Category: Worldwide

Game 1 of the best-of-five series between the Connecticut Sun and the top-seeded Las Vegas Aces did not go as anyone anticipated, as the Sun blitzed the Aces in a dominant performance behind a career afternoon from point guard Jasmine Thomas.

Thomas, who averaged 10 points per game on the season, erupted for 31 points in just 23 minutes of play against Las Vegas, hitting 13-of-18 attempts from the field, including a 3-for-6 day from three-point range. At one point in the third quarter, Thomas’ 31 points equaled the point total of the entire Aces team in a stunning performance that will leave the top-seed searching for answers.

Jasmine wasn’t the only Thomas to have a big game for the Sun, as Alyssa Thomas went to work on the Aces with 18 points on 8-of-14 shooting in the win.

The Aces defense simply had no answers for the Sun, as Connecticut carved them up in the third quarter to run away with a 87-62 win to make quite the statement in Game 1.

Connecticut as a team hit 50 percent of their field goal attempts to go along with 42.1 percent of their threes, torching the Vegas defense. On the other end, the Aces were stuck in the mud against a physical Sun squad, shooting a dismal 33.8 percent from the field and hit just 1-of-14 three-point attempts. MVP A’ja Wilson had 19 points and nine rebounds, while Jackie Young chipped in 17 points off the bench, but no other Aces were able to reach double figures as they were unable to get much of anything going as a team.

Game 2 on Tuesday night (9 p.m. ET on ESPN2) will offer an opportunity for a bounceback, but the Sun will be feeling very confident coming off three straight wins now in the postseason, looking to carry that momentum to a healthy 2-0 series lead.

The New York Jets might just be the worst team in the NFL. It’s certainly too early to say that emphatically, but their offense has been truly abysmal and the defense has had plenty of lapses as well.

On Sunday, they faced an incredibly banged up San Francisco 49ers team that got more injured as the game wore on, losing Jimmy Garoppolo, Nick Bosa, and Raheem Mostert (on top of already being without George Kittle). The Jets still could only muster a couple of field goals through the late third quarter offensively, and the defense didn’t exactly help matters as they couldn’t even do something as simple as “get off the field on 3rd and 31.”

Yes, the 49ers converted on 3rd and 31 from their own 11 on a 55-yard run by Jerick McKinnon that shouldn’t have had a chance to pick up a first down.

There’s no trickery or anything wild about the play design here. Just a straight toss play that McKinnon cuts back across the field where for some reason there aren’t any defenders on the entire left half of the field capable of cutting him off and stopping him from galloping into Jets territory. It is a microcosm of the season so far for the Jets — who would later in the game kick a field goal after an interception set them up in the red zone. A hapless team seemingly incapable of converting the best of chances into the expected outcome.

While Cardi B continues work on her upcoming sophomore album, the Bronx rapper decided to bringing her two-year-old daughter into the spotlight a bit more thanks to her new Instagram page. Cardi made the announcement about her daughter’s new Instagram with a post to her personal account.

“Follow @Kulturekiari new IG…soo much cool bute baby stuff coming up,” Cardi said in a post which shows her daughter adorably holding a mini Louis Vuitton bag. A quick visit to Kulture’s Instagram page proves that Cardi was indeed right to label it as cute as it presents Kulture hanging with her mom, posing for pictures, and much more.

The launch of Kulture’s new page comes at the end of what’s been a tough week for Cardi. Earlier in the week, reports emerged that the “WAP” rapper filed for divorce from her husband Offset, which she later confirmed during an Instagram livestream.

“The reason for my divorce is not because of none of that sh*t that ever happened before. It’s not because of cheating,” she revealed during the livestream. “I just got tired of f*cking arguing. I got tired of not seeing things eye to eye. When you feel like it’s just not the same anymore, before you actually get cheated on, I’d rather just leave.”

Visit Kulture’s new Instagram page here.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The WNBA playoff semifinal series were both scheduled to tip-off on Sunday afternoon, with the Connecticut Sun and Las Vegas Aces serving as the early game, with the Minnesota Lynx and Seattle Storm set for the late game.

However, just a half hour before tipoff of the Lynx-Storm game, the league announced that they were postponing that game due to inconclusive COVID-19 tests from players out of an abundance of caution, planning to reschedule it for a later date once they can get firm test results back.

It’s the first instance of such test results in either the WNBA or NBA playoffs and provides some insight into how those will be handled, with the players in question going into isolation until they produce negative tests — or a conclusive positive test — and games being postponed rather than making teams play without key players in a playoff series. That latter part wasn’t fully known, but it makes the most sense for how to handle such a situation, as no one would want to have a series swung by an inconclusive test.

