Category: News

Game 1 of the series between the Bulls and Bucks went about as expected, with Milwaukee jumping out to a big lead early, but a resilient Bulls team hanging around and making things interesting before the reigning champs slammed the door shut.

When Game 2 started, it was the visitors that got busy from the jump this time around, as Chicago came out much more engaged, letting some swarming defense (and sloppy play from the Bucks) fuel a 9-0 start to the game.

Milwaukee would settle down from there and got back into the game, taking a brief lead and trailing by just one after the first quarter, but the Bulls weren’t deterred. A theme throughout the game was strong three-point shooting from the entire Bulls roster, as they shot 48 percent from deep on the night, with seemingly everyone getting in on the act in the first half.

Chicago would extend their lead at the outset of the third, as Nikola Vucevic continued his excellent play this series, winning the matchup with Brook Lopez down low.

The Bucks went on the expected run, though, as Khris Middleton got hot from three and Giannis Antetokounmpo asserted his will, cutting the Bulls lead down from 18 to as few as three.

It looked like the Bulls might fold and become the third lower seed of the night to blow a 17-point advantage, but DeRozan simply would not allow it, as he took control in the closing minutes of the third and the start of the fourth to push the Chicago lead back up to 16 in short order.

Milwaukee again punched back, but as they were getting things back to single-digits they saw their No. 2 scorer leave the game with knee soreness that kept him out for the rest of the game — after losing Bobby Portis in the second quarter after he got hit in the eye. Jrue Holiday would step up, hitting a couple big threes and getting the lead down to five, but blew an open layup to cut the Bulls lead to three that Vucevic followed up with a three to stem the tide once again.

The Bucks would get the lead down to three on a Brook Lopez and-1 layup with just over a minute to play, and twice forced misses from the Bulls on the other end but Alex Caruso and Vucevic got huge offensive rebounds, the latter of which tipped out to DeRozan who put the game on ice with a tough finish through contact to reach 41 points.

It was fitting that it was DeRozan, Vucevic, and Caruso that put the game on ice, as they were vital for the Bulls in the win — with Caruso drawing a game-sealing charge on Giannis with 4.9 seconds to play. DeRozan finished with 41 points, seven rebounds, and four assists, while Vucevic chipped in 24 points and 13 boards, with Caruso only scoring nine but dishing out 10 assists and providing sensational defense, including two blocks and two steals. Zach LaVine let his co-star cook on the night, taking a backseat on offense but provided aid when called upon with 20 points on 13 shots.

For the Bucks, Giannis was his usual sensational self with 33 points, 18 rebounds, and nine assists, and Brook Lopez had some big buckets down the stretch to reach 25 points. But the injury to Middleton put a damper on Milwaukee’s offensive explosiveness down the stretch, as they simply could not hit enough threes without him on the floor to reel in the Bulls — non-Middleton Bucks were 9-of-29 from three on the night. The bench unit, in particular, struggled, going 1-of-10 from three and with Middleton and Portis’ status for Game 3 in question, things are suddenly very interesting in a 1-1 series.

The Bulls will gain a tremendous amount of confidence from this win, as DeRozan was simply unguardable by anyone on the Bucks, including Giannis, and Vucevic continues to play some of the best ball of his season at the right time. When they are able to knock down threes around DeRozan, they give themselves a chance thanks to quality defense on the other end and the United Center will be very loud when they come back home for Game 3 all knotted up at a game apiece.

Doja Cat stole the show during the first weekend of Coachella’s 2022 festival. Among headliners and big-name performers that included Harry Styles, The Weeknd, Billie Eilish, Baby Keem, Lil Baby, Phoebe Bridgers, and more, Doja Cat was able to stand out thanks to her set which included captivating choreography, vibrant outfits, and excellent performances of some of her most popular songs. Aside from her set, which featured appearances from Rico Nasty and Tyga, Doja also made an exciting announcement by the time the night was over. As she walked off the stage, Doja announced that she successfully convinced Taco Bell to bring back their beloved Mexican Pizza item.

