Category: News

On Sunday afternoon, the Bucks and Nets treated us to one of the best games of this season, as Milwaukee held on late for a 117-114 win. Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kevin Durant were the shining stars of the day, with the reigning two-time MVP going off for 49 points in one of the most complete offensive showings of his career to out-duel a massive 42-point performance from Durant.

It was a sensational display of two of the game’s most unique players, as both players did what they do best and showed why they are unstoppable when at their peaks. Durant was 7-of-13 from three-point range and lit up the Bucks despite quality defensive efforts from deep and in the midrange. Antetokounmpo attacked downhill, but showed some tremendous touch from the short midrange, as well as a rare 4-of-8 outing from three that made him absolutely impossible to deal with.

However, after the game, Giannis explained that he wasn’t trying to go back-and-forth with KD because you can’t do that with one of the best scorers in NBA history, and that he was simply trying to make the right plays for his team at the right time, because if you try to out-iso score Durant you are going to lose most every time. He also spoke about his appreciation for Durant, calling him an inspiration to him growing up and also saying he’s a “once in a generation” player who should be appreciated by all.

“What he does is unbelievable,” Giannis said. “Being 6’11, being able to shoot over everybody, and the way he can handle the ball and get to his spot to rise up is unbelievable. One of the best I’ve ever seen in my life. I looked up to him my whole life. … But different games. I like playmaking. I enjoy finding my teammates, putting them in positions to be successful. I love shot-blocking. Like, it’s different games. But you have to appreciate players like that, you know, because you don’t see them often. It’s one of a generation talent, and for sure, personally, I try to steal as much as I can from his game and as much as I’m capable of doing. Cause there’s some stuff that only he can do. But he’s a great player to watch and growing up I always looked up to him.”

Giannis isn’t as outwardly friendly with a lot of guys in the league, but you can tell his appreciation for greatness and respect for the best players like KD. I also appreciate him saying that he tries to steal from KD, but that there’s some stuff that no one else can do but Durant because of his unique skillset, size, and abilities. That is something that gets lost in a lot of the comparisons of guys to great players, and it’s an important note from Giannis that you can try to emulate KD all you want but he is truly a one-of-one and no one else can do everything he’s capable of.

It’s the same with Giannis, who can do other things at his size that are unique to him, particularly with his ability to stop and change direction at high speed with his long strides. Oftentimes people assume using your size isn’t a skill, but there have been a ton of 7-footers to come through the NBA and few if any have been able to do what Giannis and KD are capable of respectively.

Republicans love to make a big show of their patriotism, but every now and then it seems like their love of country may not be that sincere. For instance, on Sunday a video clip surfaced in which Michael Flynn — national security adviser under Trump for all of 22 days, convicted felon, banned Twitter user, and QAnon fanboy — appeared to forget the words to the Pledge of Allegiance while speaking a crowd of Trump loyalists.

As per Newsweek, Flynn appeared at a rally thrown by Lin Wood, the Trump lawyer who, shortly before the failed MAGA coup of January 6, called on former vice president Mike Pence to be “executed.” In a packed room in Ladson, South Carolina, Flynn tried to whip the crowd into a patriotic frenzy.

“Listen, I’m going to say a Pledge of Allegiance. You’re going to say it along with me,” he roared, before launching into a big preamble: “I want you to hear, not just listen, every single word of the Pledge of Allegiance. That is our pledge to each other, that is our pledge to this country. It’s a Pledge of Allegiance to the United States of America. So put your hand over your heart, take your hats off here. Place your hand over your heart.”

And yet after that epic lead-up he couldn’t even get past the first sentence. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,” he said. He then skipped right to the end, blurting out the word “indivisible.” The rest of the crowd, of course, knew the Pledge of Allegiance, and Flynn eventually caught back up with them.

The video led to widespread social media mockery, though many had the same thought: It’s not a surprise that a guy who believes in wacko conspiracy theories, appearing at a rally for a guy who claims that Trump is still president, doesn’t know the words to the nation’s pledge — even though it’s pretty short.

