were the inherent limitations of the genre. Shoegaze music is not associated with political lyrics — or decipherable lyrics of any kind. It’s possible that Cocteau Twins wrote songs about trickle-down economics in the 1980s, but who in the hell would know if they did?
Then there was the matter of Smith’s own history. As the leader of DIIV, Smith has been known for a volatile private life that contrasts with the consistent excellence of his band’s output. If you don’t know his music, you might still remember his highly publicized bust back in 2013 when he and his then-girlfriend Sky Ferreira were pulled over by police and caught with heroin and ecstasy. While Smith was shipped off to rehab, he was saddled with a reputation as an emotionally fragile “Kurt Cobain of his generation”-type, an image that informed DIIV’s pitch-black 2016 double album Is The Is Are as well as the 2019 followup Deceiver.
“There was a lot of baggage to get out of the way first with the other records,” Smith admitted during a Zoom call with his bandmates — guitarist Andrew Bailey, bassist Colin Caulfield and drummer Ben Newman — last month. “It’s like we gazed inwards and then it gave us the privilege to gaze outwards a bit more.”
The result is DIIV’s fourth LP due out May 24, Frog In Boiling Water, which melds the band’s cavernous, widescreen guitar atmospherics with lyrics that ponder a world that appears to be in a permanent state of decline. On the title track — the titular metaphor’s meaning is self-evident — Smith takes on the persona of a fascist leader who extols the virtue of burning books. In “Everyone Out,” he wonders if the idea that the structures that undergird society can actually be changed amounts to false hope. In the luminous single “Brown Paper Bag,” he likens himself to tossed-off detritus “stuck on the ground / down, wasted.”
The topical polemics of Frog In Boiling Water are well-timed given that this is an election year, though Smith brushed off my suggestion that the album coinciding with the impending Biden vs. Trump rematch is significant.
“I think our faith in electoral politics is very low,” he said, “so I would say not.”
The album I have described thus far might seem like the year’s single bleakest and most depressing release yet. But Frog In The Water doesn’t actually sound like that. While the words are frequently downbeat, they are paired with the most flat-out beautiful music of DIIV’s career. (The band is also funnier than they get credit for, as evidenced by the Fred Durst-starring SNL parody in the “Brown Paper Bag” music video.) After the more muscular and aggressive Deceiver, Frog In The Water marks a return to the gauzy tranquility of their droned-out 2012 debut Oshin, which established DIIV as one of the finest bands to be associated with shoegaze in the 2010s. It took them a while to rediscover that path, as work on Frog On The Water dragged on for four years. The process was hampered in part by the pandemic and also by their own exacting perfectionism and impulse to reinvent themselves. At one point they even considered making an electronic record. Only when producer Chris Coady came on board did they begin to move back to the dark-hued guitar rock for which they are known.
“For a lot of people, that is part of what they fell in love with with the first two albums — this rich, dreamy atmosphere that is very feelings-forward,” Caulfield said. “Rather than this song has an amazing bridge and an amazing chorus. A lot of times with the earlier songs, sometimes there wasn’t even a chorus, but it didn’t really matter because the song felt so good to listen to. I feel like the new album has an element of that which makes it feel more comprehensive in our catalog.”
I agree with him — Frog In The Water is a summation of everything DIIV does well, starting with their knack for turning out the sort of mile-wide, so-sad-they-make-you-happy rock songs that made The Cure and The Smashing Pumpkins their respective eras’ kings of pain. While DIIV has not achieved the level of popularity of those bands, Frog In The Water suggests they are on their way to establishing their own considerable artistic legacy.
I love the music video for “Brown Paper Bag” and how you take this institution of mainstream pop culture, Saturday Night Live, and slowly make it seem more and more demented. How did that idea come about?
Zachary Cole Smith: The first thing that we did around the record was the Soul-Net website, which was really fun and cool and we’re really proud of it, but it felt super niche. It was micro-targeting this specific area of the internet that the song deals with. We talked about broadening the scope and then we’re like, what is the bastion of whatever’s popular? So, we went for Saturday Night Live. It was really nice of them to have us on the show.