“I brought back the Mexican Pizza, by the way!” Doja yelled as she walked off the stage. Now, just a few days later, Doja is already enjoying an order of the Mexican Pizza a month before Taco Bell is set to make it available on its menus. She shared a video of herself enjoying the meal while sitting by the pool. “This is the best thing that I have ever had,” she said after a maniacal laugh. “And I mean it.”

“All this time being a #TacoBellPartner was worth it for this moment,” she captioned the post. “Finally got my #mexicanpizza. Thanks @tacobell.” Through her partnership with Taco Bell, Doja also made a song about Mexican Pizza which she said was completely “contractual.”

You can watch Doja enjoy the Mexican Pizza in the video above.

Rico Nasty is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Donald Trump is a chaotic force, but so is Piers Morgan. Over a year ago the English reporter stormed off a live TV broadcast after he was criticized for attacking Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. He subsequently left the program he was on permanently and now has his own new show, Piers Morgan Uncensored. On Wednesday, he previewed a big interview get: Donald J. Trump. But there was another angle to the story: The former president, Morgan claimed, had done something similar to what he’d done last March.

Not so, claims Trump. But it’s not just one of his usual bald, likely fictitious assertions. NBC News acquired audio of the interview, provided by a Trump spokesperson, that tells a different — albeit confusing — story.

Morgan claimed — and a preview seemed to show — that Trump got miffed when his interviewer called him out for falsely claiming that he’d won re-election in 2020, as he’s been doing for the last year-and-a-half (except when he accidentally isn’t). Trump calls Piers, with whom he’s been chummy, “dishonest” and a “fool.”

That wasn’t necessarily the end of the interview, Morgan claimed. Trump started talking, yet again, about that hole-in-one he awarded its own weird press release a few weeks ago. Morgan had claimed that Trump then gave him a “hateful” look at left. But on the audio, the two men can be laughing and thanking each other, with no dramatic storming off — or at least a dramatic storming off averted.

“That was a great interview,” Morgan can be heard saying.

“Yeah,” Trump says.

“Thank you very much,” Morgan respond. “I really appreciate it.”

At this point, Trump can be heard saying, “Turn the camera off.”

The Trump team are claiming the preview was deceptively edited to imply a huffy, abrupt conclusion to the chat, even editing the “Turn the camera off” so that it arrives earlier than it did.

The audio has not yet been made public, but it could be that the famously volatile Trump, who is prone to flipping out on journalists, almost vamoosed only to calm down. Perhaps that will be reflective in the full interview, which won’t air until April 25. Maybe this is just an overly dramatized ad intended to boost viewership and nab headlines.

You can find out when the interview airs on Piers Morgan Uncensored on April 25.

(Via NBC News)

Last month, Lucky Daye once again proved why he’s one of the best acts in R&B with his sophomore album Candydrip. Through 17 songs and guest appearances from Smino, Chiild, Alex Isley, and Lil Durk. Candydrip highlighted Daye’s versatility as it’s quite different from his Grammy-nominated debut album Painted. Daye is currently on tour in support of his second album, and with just a few shows left, he returns with a brand new video for “NWA.”

The track, which features a guest verse from Lil Durk, is quite the fashionable effort as it features some stylish looks like Daye as he appears on collages that are artistically placed in sort of a photo album. While Durk does contribute a verse to the song, he doesn’t appear in the video. Instead, Daye recruits Smino and Algee Smith, who most notably plays Christophe McKay in HBO’s Euphoria series, for cameo appearances in the visual.

Daye’s new video arrives after he won his first Grammy at the award show earlier this month. He was selected in the Best Progressive R&B Album category for his 2021 project Table For Two. Prior to that, he collaborated with Syd for their romantic track “Could You Break A Heart.”

You can watch the video for “NWA” above.