There were jokes, too.

On a related note, just a little reminder that Flynn’s former boss, beloved by the nation’s evangelicals, very clearly doesn’t know anything about the Bible.

(Via Newsweek)

This weekend DJ Khaled released his 12th album, Khaled Khaled. It boasted appearances from some of the music world’s biggest names. Two of them are Jay-Z and Nas, who joined forces for the track “Sorry Not Sorry.” Khaled recently shared a behind-the-scenes look at the song’s recording process, and it shows Nas considering changing his verse after hearing Jay-Z’s own.

“Alright, I’m just here tweaking lines and sh*t,” Nas says to Jay-Z over a FaceTime call. “I’m in here, curating, rewriting four bars here and there … oh no no no. I gotta come back [laughs].” He adds, “Yo bro, this is one. The queen at the end, the harmonies, that gave me chills … this is definitely one for the books.” Jay-Z, who was happy with Nas’ thoughts, replied, “Now that feels good. It feels great.”

Despite Nas’ comment, DJ Khaled made sure to clarify that neither verse on the song was altered. And he expressed his happiness with the song. “JAY and NAS on one record has been a lifelong dream! And I’m so glad it happened the way it did!TRUE brotherhood! Amazing energy! And love! God was in the booth, on set, and all over this ALBUM!” he wrote. “By the way no lines were changed it was PERFECT and BEAUTIFUL. I hope this inspires everyone to come together, celebrate each other and to be the LIGHT!”

Khaled Khaled is out now via Epic Records. Get it here.

Saturday brought some heartbreaking news: Olympia Dukakis, Oscar-winning actress, had passed away. She was 89. Tributes poured out across the entertainment industry, praising her for, among other things, her award-gobbling performance for the 1987 romantic-comedy Moonstruck. Among them was Cher, her Moonstruck co-star, who won her own Academy Award for playing her romantically confused daughter.

The musician and actress took to Twitter to pay tribute to her onetime on-screen mom. But she didn’t only do one tweet. She wrote multiple tributes, over two separate days — a sign that Dukakis’ passing really hit her hard.

“Olympia Dukakis Was an Amazing,Academy Award Winning Actress,” Cher wrote. “Even Though Her Part was That Of a Suffering Wife, We [laugh emoji] ALL The Time.”

She said that she had spoken to Dukakis only three weeks prior, after hearing that she was in poor health. Dukakis’ daughter told Cher that she might have trouble speaking to her or hearing her. But she got through to her. “She was weak but happy,” Cher added.

On Sunday, the day after news of Dukakis’ passing broke, Cher was back with more. “Olympia Was A Great Artist & Brought Immense Joy To Anyone who was lucky enough To see her Work her MAGIC,” she wrote. “Ppl Around The [world emoji] Will Miss her.”

There were many other tributes to Dukakis, who also won an Obie Award, a Golden Globe, and earned multiple Emmy nominations across her storied career.

The Bucks and Nets met on Sunday in the first of two consecutive games between the East titans this week in Milwaukee, and with the billing of a potential conference finals or semifinals preview, the two teams put on a show worthy of the hype.

While James Harden remains out with a hamstring injury, which is an obviously massive absence, it was otherwise a showdown of two teams with their full complement of stars, and Kevin Durant and Giannis Antetokounmpo had a sensational duel. Durant finished the game with 42 points and 10 rebounds, hitting seven threes and shooting just under 50 percent from the field, as he tried to lead the Nets to a needed win on the road to keep hold on the 1-seed in the East.

Early on, the Nets led by as many as 14, but Milwaukee went on a massive run in the second quarter to take a lead at halftime. From there, the two teams went back-and-forth trading runs, but it was the Bucks who were able to put just enough distance between them and the Nets late to hold off one last Brooklyn rally. Durant’s last three-point attempt went begging at the buzzer, as he created space from PJ Tucker to get a good look at the top of the key to tie the game on Brooklyn’s final possession but couldn’t put home the turnaround shot.