It’s very accessible as a symbolic target. Was playing SNL ever something you aspired to?
Ben Newman: We were huge fans of their musical guests in the ’90s. We watched tons of SNL performances, but it seems like they’ve transitioned into only the most mainstream, Top 40 artists now. So we weren’t too worried about making them mad. But we did trick a lot of people, unfortunately.
ZCS: Some people early on were like, “It’s going to alienate SNL,” or whatever. And it’s like, there’s no shot of us going on. It doesn’t matter. SNL represents the most banal neoliberal culture, and so it felt like a fair target. And they deal in parody, so it felt like it would’ve been hypocritical if they asked us to take it down.
Any good Fred Durst stories?
Colin Caulfield: He was extremely cool. He drove from where he lives, which I won’t reveal, but he drove a distance to get to us during a really crazy rainstorm where there were a lot of road closures. It really seemed like he wouldn’t be able to come, and he just appeared. That’s a testament to how committed he was to really showing up to be in the video, which is really cool.
ZCS: There were maybe 15 people working on the video. There were camera people and audio people and a lot of our friends who were helping, and he individually went to each person and thanked them before he left. He did the opposite of the Irish Goodbye. I’ve heard it called the Midwest Goodbye, where you individually say goodbye to every person.
The title of the album is taken from Daniel Quinn’s 1996 book The Story Of B, which deals with themes related to environmental disaster and slow societal collapse. And you can see that communicated in the video, which again takes this popular institution and depicts it gradually falling apart. Why were you drawn to that as subject matter for these songs?
ZCS: It’s what we’re interested in. It’s what we talk about and it feels like what we had been wanting to make music about for a while. But there was a lot of baggage to get out of the way first with the other records. It’s like we gazed inwards and then it gave us the privilege to gaze outwards a bit more.
We’re also in an election year. Did that influence you?
ZCS: I think our faith in electoral politics is very low, so I would say not.
Andrew Bailey: It’s not like, “Oh, we got an election coming up, let’s get political so that we can make sure Trump doesn’t become president.” But it is good for us that there is an election just because a lot of the themes that we’re talking about are best exemplified by a U.S. election. We’re talking about how we actually don’t have democracy because there’s only one economic philosophy on the ballot. It’s neoliberalism on both sides. That idea sort of stretches to all the themes that we’re talking about.
CC: Anything that deals with what is happening at all times as opposed to how people interact with politics or larger systems, which is to only hyper-focus on them when an election rolls around. Which I used to be very much like that. I would turn my politics brain off or my socioeconomic brain off, and then when an election came around, I would become an expert. But this stuff that the album deals with, it’s not dependent.
On the title track, there’s a line that stood out to me: “Burn the books, don’t you see, history begins right now with you and me.” To me there are two ways to read that line. One is hopeful — the idea that you can set the past aside and start anew. The other way is sinister — there are clear fascist implications to burning books.
AB: It definitely has hope to it, but I think that that specific example is more trying to paint a picture of a false hope. Because the album also touches on many more types of false hopes, and one of those false hopes is the idea that if we could just crumble everything and start over, then everything would be all right, which is false because it’s impossible.
BN: We had an interview yesterday where he was talking about Covid and post-Covid times and how when you’re living through history, there is this feeling of, “Oh man, maybe we could get it right this time.” It hopeful but also kind of just sad because it doesn’t usually shake out that way.
ZCS: While we were making the record, my wife and I had a baby. There’s this conflict that I think any parent goes through of bringing a kid into a really fucked up world, and ultimately the decision we made was to do that. And I think you have to hold on to some type of hope, whether on a micro scale or a macro scale, and we deal with both of those. But the hope is a lot of times in the musical elements of the songs rather than lyrical. We didn’t want to make a totally scorched earth, black-pilled record because that would be boring, and I think the human experience is more complex. You do all types of mental gymnastics just to exist, and it’s important to have that kind of duality in the music. We always talk about it: happy/sad. That’s the best feeling that music can give you a lot of times.
