Category: News

Game 4 of the Mavs-Suns series was defined by three-point shooting, as Dallas rolled to a 111-101 victory to even the series at 2-2 going back to Phoenix in one of the most impressive shooting displays of the postseason.

Dallas came out hot from the jump, as Dorian Finney-Smith, Davis Bertans, and Spencer Dinwiddie all got rolling from beyond the arc in the first half as the Mavs pumped in 12 three-pointers to take a 12-point lead into halftime.

The other storyline in the game was foul trouble for the Suns, namely Chris Paul, who picked up four first half fouls and was largely ineffective in the game, scoring just five points on 2-of-4 shooting with seven assists in 23 minutes of action. Devin Booker did his best to pick up the pieces, scoring 35 points and holding the Suns in it, but with Cam Payne continuing his postseason struggles, the Suns couldn’t afford Paul to be on the bench as much as he was.

Most of the Mavs did cool off considerably in the second half, starting it 9-of-33 from the field, as Phoenix reeled them in, cutting the lead to as few as four with 1:17 to go in the third, but Dallas was able to find timely buckets to answer every Suns run. In the fourth quarter, Devin Booker did his best to lead the Suns back into the game, giving a strong two-way effort to open the period as Phoenix once again trimmed the Mavs lead to six.

However, Phoenix had to figure out a way to close the game without Paul, who picked up his sixth reaching in on Jalen Brunson on an offensive rebound with nine minutes to play.

While Doncic struggled to find his stroke from the outside, his teammates continued to provide the lift, with Dorian Finney-Smith taking over briefly with back-to-back threes to once again push Dallas to a double-digit advantage, as he finished the night with 24 points, all on three-pointers, as he hit 8-of-12 from deep to give the Mavs a much-needed lift.

While it was a tough shooting night from Doncic, he came up with big plays down the stretch when he committed to creating for his teammates, as Phoenix continuously collapsed on Doncic’s drives and helped off the corners despite the Mavs shooters burying everything from there all night. Reggie Bullock and Jalen Brunson cashed in on corner three opportunities created by Doncic in the closing minutes as Dallas once again opened up a healthy lead in the final four minutes, with the star putting the dagger in with some fancy footwork in the post with just over two minutes to go.

There was plenty of commentary on the officiating during the game from fans of both sides, but the difference was simply Dallas’ lights out shooting. Non-Doncic Mavs went 19-of-34 from three, headlined by Finney-Smith’s night, while the Suns were a solid but unremarkable 9-of-25 from deep. No one other than Booker could really get it going for Phoenix, and that proved to be too much of a burden for the Suns’ star to bear down the stretch, as he could never get them within more than two possessions of the lead.

Now the series shifts back to Phoenix where the Suns looked terrific to open the series and it may simply come down to whether the Mavs’ “others” can be effective away from their home arena. Doncic had 26 points, 11 assists, and seven rebounds in the win, but was a dreadful 1-of-10 from distance and needed the pick-up from his teammates to get this game across the finish line. The Suns have clearly decided they’ll let the Mavs’ role players get open looks off of Doncic’s creation, and in Game 4 that came back to bite them as the Mavs buried shots throughout the night.

The Golden State Warriors dominated Game 3 against the Grizzlies on Saturday night, piling up 142 points in a 30-point blowout win to take a 2-1 series lead, but after the game much of the conversation was about Ja Morant’s knee injury that caused him to leave the game for the locker room early in the fourth quarter.

There were a couple of plays in the late third and early fourth that seemed to leave the All-Star guard hobbling a bit, but head coach Taylor Jenkins and the Grizzlies focused on a play in the early fourth that saw Jordan Poole grabbing for the ball but instead pull on Morant’s knee. After Steve Kerr called Memphis out for dirty play in Game 2 headlined by Dillon Brooks’ clothesline of Gary Payton II that left him with a fractured elbow and led to a Brooks suspension, the Grizzlies took this play as some sort of effort at retribution from the Warriors — who unsurprisingly insisted it was incidental.

On Sunday, Jenkins met with the media and offered a less than positive update on Morant, who was continuing to have tests done on his knee and had no official diagnosis, but did note that there was a “really good chance” the star guard will be out for Game 4.