The reason Brooklyn needed that shot to fall was the unbelievable play of Giannis Antetokounmpo, as the reigning two-time MVP went off for 49 points, along with eight rebounds, four assists, and three blocks. Antetokounmpo had it all working, giving DeAndre Jordan and the Nets absolute fits in the post, as well as shooting the lights out from the midrange and from deep, going 4-for-8 from three.

Down the stretch, Brooklyn went small and Giannis briefly had some hiccups, falling in love with the pull-up jumper and picking up a charge backing down Blake Griffin, but he learned from that and showed patience for what proved to be a critical late bucket that was the difference for Milwaukee with a slick up and under in the lane.

Helping Giannis was Khris Middleton, who had 26 points, 11 rebounds, and six assists to supplement Giannis’ massive night and Jrue Holiday who chipped in 18 points. For the Nets, Kyrie Irving had 20 points and Landry Shamet had 17 off the bench as he continues to be excellent, but Brooklyn just could not find enough answers for Giannis and the Bucks offense to allow them to completely close the gap late. Getting Harden back — and Nic Claxton — for a possible playoff series would be obviously huge for the Nets, and if Sunday was any indication of what a series between these two would look like, we all should be rooting for them to meet at some point.

CNN’s Jim Acosta hasn’t been holding back lately, criticizing Fox News and singling out Tucker Carlson for his white supremacist rhetoric. The journalist continued to call out the network this weekend, and now it seems that one nickname he gave them is starting to catch on.

Saturday brought another segment from Acosta about Fox News, in which he called them a “bullsh*t factory” during a monologue about the damage done by right-wing rhetoric when it comes to political discourse in America. In this case it was manufactured right-wing outrage over false claims that Joe Biden wanted to strictly limit the amount of red meat Americans ate. The segment showed plenty of nonsense on Fox News, which is why Acosta was more than willing to call the network out.

Acosta’s argument was that, even though the claim was false, “the damage was done, pumped out by the bullsh*t factory that is Fox News.”

The moment struck a cord with viewers, many of which shared video of it online. And it apparently struck others on CNN as a good nickname for Fox News. On Sunday, Ana Navarro-Cárdenas also joined Acosta on air and quoted his “bulls*it factory” line.

These sorts of attacks will do little to stop Fox News from overreacting to the news cycle, both imagined and otherwise. But it’s another instance of CNN and Acosta making the Fox News worldview something worth mocking. If Acosta keeps this up, though, he just might find himself in the crosshairs of the comedy geniuses doing late-night at Fox News. Careful, Jim.

Jesus Luzardo of the Oakland Athletics was a surprise addition to the injury list on Sunday when Oakland placed him on the injury list with a fractured hand. He had recently pitched on Saturday but was pulled after giving up six runs in the third inning. Initially, it appeared to just be a pitcher having a bad day, but now it seems possible he was playing through an injury, but how did that injury occur? According to the A’s, it was from many people’s favorite hobby: video games.

According to A’s manager Bob Melvin, the injury occurred while Luzardo was playing a game and he “accidentally” bumped his finger into the desk. The injury only got worse from there and they were forced to place him on the injury list.

While we have no reason to believe that Melvin is lying to us about how Luzardo’s injury occurred, it’s hard to see how someone would “accidentally” hit their finger into a desk while playing a game. Whether he’s using a controller, or a mouse and keyboard, your fingers aren’t usually in danger of fracturing from gaming. Not unless someone were to take their hand, ball it into a fist, and slam their hand down in rage. That would be a far more likely cause of a pinky finger injury and something that most people who have played a game have probably done before.

Luzardo’s injury is not only bizarre, but it’s very fitting of the sport of baseball. For whatever reason, baseball players historically get injured in bizarre ways like when José Quintana cut open his thumb doing dishes, or that time a barbell fell on top of Hunter Strickland while he was bench pressing. Luzardo isn’t even the first time a player was injured through video games, as back in 2006, Tigers pitcher Joel Zumaya was injured because he played too much Guitar Hero.