I read that this album was initially going to break dramatically from your signature sound and be more of a samples-based record.
BN: Sort of. It went through a lot of different phases because it took us a long time to figure it out. We did use some samples, but I think it was more computer-based, like software instruments. It was actually years into the process that it started to become more of a rock record again.
ZCS: I think that was a direct consequence of being isolated in the pandemic. With rock music, you picture a band in a room playing to people, and without that context it stops making sense. So, when we were working on music on the computer, isolated, it was really in that direction. It wasn’t until we brought in Chris Coady where he wanted to lean into our strengths a bit more, and being a live band is one of our strengths.
CC: It’s just hard to distill. It took so long and it involved so many different approaches. Except for when Chris was like, “You guys are going to play the album,” it didn’t feel like there were big forks in the road. One path would bring us back to the same path and vice versa. It’s funny, because I do the same thing with other bands’ albums, but people love to get an understanding of the timeline. But when you’re actually making an album, you’re just throwing stuff at the wall.
Was it always the same set of songs or did you cycle through a lot of material to land here?
AB: These were always in the mix, but we definitely had a big pile of songs that we picked these out of over time. We had a whole rating system and democracy and all that fun stuff. These were the cream that rose to the top — not because they were the best songs, but because they fit and felt like they belong together.
So, there’s another album you could have made out of that big pile of songs?
AB: Oh yeah. There’s, like, 10 records.
BN: We talked about the idea of a double record or a Kid A/Amnesiac-type thing, doing two records in a row. I really wanted to have 15 B-sides or whatever. But when the time came to book studio time, it became clear that we had to narrow it down because of money and time. Ten songs took us four years. I could only imagine if we decided to do 20 songs.
CC: In my opinion, there is not another DIIV record in the stuff we made. I feel like we have such high standards, so there’s good ideas and songs, but the 10 that we wound up with are the DIIV songs, if that makes sense. The other ones didn’t fit. It’s a challenge for us because a lot of bands — and this isn’t a comment on quality of music or whatever — but they don’t have the same criteria that they’re rigorously trying to adhere to. They’re just trying to make songs, and we’re chasing an abstract feeling. Which is both cool and uncool sometimes, when it becomes difficult.
When you’re making a record, do you think about how this thing is going to fit with the other albums you’ve made.
AB: Definitely.
ZCS: I think that’s something that we were always thinking about. On Deceiver, we were referencing a lot of other bands. We were trying to make a genre record, so we were pulling up records and studying records and really being students of other bands. And on this one — it wasn’t really on purpose — but we did not do that ever. It seemed way more self-referential and trying to chase down this thing, what we do. Even picking the album art, I remember taking a screenshot of Apple Music and putting the album art next to the other albums and seeing if it fits. We literally did that.
My initial thought when I heard Frog In Boiling Water is that it distills everything you do well. I have this concept of the “new greatest hits” record, where it’s an album of new songs but they sound like they could be old hits. This album is like that to me.
CC: The thing that Deceiver lacks is the atmosphere that the first two albums have, especially Oshin. You put it on and it’s like a cloud that you step into, and it just surrounds you as you listen to it. And I feel like the new album really has that. For a lot of people, that is part of what they fell in love with with the first two albums — this rich, dreamy atmosphere that is very feelings-forward. Rather than this song has an amazing bridge and an amazing chorus. A lot of times with the earlier songs, sometimes there wasn’t even a chorus, but it didn’t really matter because the song felt so good to listen to. I feel like the new album has an element of that which makes it feel more comprehensive in our catalog.
Frog In The Water also feels like the most overtly shoegaze-sounding album you’ve made. We’re in a moment when a younger audience is rediscovering that music via social media apps like TikTok. What do you think is DIIV’s relationship with that genre, and have you noticed an influx of younger fans?
ZCS: We’re definitely not genre purists and don’t really love talking about genre, but I think this rediscovery of shoegaze also represents a new reinvention of shoegaze, and seeing how the new generation processes it or expands on the genre is really exciting. I think we wanted to make a political shoegaze record or a political record that doesn’t seem like something that’s a part of the genre. We want to expand on it in our own way. And it’s cool that there’s this paradigm where people are — I can’t think of the word — not embellishing but expanding on the genre.