Hopefully all subsequent tests will return as negative and the game can go on and be rescheduled soon with both teams having their full rosters available to them.

It was a day of injuries in the NFL on Sunday, as Week 2 saw a number of young star players go down with injuries. Nick Bosa left Niners-Jets with a left knee injury and Saquon Barkley left Giants-Bears with a right knee injury, with both being carted off of the field with serious concern about their status going forward.

In Pittsburgh, promising young starting quarterback Drew Lock also was knocked out of the game after suffering a right shoulder injury on a play in which he got hit and driven into the ground as he stumbled and fumbled the football.

The Broncos announced in the second quarter that Lock’s day was officially done with a shoulder injury — although the specifics of the injury were not yet released. As such, Jeff Driskel took over as the Broncos starting quarterback as he tried to lead Denver back against Pittsburgh, but in the second quarter the already difficult task of being a backup trying to come in and lead the team got much more difficult when star rookie receiver Jerry Jeudy went down with an injury as well.

Jeudy’s status remains uncertain, but the two young stars of the Broncos offense that came into the season with such promise are both injured and the Denver faithful collectively hold their breath in hopes neither will be too severely hurt.

There was good news on the Jeudy front, at least, as he suffered a rib injury and was listed as probable to return.

The early window of Week 2 in the NFL saw a number of young stars go down with injuries, as one of the great fears of this season starting without preseason games and without as much contact was the potential for serious injuries early on.

Broncos second year starting quarterback Drew Lock and Niners second year star defensive end Nick Bosa both suffered injuries in the first quarter of their respective games that knocked them out of action. Lock suffered a shoulder injury, while Bosa was carted off with an apparent knee injury. Not long after, Giants young star running back Saquon Barkley added his name to the growing list of concerning injuries, as he went down with an apparent right knee injury after stepping awkwardly while being tackled on the sideline against the Bears.

Barkley was helped back across the field to the Giants sideline, where trainers continued to evaluate him and he was eventually put on the cart and taken to the locker room, per reporters on site.

It is a brutal loss for the Giants, who built their offense around the combination of Barkley and young quarterback Daniel Jones. Barkley struggled in Week 1 against the Steelers, and New York’s inability to get the ground game going was a big reason for that loss. He had seemed to put those struggles behind him in Week 2 with 28 yards on four carries early against the Bears before his injury.

We’ll provide an update when one becomes available.

Fans have been itching for a new album from Isaiah Rashad since the TDE rapper shared his debut back in 2016 with The Sun’s Tirade. The album is beloved by fans, as was his debut effort Cilvia Demo which he released back in 2014. In the last year or so, Rashad has teased the release of his upcoming sophomore album, which he revealed is titled The House Is Burning, but the rapper has yet to share much information about it aside from a few tweets.

As the wait continues, Rashad decided to shed a little light on the upcoming album as he took to Twitter to let fans know who they can expect to hear on the album.

In a now-deleted tweet Rashad said that his upcoming album will not arrive without a guest feature from Young Dolph. “I don’t wanna drop til I get a Young Dolph feature,” Rashad said in the tweet. With both rappers calling Tennessee home — Rashad hailing from Chattanooga and Young Dolph hailing from Memphis — it makes sense that the TDE rapper wants to connect with a rapper in his neighborhood.

While it’s been four years since his last album, Rashad has increased his activity over the last few months. After dropping his “Why Worry” single as a part of TDE Appreciation Week, Rashad joined Kaash Paige on “Problems” from her debut album, Teenage Fever.

View Rashad’s now-deleted tweet above.

The San Francisco 49ers looked to get their season back on track on Sunday when they faced the Jets in the Meadowlands after a loss in Week 1 to the Cardinals, but had to do so without the services of star tight end George Kittle, who suffered an ankle injury last week.

After a quick touchdown from Raheem Mostert, the injury news for the Niners got worse when star second year defensive end Nick Bosa got rolled up on while being blocked, with his left knee bending awkwardly as he fell backwards. Bosa would try to limp off the field, but was unable and the Niners medical staff had to take him back to the locker room on a cart.

Bosa is one of the league’s best young defensive players, earning Defensive Rookie of the Year honors a season ago as a key piece of the Niners NFC Championship winning squad. Last week against Arizona he got off to a solid start to his sophomore campaign with six tackles and a forced fumble, but the fear now is that his season could be over due to the apparent knee injury suffered on Sunday. The hope, of course, is that this was simply a scary looking injury that won’t be of the season-ending variety, but we will provide an update here once one becomes available.