That’s obviously a big blow for Memphis, although they did have a stellar record without Morant during the regular season, as Morant was the lone bright spot in the Game 3 loss before he exited. It was always going to be a steep hill to climb for the Grizzlies against the Warriors, but the margin for error gets brought down to effectively nil if Morant is unable to play. Memphis would need a significantly better effort from their other guards, particularly Tyus Jones, if they are to find a way to even the series without Morant — or even if Ja can play but is limited.

It’s been almost seven years since Future obtained his first No. 1 album. He earned it with his 2015 third album DS2 which many herald as a classic in his discography. Future’s stardom was cemented in the following years, especially in 2017 when he released two albums — Future and Hndrxx — in the span of two weeks with both topping the charts. Nowadays, Future’s output is not what it used to be, but his chart performance has remained the same. At the end of last month, Future released his ninth album I Never Liked You and many expected it to debut at No. 1. Those expectations have come true thanks to the latest chart from Billboard.

For the Billboard 200 dated May 14, 2022, Future’s I Never Liked You went No. 1 thanks to 222,000 album units sold in its first week. That number is comprised of 214,000 streaming equivalent album units which equates to 283.75 million on-demand official streams of the album’s songs. I Never Liked You also posted 6,500 pure album sales.

With its first-week sales of 222,000 units, Future’s I Never Liked You earns the biggest debut of any album released in 2022. It’s also the highest sales week since Adele’s 30 posted 280,000 units in the week ending on December 2, 2021. Additionally, I Never Liked You had the biggest debut of any hip-hop/R&B album since Drake’s Certified Lover Boy posted 613,000 album sales last September.

Future’s latest No. 1 gives him his eighth chart-topping release in the last seven years which is the most by any artist in that timespan.

You can revisit our review of I Never Liked You here.

I Never Liked You is out now via Freebandz/Epic Records. You can stream it here.

Over the weekend, one longtime Republican decided he’d been quiet long enough. Steve Schmidt, a strategist who managed John McCain’s unsuccessful presidential run in 2008, took to Twitter, where he proceeded to unleash hell upon Meghan McCain, who was already smarting from surreally lousy hardcover book sales. Then he came for his old boss’ notorious running mate.

It’s no secret that Schmidt and Sarah Palin did not get along. Their contentious relationship was dramatized in the campaign trail book Game Change as well as the HBO movie made from it, in which the two were played by Woody Harrelson and Julianne Moore. But Schmidt decided that while he was torching John McCain’s daughter — whom he accused of being a “bully” whose behavior on her father’s campaign trail “appalled” the late politician — he’d go after Palin as well.

“When the campaign ended I refused to let Sarah Palin speak,” Schmidt tweeted about election night 2008. “I placed the phone call to Barack Obama for the concession and did everything I could to make sure a beautiful speech wasn’t disgraced by the nut ball from Alaska.”

You can watch how the Game Change film depicted that scene.

He also saw a depressing, disturbing shift in the GOP. “Palin understood the party of personal responsibility was dead and replaced by a whining victim cult of losers who routinely lied and blamed others for their failings,” he wrote. “Palin went on the attack after the campaign. You see, it wasn’t that she was ignorant and unprepared. It wasn’t that she was a pathological liar who became intoxicated by fame and grievance. She was a victim!”

He added: “John McCain’s last words to Palin on election night were a warning,” the former advisor wrote. “He said don’t be pulled in ‘by the extremists like Limbaugh.’ It was too late and he knew it.”

The next day, Schmidt doubled down when confronted by Breitbart News editor-at-large Rebecca Mansour, calling Palin “an absolutely degenerate liar. Pathological. Unfit. Unwell. She’s a quitter and a buffoon who has no business ever holding a position of public trust, ever. Not even as a crossing guard. Nothing.” Schmidt then told Mansour, “You are nuts also.”

Alas, even though Schmidt never liked Sarah Palin, the campaign he ran had opened Pandora’s Box. Not only had an obscure governor been turned into a household name, she inspired untold clones, even “pathological” and “unwell” than her. Though not many of them have openly scoured about New York City while sick with COVID.

(Via Insider)

Earlier this month, it was announced that Eminem would be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in his first year of eligibility. He joins Dolly Parton, Duran Duran, Lionel Richie, Pat Benatar, Eurythmics, and Carly Simon as artists that will be inducted through the Performers category. After the announcement, The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame’s CEO Greg Harris praised Eminem during an interview with Taryn Daly of Audacy.