CC: It definitely feels like we have a surge of new fans, but it has yet to feel distilled or specifically part of that kind of shoegaze revival. But it does seem like all of those new bands that are blowing up are fans of us, which is cool. So, it feels like we’re connected to them. But we’re not necessarily reaping the benefits as directly as some of those new kinds of more viral shoegaze bands, which makes sense because like Cole saying, they’re expanding the genre in terms of aesthetic. And it feels like we did that with this album, but in a slightly different way, and a much more lyrically driven way.
AB: It’s always been confusing for me because I had never listened to shoegaze and still haven’t. When we first came out and people were like, “Oh, you’re a shoegaze band” I was like, “All right, cool, whatever you say.” But then we toured with an actual shoegaze band, No Joy, and I was like, “We don’t do any of that.” I guess it was just a vibe that people picked up on. Honestly, I’m still confused by it, but now that I understand what those essential ingredients are and seeing how we did use them on our third album, I guess I see what people are talking about when they think of us as a shoegaze band before any other genre that we could just as easily fit into.
Circling back to the “burn it down” conversation: Zachary, you have been an outspoken critic of Spotify and you co-founded the music industry collective United Musicians and Allied Workers union. How hopeful are you that there is a post-streaming future?
ZCS: I don’t think that listening to music online is bad. The problem is that it’s a tech giant using the library of recorded music as fodder to sell their tech and it devalues music. But I do think that a socialized streaming model or a public free library would be amazing. And it wouldn’t be all our money is going to a tech company.
I think that a streaming model is possible, but it wouldn’t be this one. It wouldn’t be a corporate one.
AB: There’s no reason at all that the main profits generated by streaming music go to the middleman. They’re using the internet, which was built with taxpayer money, to charge people to listen to other people’s music. The fact that there isn’t a nationalized streaming service is just absurd.
Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan has it written into her contract that Netflix must provide a PG-version of the racy show for her family’s viewing. But everyone else gets to see her “f*ck you” nude scene.
Coughlan, who plays Penelope Featherington on the Shondaland show, told Stylist magazine that she requested to be undressed during a love scene in season three with co-star Luke Newton. “I specifically asked for certain lines and moments to be included. There’s one scene where I’m very naked on camera, and that was my idea, my choice,” the actress said. “It just felt like the biggest ‘f*ck you’ to all the conversation surrounding my body; it was amazingly empowering. I felt beautiful in the moment, and I thought, ‘When I’m 80, I want to look back on this and remember how f*cking hot I looked!’”
Coughlan has combated online trolls about her weight in the past. She directly called them out in a 2022 Instagram post that read: “If you have an opinion about my body please, please don’t share it with me… It’s really hard to take the weight of thousands of opinions on how you look being sent directly to you every day.”
Beef is permeating hip-hop at the moment, and over the past few days, Soulja Boy has been getting into it with Metro Boomin. Now, though, Soulja has acknowledged that he crossed a line and has apologized.
As Billboard notes, Soulja was apparently upset by a resurfaced Metro tweet from 2012 that reads, “My phone rings to come to the studio with Jeezy. Yours rings to send Soulja Boy a pack of beats. Sit down.”
In now-deleted tweets, Soulja wrote, “F*ck that n**** mama!!!!!!!!!! Don’t speak on my name b*tch! You sacrificed your own mom @MetroBoomin you a puppet.” He said in another, “All the streams, sales, money, and fame not gone bring your mom back @MetroBoomin was it worth it? can say f*ck this money and fame sh*t and still be a boss can you?” In one tweet, he also wished Metro a happy Mother’s Day.
Soulja put a stop to his antics yesterday, May 15, when he tweeted, “I apologize to @MetroBoomin for over reacting over an old tweet. Condolences to his mom. I’m going to seek therapy and anger management. I’m done responding to hate, new or old.”