The U.S. Open is considered golf’s ultimate test. The USGA’s goal with the national championship is to test golfer’s physical abilities and, maybe more than anything, their mental strength.

The 2020 U.S. Open is taking place at Winged Foot, considered one of the most difficult golf courses in America, and with massive, undulating greens, narrow fairways and 4-6 inch deep rough, the last three days of golf have put the world’s best through the ringer. Some have separated themselves at the top, like Matthew Wolff, Bryson DeChambeau, Louis Oosthuizen, Hideki Matsuyama, Xander Schauffele, and Harris English — the only six golfers not over par through 54 holes.

Others, however, have succumbed to Winged Foot’s will, as the likes of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and plenty of other big names failed to make the weekend. Danny Lee was able to make the cut, but on Saturday he ejected in spectacular fashion on the final hole, six-putting from four feet away for par to card a quintuple bogey 9 on the last.

Lee would slam his putter into his golf bag in frustration as he walked off the green, choosing to withdraw shortly after signing his card for a 78 on Saturday, citing a wrist injury.

Anytime something like this happens and there’s a swift withdrawal for injury it is met with some skepticism, as Lee was clearly done with playing golf at Winged Foot around the time that second putt cruised past the hole, and he began quite literally slapping the ball around towards the cup. Whether the wrist injury was something that was lingering or a convenient excuse not to return to the course on Sunday after that display on 18, Lee’s tournament ended on a truly unbelievable note that shows exactly what the U.S. Open and Winged Foot can do to a golfer, even one of the world’s best.

AMC and Scott Gimple shook up the entire The Walking Dead universe a few weeks ago by announcing the end of the long-running series. There’s only one season left, but it’s been expanded, and additional episodes have been added to the series’ tenth season, so there will be actually be 30 more episodes. The series itself will not end until late 2022.

In the meantime, AMC will also begin airing the limited series spin-off, The World Beyond, next month, which will also run for two years. The Walking Dead and The World Beyond are likely to converge with the Rick Grimes’ movie around the CRM storyline, which will also tie into Fear the Walking Dead. After the The Walking Dead series finale, the series will spin-off Daryl and Carol into their own show.

The reasons are myriad, but it mostly comes down to money. In the meantime, while most of the attention regarding the future of The Walking Dead has been centered on the Daryl and Carol spin-off, less has been said about the announced The Walking Dead anthology series, Tales of The Walking Dead. We don’t have too many details about it, but Scott Gimple has been teasing the idea of that series for quite a while. He mentioned the idea last year to Deadline, and Gimple has been very high on the stand-alone nature of some of the episodes of Fear the Walking Dead. In fact, this upcoming sixth season of Fear may provide more inspiration for the anthology series, as this season is expected to base each of its episodes around a small number of characters. (Exec producer and special-effects guru Greg Nicotero also has some experience with anthologies, as he’s running the reboot of Creepshow for Shudder).

The anthology series, in fact, could be akin to the self-contained episode of Fear where June and John met and fell in love, which — to its credit — was one of the better episodes of the series. Gimple says that Tales of The Walking Dead will be built around new and existing characters, which means that even though The Walking Dead is ending, we may continue to see more than just Daryl and Carol in the future. Lauren Cohan has already teased a Maggie Rhee spin-off, which could be limited to a season of the anthology series focused on Maggie after the events of The Walking Dead. Likewise, AMC would be wise to use the anthology to produce the Negan origins story. Gimple once also mentioned another possibility: A Cast Away-like limited series focused on one single character trapped alone in the zombie apocalypse.

The series could even return to some of the deceased characters on the show and explore their backstories, or cover their lives before they entered The Walking Dead. They could, for instance, explore Ezekiel’s life as a zookeeper with a particular focus on what exactly prompted him to take on The King persona. AMC could dig more into Woodbury and The Governor. Or maybe the anthology series could even revisit Terminus and those cannibals. Point is, there are a lot of existing characters that might warrant anything from one episode to a full season, and maybe one or two of those stand-alone stories on Tales of the Walking Dead gains enough popularity to earn its own spin-off. There are a lot of past cast members of The Walking Dead who are probably wondering right now if they might get another shot at TWD fame.

In other words: The Walking Dead isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. As long as there is an audience for it, AMC will continue to produce episodes.