“For a lot of years people asked about hip hop,” he said. “He is the tenth artist to be sort of categorized that way. But you listen to his music, it is as hard-hitting and straight ahead as any metal song. It is right there. It is a chest punch with a message and with a power and with a rhythm and with a band.”

A few days after the inductees for the 2022 class were announced, we finally received a message from Eminem himself about the inclusion, and it couldn’t come in a more Eminem way. The rapper shared a cartoon image of himself standing in front of a bunch of Minions in between a message that read “The Minions congratulate Eminem. Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame 2022.”

Fans noticed that amongst the cast of Minions, there is a green one with an M on its chest and it looks extremely similar to an M&M (which is phonetically pronounced the same way as Eminem). As a result, many believe that Eminem is in some way involved in the upcoming Minions: Rise Of Guru movie which arrives in theatres on July 1. It’s also not the first time that Eminem has promoted the movie as he did so at the end of March with a trailer that featured “Lose Yourself” playing in the background.

You can view Eminem’s tweet above.

Formula 1 has steadily increased in popularity in the United States in recent years, fueled by Netflix’s Drive to Survive series, and on Sunday the racing series held its first of two stateside races of 2022 in Miami.

As is the case at all F1 races, the paddock was filled with celebrities milling about, looking at cars, and talking to drivers before the race, but because this race was in Miami, there were far more American sports stars than usual. Some of them were household names anywhere, like Tom Brady, Serena Williams, and Michael Jordan, but there were also some lesser known names for folks from the other side of the pond wandering around.

Among them was Paolo Banchero, as the potential No. 1 overall draft pick in the upcoming 2022 NBA Draft was taking it all in at the paddock. At 6’10, Banchero stands out in a crowd and for the Sky Sports broadcast, that meant he had to be somebody and they should probably talk to him. The Sky Sports team decided he was Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, leading to an extremely awkward (and hilarious) interview on live TV with Martin Brundle.

The “whatever” at the end is hysterical, as Brundle was clearly having a very difficult time sorting out who was who in a foreign place with a lot of non-F1 regulars in attendance. Doing an interview and then asking “what’s your name?” is an objectively funny way to go about things, and as F1 continues to try and grow its footprint in the U.S., Sky Sports might want to seek out some local spotters when they come stateside so they can avoid yelling “PATRICK” at someone who is decidedly not Patrick Mahomes.

It’s been a little over a month since the entertainment world was shocked by the news of Taylor Hawkins’ death. The Foo Fighters drummer has been honored in numerous ways through messages on social media and performances of songs he helped craft. An example of the latter came during Pearl Jam’s recent concert in Inglewood, California. The band paid tribute to Hawkins with a performance of Foo Fighters’ “Cold Day In The Sun,” which features Hawkins as the song’s lead vocalist. Pearl Jam’s Matt Cameron, who was Hawkins’ collaborator in their Nighttime Boogie Association side project, led the way on the “Cold Day In The Sun” cover.

“It’s never easy when you lose someone,” Eddie Vedder said about Hawkins before the band performed the song. “As you get older, you’ll notice it starts happening more and more. It’s just where you are on the timeline and where your friends are on the timeline. But sometimes, like this, it’s so unexpected.” He continued, “But also makes it harder because he was someone who truly, truly loved living life on this planet. So I guess the one thing we can be consoled by is the fact that he never wasted a moment, and he did live his life to the fullest. We just want more of it.”

This is not the first time that Pearl Jam has honored Hawkins since his death. Following his death, Matt Cameron took to Instagram to remember him. “I love Taylor Hawkins,” he wrote. “He brought so much joy and happiness to my life. I can’t believe he’s gone. I miss him already damn. My deepest love and condolences to the entire Foo Fighters organization and to the beautiful Hawkins family.”

You can view videos from Pearl Jam’s cover of “Cold Day In The Sun” above.

As 2022 got underway, it appeared that Kanye West would shift his attention to his eleventh album Donda 2. The project eventually arrived in February, but not in the traditional way that we might have expected. He decided that the album would be housed exclusively on his Stem Player website, and to this day, he’s yet to upload the project to streaming services. However, since releasing Donda last summer, Kanye has continued to share content from the album. He dropped a visual for “Hurricane,” the Grammy-winning standout from the album and now he’s announced that a visual for “Life Of The Party” is on the way.