I apologize to @MetroBoomin for over reacting over an old tweet. Condolences to his mom. I’m going to seek therapy and anger management. I’m done responding to hate, new or old.
After stealing Game 4 in Dallas on Monday night with an incredible come from behind win, the Thunder returned home for a pivotal Game 5, deadlocked at 2-2 with the Mavs. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s performance in Game 4 seemed to lift the Thunder’s spirits, but unfortunately any hopes from the MVP runner-up that his effort would help settle down his teammates and get more out of them back home were dashed with yet another woeful shooting performance in a 104-92 loss to the Mavs.
The game followed a similar script to Game 4, with OKC falling behind early due to an inability to put the ball in the basket, as Dallas’ defense continued to swarm shooters and deny any decent looks at the rim. On the other end, Luka Doncic looked to be moving much better after appearing very bothered by his right knee issues in Game 4. He not only shot the ball well, but was absolutely dealing to set up his teammates with open shots and lobs, as the Mavs continually punished the Thunder with finishes at the rim.
After PJ Washington starred in Dallas’ two wins earlier in the series, it was Derrick Jones Jr. who picked up the hot hand for the Mavs in Game 5, scoring 19 on 7-of-9 shooting, knocking down three triples and finishing some vicious dunks. Thanks to Doncic and Jones Jr., the Mavs took a 10-point lead at the half in an eerily similar situation to Game 4 in Dallas.
Much like in the last game, the Thunder kept hanging around and never let the Mavs fully run away and hide, with Gilgeous-Alexander leading the way with 30 points, seven assists, and six rebounds.
However, unlike in Game 4, Doncic was much more active in the second half and that proved to be the difference. He led a big run to open the fourth quarter and the lead ballooned out near 20 after one of his five threes on the night.
The Thunder weren’t done just yet and would whittle the lead down to as few as seven, as they finally got some contributions from beyond Gilgeous-Alexander and looked like they might be able to pull off another late game heist.
Lu Dort’s triple cuts the lead to 10 in Game 5… watch 4th quarter action on TNT! pic.twitter.com/qVn1zLSWHI
The Mavs were able to put an end to the threat this time, though, with a phenomenal defensive effort and timely buckets, with Jones Jr. producing the exclamation point with a block on Chet Holmgren leading to a dunk on the other end.
Doncic, who had 31 points, 11 assists, and 10 rebounds, getting that lift from Jones Jr. was the separator on Wednesday night, as the Thunder’s supporting cast simply couldn’t do the same for Gilgeous-Alexander. As a team, Dallas was sharper, shooting 52.6 percent from the field and 40.0 percent from three, compared to a 42.9/26.3 percent split for the Thunder.
Oklahoma City’s inability to knock down shots has clearly impacted their confidence, and for a team that let it fly all year, they’re record-scratching an awful lot of pretty good looks right now. That pursuit of the perfect look is playing into the Mavs hands defensively, as Dallas is able to force OKC into a lot of late-clock situations and even tougher shot attempts. That’s kept the Thunder out of rhythm, and going into Game 6 in Dallas they are going to have to find a way to get rolling around SGA. If they don’t, their season will likely be coming to an end, because Doncic looked much better in Game 5 — and seemed less engaged with the referees, compared to earlier in the series.
Now the series shifts back to Dallas where the Mavs can punch their ticket to a second Western Conference Finals in three years with a Game 6 win on Friday night at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN.
Their core group of Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen all missed time this season, with Allen and Mitchell watching in street clothes to close out their second round series. On the rare occasion they were all together, they never established a real rhythm together, with their backcourt stars especially struggling to be at their best at the same time.
A lot of the power lies in the hands of Donovan Mitchell, who can dictate how the Cavs approach their future. Mitchell is extension eligible, but has not firmly indicated he’ll sign on long-term in Cleveland. The All-Star guard has never gotten a chance at exploring free agency, and might prefer the opportunity to see what opportunities are out there for him. Cleveland is acutely aware of the risk that comes with a top star hitting free agency and walking for nothing, and if Mitchell won’t sign this summer, many expect the Cavs to look to trade him with plenty of interested suitors.