Candydrip is out now via Keep Cool and RCA. You can stream it here.

The Toronto Raptors came out, as expected, with some extra juice on Wednesday night back in their home building after getting thoroughly outclassed in Philadelphia in Games 1 and 2. Toronto came out swarming the Sixers on defense and looking to push the tempo on offense, darting out to a 17-point lead in the second quarter as the 76ers looked a bit shell-shocked by the Raptors early energy.

However, Philadelphia started to settle in, closing the deficit to 10 at halftime and then just one going into the fourth quarter, where the two teams traded blows in a low-scoring, tense battle. Joel Embiid came alive down the stretch, hitting some absurd shots that offered a glimpse at what was to come to end the game, including this stepback to beat the shot clock buzzer and tie the game at 87-87.

The two teams would struggle to create separation from that point on, trading shots as the Raptors would take a lead and the Sixers would quickly tie it up. After James Harden fouled out, Precious Achiuwa missed a pair of free throws that could’ve given Toronto a lead with under 30 seconds remaining, and Philly had a chance to dial up a hopeful game-winning play. The result was an Embiid fadeway three that went begging, followed by a Tobias Harris putback that likewise missed short to send the game to OT.

In overtime, it was the Sixers that went up early, forcing Toronto to try and stay attached, which they were able to thanks to OG Anunoby and yet another shot clock beating three in the game.

That trend continued in the closing seconds, as after a dreadful possession forced Doc Rivers to call timeout with 0.9 on the shot clock, Embiid redeemed himself with an outrageous spinning three to win the game.

Toronto wasn’t able to get a last gasp shot off before the final buzzer sounded, and the Sixers escaped Game 3 with a win and a stranglehold on the series at 3-0. Embiid finished with 33 points and 13 rebounds, aided by 19 points each from Harden and Tyrese Maxey. On the Raptors side, Anunoby and Gary Trent Jr. were sensational, combining for 50 points, while Achiuwa gave them 20 off the bench, but their stars struggled, as Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet went 9-for-29 from the field for 24 combined points in the loss.

The win effectively seals the series for the Sixers, as they now need just one more win to punch their ticket to the second round, while Toronto will have a tough time bouncing back for Game 4 after putting forth such a massive effort and coming up painfully short.

Back in early February, Rudy Giuliani scored another notch on his bedpost, which is to say he found another way to embarrass himself. It was reported that a then-recent taping of The Masked Singer, Fox’s bananas show featuring disguised celebrities, featured no less than the former president’s lawyer, who’d destroyed his reputation by, among other things, spreading misinformation about the 2020 election. Now that episode has finally aired and it is, as promised, a s*tshow.

When the mastermind behind the Four Seasons Total Landscaping debacle was revealed as a bird-of-sorts inside a Jack in the Box, he was met not with applause but shocked gasps. Co-host Ken Jeong crossed his arms.

“It surprises us all that you’re here on The Masked Singer,” fellow host Nick Cannon told the discoverer of the wine lady voter fraud “witness.”

“This is definitely something I never would have guessed,” said Robin Thicke of a former beloved mayor who had mystery goo run down the side of his head as he tried to help his client overturn democracy.

Another host, Nicole Scherzinger, asked, “Is that Robert Duvall?,” a reference to one of Thicke’s previous guesses.

As Giuliani speak-singing over George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone,” featuring such lyrics as “I make a good woman steal,” Jeong — looking genuinely pissed for perhaps the first time in public life — tells someone off-screen “I’m done,” then storms off. The broadcast version did not show Thicke doing the same.

Scherzinger, meanwhile, stayed and happily danced alongside Jenny McCarthy, who used to spread misinformation about vaccines before that became all the rage among people who continue to believe Giuliani’s election lies.