The track, which features Andre 3000 and finds both rappers speaking about their mothers, will have a matching visual for it released later today. With today being Mother’s Day, it’s a perfect day to share the video for the song. The visual will be available to view on all streaming platforms starting at 9:45pm EST later tonight.

A press release for the video’s announcement also revealed that the visual will appear in the first TV commercial for Yeezy Gap Engineered By Balenciaga. New pieces from the collaboration, which has been described as a “creative exploration,” will debut in the commercial. The items will be available for release on May 25 at 9am EST/6pm PST on Yeezy Gap’s website as well as sites for Balenciaga’s online partners: Farfetch, Mytheresa, and Luisa Via Roma.

Later tonight, you can click here to watch the video for “Life Of The Party.”

Things haven’t been great for Meghan McCain. Since leaving The View last summer, she’s been quietly dragged by her former colleagues. She released a memoir, Bad Republican, which did well when it was released exclusively as an audiobook on Audible but tanked very, very, very badly when it belatedly hit hardcover. Now one of her father’s former aides has come for her.

On an otherwise chill Saturday night, Steve Schmidt — a longtime Republican strategist who was the senior campaign strategist on John McCain’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential run — had a mulit-tweet meltdown directed at his former boss’ daughter.

Saying he’s stayed silent about Meghan, even after “14 years of abuse and attacks,” he declared that “today is the day I have decided to respond.” He said, I was the first adult that @MeghanMcCain ever encountered that she heard the word NO from. I told her she was unimportant and that the Presidential election wasn’t about her.”

Calling her a “bully, entitled, unaccomplished, spoiled and mean,” Schmidt claimed that her father was “appalled” and embarrassed” by Meghan’s “conduct” on his campaign trail, when she was in her mid-20s. “The tantrums were beyond anything I have ever witnessed from any other human being. They were epic meltdowns that would test the range of Meryl Streep, Kate Winslett, Jodi Foster and Anne Hathaway on their best days. Raging, screaming, crying, at the staff, at the makeup people at Secret Service. Without any doubt it was the most rotten, entitled, spoiled, cruel, mean and bullying behavior I have ever witnessed.”

Schmidt also claimed that all reports about her diva behavior on The View were correct. “Everyone who has ever worked with @MeghanMcCain from @abc @TheView @JoyVBehar @WhoopiGoldberg and a thousand others have seen the unfiltered version of what the whole of America has seen,” he wrote. “That is why in a nation of 330 million people, 247 have bought it. Nothing new to learn.”

He was still tweeting about Meghan into Sunday, though he reserved some ire for her father’s running mate, notorious public health menace Sarah Palin. “She is an absolutely degenerate liar,” he wrote. “Pathological. Unfit. Unwell. She’s a quitter and a buffoon who has no business ever holding a position of public trust, ever. Not even as a crossing guard. Nothing.”

Meghan McCain has yet to respond to Schmidt’s meltdown. While Meaghan has prided herself as being an anti-Trump Republican, so has Schmidt, who helped found the Lincoln Project, the group of longtime conservatives who sought to ensure the 45th president only served a single term.

(Via The Daily Beast)

For decades, for over half a century in fact, the ever-regenerating hero of Doctor Who was a white man. Five years ago, that finally changed. Jodie Whittaker became the 13th incarnation of the one known only as “The Doctor,” making her the first woman to assume the role. The actress announced she was stepping down from the role, but her replacement won’t be another white man, or another woman for that matter. (Nor will it be Hugh Grant.)

The news broke over the show’s official Twitter account. “The future is here! Ncuti Gatwa is the Doctor,” the post read. Gatwa, a Scottish actor born in Rwanda, rose to prominence on Sex Education, on which he plays Eric, best friend to Asa Butterfield’s Otis and a young gay man from a strict Nigerian family. Gatwa is third-billed on the series but he’s known for stealing the show. For his work, he’s won a Scottish BAFTA for Best Male Performance back in 2020.

When Gatwa takes the reins, he’ll be the 14th incarnation of the Doctor, a mysterious character who travels the cosmos and through time in the phone booth-looking TARDIS, brainily saving the universe from baddies like the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Weeping Angels, and more.

The news was announced the same day as this year’s BAFTAs, where Gatwa is nominated for Best Male Performance in a Comedy Programme. He was relieved to finally be able to talk about the new gig, which he scored back in February.

(Via Deadline)