The other option is Mitchell does sign an extension, but even if that happens the Cavs won’t be free of trade rumors. According to The Athletic, Darius Garland’s representation at Klutch Sports, led by Rich Paul, would have discussions with the Cavs about exploring trade options to get him into a different situation.
Furthermore, rival executives believe the Cavs will have to seriously evaluate the fit of Mitchell and Garland and ultimately may have to choose one or the other. Should Mitchell decide to stay long term, sources briefed on the matter say Garland’s representation, Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul, would have a conversation with Cavs officials on potentially finding a new home for the one-time All-Star.
It certainly sounds like the Cavs will be deciding between Mitchell and Garland this summer, although it might be more accurate to say Mitchell will make that choice for them. A max extension is firmly on the table for Mitchell, and it’s up to him whether he accepts it or not. If he does, Garland would be available and with many teams looking for point guard help this summer, he’d likely have plenty of suitors, even coming off of a down year.
The issues don’t appear to be personal between the two guards, as evidenced by Mitchell’s pep talk to Garland during Game 7 against the Magic. The issue is in fit on the court, Garland has never quite found his place alongside Donovan, especially in the playoffs where he’s struggled to make the kind of impact Cleveland has needed from him. However, Mitchell’s absence late in the Boston series didn’t suddenly pull Garland back out of his shell, and he’ll need to prove he can get back to the All-Star level he achieved in 2021-22 before Mitchell arrived. Whether he gets to prove that in Cleveland or somewhere else will get sorted out this summer.
In one video, Eilish addressed the audience, saying, “I could sh*t myself right now! Do we wanna hear something? Alright, dudes, so I’m gonna play you the entire album — front to back — and I’m not gonna pause it in the middle, and I’m not gonna talk. Well, I don’t know. Maybe I will. But I’m trying not to talk. I’m doing my best.”
Other videos capture Eilish prancing around uninhibited to the previously teased tracks “Lunch” and “Birds Of A Feather.”
Hit Me Hard And Soft, Eilish’s third studio album, is due out on Friday, May 17. It will arrive nearly three years after Happier Than Ever. Eilish will host several more album listening events in California.
See clips from Eilish’s Barclays listening event as well as Eilish’s Instagram Story posts about future listening events below.
Billie Eilish premieres new album ‘Hit Me Hard and Soft’ in front of thousands of fans at Barclays Center in Brooklyn pic.twitter.com/N8vwUXpkzD
@billieeilish on Instagram@billieeilish on Instagram@billieeilish on Instagram@billieeilish on Instagram@billieeilish on Instagram@billieeilish on Instagram
The NFL’s schedule release has become an event on the league calendar, as teams spend weeks crafting elaborate videos to unveil their upcoming season’s schedule. One of the social teams that continually stands out is that of the Los Angeles Chargers, who aren’t afraid to get weird with their annual offering.
This year, the Chargers decided to create their schedule release video using ‘The Sims’, putting their opponents in the game in various skits. It’s honestly an incredible bit of world-building and storytelling on the part of the Chargers social and video team, who have John and Jim Harbaugh pillow fighting, Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift hopping on a jet, a Kirk Cousins DJ set getting ruined by the arrival of Michael Penix Jr., and a whole lot more.
should we REALLY make our schedule release video in the sims?
While each of the team vignettes are great, the most incredible part comes in the credits, as they couldn’t resist a last minute update after Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s off the rails commencement speech over the weekend at Benedictine College in Kansas. In that speech, he said “the majority” of the women in the room were most excited about their futures as being wives and mothers.
That, along with a number of other political grievances aired by Butker, became national news, and the Chargers couldn’t help but put Butker in the kitchen for their credits scene. It’s some terrific work from the Chargers, especially given it had to be added to the video this week, which is probably why they didn’t have it in the actual schedule portion and as an add-on in the credits.
The Boston Celtics are headed to the Eastern Conference Finals for the sixth time in eight years. After finishing the year with the NBA’s best record, the Celtics polished off the Miami Heat in five games and moved on to face the Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round. After once again splitting the first two games in Boston, the Celtics were able to win both games in Cleveland, outlasting a banged up Cavs team to set up a closeout situation in Boston on Wednesday night.