(Via Deadline)

Game 1 of the Nets-Celtics first round series was an instant classic, with Jayson Tatum stealing one for the home team on a spinning layup at the buzzer, leaving fans fired up for what Game 2 would bring. It delivered in a different way, with some more late drama, but less two teams going blow for blow and more them trading big runs, with Boston getting the best of the battle to take a 2-0 series lead.

After coming so close in the opener, the expectation was for the Nets to come out with an early punch, and they did just that quickly running up a 9-0 lead thanks to the unlikeliest of sources in Bruce Brown.

Brooklyn would maintain an advantage in that range throughout most of the first half thanks to some stellar play from their “others,” while the Celtics defense continued to pester and frustrate Kevin Durant and made a more concerted effort to do the same with Kyrie Irving. Brown, Seth Curry, and Goran Dragic all gave the Nets big lifts in the first half, as they led by as many as 17 and took a 65-55 advantage into the break, with Dragic scoring 16 in the opening half to lead all scorers.

However, in the third quarter the Celtics started to chip away as they continued to send waves of bodies at Durant, who really struggled on the night with ball security, turning it over six times leading to some transition buckets for Boston to close the gap and eventually tie the game.

Brooklyn would briefly stem the tide, with Bruce Brown again providing some big buckets, and pushed their advantage back to as many as seven, before Jaylen Brown pulled Boston to within five going to the final period.

In that fourth quarter, the Celtics simply dominated, as Brown woke up in a big way and Ime Udoka made a key adjustment to get some additional shooting into the game by rolling with Payton Pritchard for some key minutes and he rewarded him by scoring 10 points off the bench in the second half, including hitting the shot that gave Boston its first lead of the night.

At that point, Brown and Tatum took over, as the Celtics could smell the blood in the water and went on an extended 18-8 run to give themselves a 110-100 lead with just over a minute to play.

It was an unbelievable performance from Boston in a game where the leading stars on both sides struggled for much of the game, but while Durant and Irving weren’t able to turn it on from a scoring perspective, Brown and Tatum found their stride at just the right time down the stretch. Brown led the Celtics in scoring with 22 points, but all five starters reached double figures, as did Grant Williams (17 points) and Pritchard (10 points) off the bench to pick up Tatum on a night he shot just 5-of-16 from the floor — but did dish out 10 assists.

On the other side, Durant had 27 points to lead all scorers, but most of his damage came from the free throw line as he shot just 4-of-17 from the field, along with those six costly turnovers. Irving, after a virtuoso performance in Game 1, was nowhere to be seen in Game 2, scoring 10 points on 4-of-13 shooting with eight assists. What may prove most costly is the Nets wasted an incredible offensive night from Brown, who finished with 23 points on 8-of-12 shooting, as well as 34 combined from Dragic and Curry.

For a team with depth concerns, faltering on a night where the others step up is a real concern for the Nets, as the series shifts to Brooklyn and they face a must-win Game 3 to avoid falling in a 3-0 deficit.

On Wednesday, the music world was surprised by the news that ASAP Rocky was arrested at LAX as he arrived on a flight from Barbados with his girlfriend Rihanna, who he is expecting his first child with. According to NBC News, Rocky was taken into custody in connection to a shooting on November 6, 2021 in which the victim claims that Rocky shot at him three or four times with one of the bullets grazing his hand. Now, thanks to a report from TMZ, we now know that the rapper was released from jail after he posted bail.

According to XXL, Rocky’s bail was set at $550,000, and after he posted it, cameras captured him leaving police headquarters on Wednesday afternoon and heading into an SUV that waited for him in a rear parking lot. He was originally taken into custody by Los Angeles Police Department’s robbery/homicide division at 8:20 a.m. PST on Wednesday and he was booked into jail at 12:42 p.m. According to a press release that was shared on the Los Angeles Police Department’s Twitter, the alleged incident between Rocky and the victim, who was described as an “acquaintance” of Rocky, started with an argument in Los Angeles near Vista Del Mar and Selma Avenue.