We’ll just add Luzardo to the list of bizarre baseball injuries. He is not the first and he will certainly not be the last.

The passing of DMX is something that’s still a painful thought for many. It was just last weekend that the late rapper’s family and friends came together for a pair of memorial services to honor his life, one of which took place at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. Despite being a week removed from these services, people are still finding ways to honor the hip-hop legend like Lil Wayne did during his performance at Miami’s Trillerfest on Saturday.

During his set, Wayne recalled a time during his career where he toured as much as “six months out the year.” He specifically used the moment to reflect on meeting DMX during the Cash Money Ruff Ryders tour which took place back in 2000.

“When we saw DMX, we all fell in love,” he said. “But when I got on tour with him, now you in the hotel lobby, you in the backstage, you run across the n**** and he actually say something to you. And when you see this n**** talk like how he rap and you see this n**** is what he is and you see this n**** got a zillion dogs with him, then a zillion dogs with him, it’s impossible not to be obsessed, infatuated, motherfucking impressed, whatever.”

His comments come after DMX previously confirmed that Wayne would appear on his upcoming album. The late rapper shared the news during an interview on the Drink Champs podcast where he revealed the project also includes features from Griselda Records, Usher, Pop Smoke and U2’s Bono.

You can watch Lil Wayne speak about DMX above.

The year started with Morgan Wallen dominating the album charts, and it took weeks for other acts to take the top spot. Albums from Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift soon took over. Now it’s time for Moneybagg Yo to join august company: The rapper’s fourth album, A Gangsta’s Pain, went No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200, making it the first chart-topper of his career.

The album, which boasts a total of 22 songs, tallied a total of 110,000 album units for its first week on the albums chart dated May 8 — a number comprised of 106,000 streaming equivalent album units and 4,000 pure album sales. A Gangsta’s Pain makes for Moneybagg’s fifth album overall and his fourth to enter the top-10 of the Billboard 200. The Memphis native can credit tracks like “Time Today” and “Hard For The Next,” featuring Future, for helping boost the album’s chart position.

Further down the latest Billboard 200, last week’s chart-topping release, Young Thug and YSL Records’ Slime Language 2, clocks in at No. 2. A trio of additional former No. 1s from this year also held on to Top 10 positions, namely Bieber’s Justice, Rod Wave’s Soulfly, and Swift’s Fearless (Taylor’s Version), which can be found at No. 5, 6, and 9 respectively.

Check out our review of Moneybagg’s A Gangsta’s Pain here.

Young Thug is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Elon Musk is hosting SNL next weekend and the only people who seem happy about it are Elon Musk and maybe his wife Grimes. When the news broke last Saturday, it was met with instant and widespread revulsion. Even the show’s cast seemed ready to revolt against the controversial billionaire. When Musk tweeted out that he’s ready to find out just how live Saturday Night Live really is,” Bowen Yang took to Instagram, writing “what the f*ck does this even mean?”

The backlash hasn’t seemed to faze Musk, who was likely too busy admitting that his big mission to Mars will almost certainly result in a wave of deaths. While none of the performers have threatened to boycott the show, Lorne Michaels is reportedly not requiring anyone perform with him. Musk seems really excited — so excited that, a week before the big show, he floated out some ideas for “skits,” as he called them. But people weren’t amused, and not only because none of them were funny.

Some sketch ideas included: “Woke James Bond,” “Baby Shark & Shark Tank merge to form Baby Shark Tank,” and “Irony Man – defeats villains using the power of irony.” That feeling you’re feeling? It’s your sides, splitting.

Alas, some people on social media had some better, much more cutting sketch ideas:

Some simply called him out on his s*it.

Others offered some helpful suggestions.

Or just mocked him.

Even another SNL cast member called him out.

And others took aim not at Musk but at SNL’s writing staff.

Did any of this make Musk cry or doubt his sketch comedy bona fides? It’s unclear. But he soon moved onto other subjects, like architecture.