With Donovan Mitchell, Jarrett Allen, and Caris LeVert all out with injury for Cleveland, the Celtics were heavy favorites to cruise to a win, but it turned out to be a much more difficult closeout situation than most anyone expected. Despite missing three key players, the Cavs came out and were game from the jump. Marcus Morris Sr., who had seven points all series coming in, doubled that total in the first half, while Darius Garland, Max Strus, and Evan Mobley combined for 26 points to give Cleveland the offensive lift it needed to not just hang around in the first half, but take the lead late in the second quarter.
Mobley throws down the lob to give Cleveland a 1st-quarter lead in a must-win Game 5
The Celtics were able to close the half strong, as Derrick White was their best player in the half, scoring 15 points in the first two quarters and hitting some big shots while the stars got settled.
D-White up to 15 1st-half points… Celtics look to close out the series at home!
Jayson Tatum then finished the half with a flurry, getting a breakaway dunk off an Al Horford steal and then hit a three to close the half and give Boston a six-point cushion.
Horford gets a hand on it, Tatum RISES for the slam on TNT.
The Cavs would get the lead back down to one, but Boston finally looked like they were ready to snuff out Cleveland’s hopes as they went on a run to open up a double-digit lead.
Horford’s 3 gives the Celtics a double-digit lead in Game 5!
Ultimately, much like in Games 3 and 4, the Celtics were just too good for the Cavs to keep up with, even with Boston not firing on all cylinders. Every time Cleveland would go on a mini-run in the fourth quarter, the Celtics found an answer to push the lead back out to double digits, eventually polishing off a 113-96 win.
Jayson Tatum puts the Celtics up 14 in the 4th quarter on TNT!
The Cavs gave an inspired effort considering the circumstances, with Mobley putting up his best game of the playoffs (and really of his playoff career) with 31 points on 14-of-23 shotoing, seven rebounds, two steals, and two blocks. Morris added 25 off the bench, but without Mitchell, they did not get enough from their backcourt in the second half, as Garland and Strus combined for just 5 points in the final 24 minutes. Going forward, Cleveland will face a very interesting offseason, with some decisions to be made about this core and who should be a part of it long-term.
For the Celtics, it was again not their prettiest performance, but they did what was needed to get the win and advance to the conference finals. All five starters reached double figures, with Tatum leading the way with 25 points, 10 rebounds, and nine assists. Al Horford gave a huge lift with 22 points and 15 rebounds, and Derrick White added 18 points and six assists, with most of his damage coming in the first half. It may not have been a dominant performance from Boston, but they showed in the fourth quarter they have that gear they can get to when needed, as they finally were able to put their foot on Cleveland’s neck.
Without Kristaps Porzingis, they’re not at their best on either end, but still are a talented two-way group and proved that again this series. If they can get him back and find that next level, they’ll undoubtedly be a formidable title contender.
Nothing is safe from eventization during the NFL offseason, including the annual schedule release. For several years, teams have used the opportunity to cleverly reveal next season’s opponents on social media, and the Los Angeles Chargers usually win the unspoken contest for Funniest Schedule Release. The Chargers brought their A game again on Wednesday night, May 15.
The Chargers’ chose to reveal their 2024 schedule with a The Sims-style video, and their social media team took the opportunity to poke fun at their AFC West rival Kansas City Chiefs.
The Chiefs will travel to Los Angeles in Week 4. To confirm the matchup, the Chargers video shows Jason Kelce and Travis Kelce hosting an episode of their wildly popular show, New Heights, and discussing Kelce’s now-famous April 2011 tweet about feeding a “squirle a piece of bread.” An animated Taylor Swift waves at Kelce through the window, and he’s clearly swooning while standing in front of Swift-themed posters from her albums Fearless, 1989, and Lover. Kelce and Swift scamper outside to board her private jet.
should we REALLY make our schedule release video in the sims?
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Dallas leads in Game 5 on TNT 