“The argument escalated and resulted in the suspect firing a handgun at the victim,” the statement reads. “The victim sustained a minor injury from the incident and later sought his medical treatment. Following the shooting, the suspect and two additional males fled the area on foot. Detectives worked diligently to investigate and corroborate the reporting information, which helped identify the suspect(s) involved.”

Despite Rocky’s arrest on Wednesday morning, video captured police officers executing a search warrant on Rocky’s home in Los Angeles hours after the rapper’s detainment. Officers were seen in full gear with a battering ram to gain entrance onto the property.

You can view the statement from the LAPD above.

The Trump obsessives at Newsmax, like One America News Network, helped push Fox News even more rightward than they were. But the news station is still a rinky-dink affair. Among their weirder offenders is Greg Kelly, the son of former NYC police commissioner Raymond Kelly. A local news reporter who reinvented himself as a far right stooge, he’s had his share of strange controversies. But none are perhaps weirder than what happened on Wednesday.

Kelly, who last year came under fire for a racially charged tweet, devoted a fiery segment railing against claims of systemic racism in America. His argument was that a lot of the people railing against racial inequality in America now graduated high school and have jobs. Pretty air tight logic.

He soon moved onto how, as he put it, Black conservatives are considered by the left to be “traitors.” “They’re out there, but they’re shunned because, boy oh boy, what they have to say,” Kelly said.

He then aired a graphic showing four Black conservatives allegedly demonized by liberals. One of them was Milwaukee sheriff and noted Trumpist David Clarke. Another was Trump staff member Ben Carson. The other two were a bit strange. One was Herman Cain, who died in 2020 from COVID, not long after attending a Trump rally, photographed maskless. The other was…Ben Shapiro.

The Daily Wire honcho and frequent social media punching bag is, needless to say, not Black. It’s not clear how he wound up in a modest graphic meant to illustrate alleged liberal animosity to Black conservatives. But Kelly tried to power ahead through the error.

“And the late Herman Cain and, of course, Ben Shapiro, not Black but one of the heroes of the movement,” Kelly said, nervously fumbling. “This really disrupts the narrative and that’s why they are marginalized. They shouldn’t be. They should be celebrated and listened to, right?”

It’s the rare case where Shapiro isn’t to blame for his own humiliation. Speaking of which…

(Via The Daily Beast)

Things aren’t so hot for Alex Jones right now. Over the weekend, three of the Infowars honcho’s businesses filed for bankruptcy. Why? In an attempt to stave off a potential looming financial apocalypse brought on by six families of victims in the Sandy Hook school massacre. But the solution to some, if not all, of his problems is ratting out one of his favorite presidents.

As per The New York Times, arguably the nation’s loudest conspiracy theorist is in talks to sit down with the Jan. 6 committee. Jones was a key player in the “Stop the Steal” movement, and late last year he swore he would plead the Fifth after being subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating the lead-up and events of that fateful day.

But now, amidst legal and financial headaches, Jones has issued a formal letter expressing “his desire to speak to federal prosecutors about Jan. 6.” Though he’s sworn that he didn’t engage in any “criminal wrongdoing,” despite helping lead an army of violent Trump supporters to the nation’s Capitol building, he is reportedly requesting as part of his testimony immunity from prosecution. That might be difficult to acquire, especially since the committee, with its new, more aggressive prosecutor, Thomas Windom, appears to be gaining more momentum.

NYT speculates that, even if he does wind up speaking with the Jan. 6 committee, Jones may not provide much useful information, and could continue to lean on the Fifth Amendment. Then again, given his personal woes — and his occasional animosity towards Trump — he could sing like a canary. He has close ties to a number of Trump cronies. Moreover, the committee recently obtained texts he had exchanged with one of the leading figures of the pro-Trump rallies after he lost re-election in late 2020.

If this pans out, Piers Morgan wouldn’t be the only sometime ally Trump has recently lost.

(Via NYT)