Category: Worldwide

Mike Tyson is returning to the ring, and with that we’re getting another look at the mindset of one of the most feared boxers on the planet as he gets ready for his next bout. That includes a look at how he views hurting people, and some of the strange things getting up for a fight does to his body.

In an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, Tyson got into some very specific details about his boxing career. Namely, that he used to get a very specific kind of excited when he really got going in the ring. Tyson was talking about how he struggles with the fact that he can really hurt someone in the ring before he admitted that the excitement about a fight can be overwhelming for his body sometimes.

“It’s orgasmic sometimes,” Tyson admitted. “What does it mean when fighting gets you erect?”

The topic came up when Rogan asked a question about getting excited about certain fights over others, and how he’s able to tap into a certain mindset that’s made him so successful over the years. Tyson went back to talking about how his body could get aroused during a fight.

“That’s how I’d get when I was a kid,” he said.

Rogan admitted that it was a very “strange thing to say,” to which Tyson replied that he wanted to see if he was “really bright” or not and could understand what he meant. Rogan tried to justify it, saying that only Tyson can understand what that means because there’s no one quite like him when it comes to boxing. Tyson later admitted that he doesn’t ask God for help when fighting, a definite separation of his sport from other areas of his life.

“I just don’t want to be involved with that kind of mindset,” Tyson said. “People do, I just don’t like the way that I think and don’t want god to be involved with the way I think at that time.”

It’s an interesting look at Tyson’s mindset heading into his next fight, and where he is in his life right now. Tyson admitted that fighting, and being on camera, is addicting. Getting back into it is feeding into his ego, and there’s a lot about his process to get ready for a fight that seems strange to anyone else.

They might be living in four-star luxury accommodations, but being quarantined from the rest of the world — and each other, for that matter — isn’t easy for anyone. Paul George recently spoke about the emotional and psychological toll its taken on his mental health to be isolated from friends and family members for so long.

Fortunately, for the players who’ve made it to the second round, they are now able to bring their families inside the bubble after a period of quarantine, and it’s brought no shortage of adorableness, as the broadcast Thursday night was able to cut to a room full of socially-distanced toddlers and moms who were watching the games from backstage.

But apparently not everyone has been able to reunite with their family members. When speaking to reporters on Friday, Nuggets head coach Mike Malone sounded off about the league’s decision not to allow coaches to bring their families to Orlando.

Denver coach Mike Malone points out that it’s Day 60 in the bubble and he thinks it’s “criminal in nature” for the NBA not to let coaches bring in families. “I say shame on you, NBA. This is crazy. I miss my family.” pic.twitter.com/oBTve7zB3m

— Kyle Goon (@kylegoon) September 4, 2020

Transcript via ESPN:

“First, I’m going to say something that has nothing to do with your question,” he said. “Today is Day 60. Alright? The guys that came down here on July 7, and there weren’t many of us because we were ravaged with COVID. This is the original crew. This is day number 60. The reason why I bring that up is because the players have their families here, which they deserve, which is the right thing to do. The referees are allowed to bring one guest, which is great for the referees. The coaches, the coaches are not allowed to bring anybody.”

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“I say shame on you NBA,” said Malone, who is married with two daughters. “This is crazy. I miss my family. And I think I speak for me, I speak for my coaches and probably all the coaches down here. Sixty days and not having access and being granted the privilege to have my family come here to me is criminal in nature, and that shouldn’t be at all. So I wanted to get that off my chest.”

According to the report, there have been ongoing negotiations between the league and the coaches association about potentially bringing family members inside the bubble, but there’s been nothing definitive as of yet. The league later issued the following statement in response to Malone on Friday.

The NBA has this to say in response to Michael Malone’s comments today, in which the Denver coach expressed serious frustration that coaches haven’t been allowed to have family in the bubble. pic.twitter.com/JCM5ARGhhe

— Sam Amick (@sam_amick) September 4, 2020

Depending on how far the Nuggets and other teams advance in the postseason, it could be more than three months before coaches are able to reunite with their families.

(ESPN)

Some couples are just meant to be together. Sarah, 38, and Jenni Barret, 37, have gone through some major changes as a couple and after 15 years of marriage, have managed to find themselves happier than ever.

Jenni and Sarah both met through a friend at Arizona State University in 2004. But back then Sarah was called Sean. Jenni identified as a straight woman and Sean, a straight man.

“I knew he was The One as soon as he gave me a killer head massage that same night,” Jenni told The Daily Mail. The couple tied the knot in December of 2005.

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At the time, Jenni didn’t know about her fiance’s gender issues, but she thought it was a little unique that she took such an interest in their wedding plans.

“I didn’t clock it at the time, but looking back at the wedding, Sarah was a bit of a bridezilla,” Jenni says. “I was happy to elope and get married just us two, but she organized every part of the big day, from tableware to the venue – all I did was try on the dress and turn up.”

via JenniBerr / Instagram

The couple would go on to have two boys, Morgan in 2007 and Toby in 2009.

After the birth of their second child, Jenni began to notice that Sarah would buy clothing traditionally meant for women.

“She started buying a lot of clothes like that, which were on the edge of what is seen as male or female,” Jenni says. “She would wear a nightie to bed and on date nights she’d be wearing countless layers of clothes with a bra underneath, so no one could see. I noticed something going on, but it wasn’t hurting anybody so I left it.”

However, the couple’s suspicions that their eldest son, Morgan, may be gay brought the issue to the forefront in their relationship.

“We’d suspected Morgan was gay since he was about two,” Jenni says. “He just can’t hide it — not that we would ever want him to. He was born singing theme tunes and being over the top.”

The discussions about Morgan’s sexuality pushed Sarah to put a mirror up to herself and have a tough conversation with Jenni.

“Sarah rolled over one evening in bed in 2016 and told me, ‘I really need to talk to you – I think I’m trans.’ I’d come to realize why I’d always been so drawn to her, it was because of who she was on the inside — a woman — and not her shell,” Jenni said.

“I turned around and said, ‘That’s ok, I think I’m gay.'”

What began as a heterosexual relationship had transformed into a loving lesbian marriage. The next job was explaining the situation to their children.

“We explained that Daddy had a girl’s brain and that it was in the wrong body — but doctors would fix it,” Jenni says. “Now, we’re both Jewish, the boys call Sarah ‘Eema’ — Hebrew for Mother.”

Sean changed her name to Sarah and began to take a combination of of testosterone blockers and estrogen every day. The couple set up an Instagram account to celebrate their unique family.

“We’re so proud of our LGBT family, although we do always say that, after Morgan came out in 2018, Toby must feel left out,” Jenni says.

“He jokes that he’s going to have to come out as bisexual to fit in!”

It seems Taylor Swift‘s 2017 copyright infringement lawsuit over their 2014 hit “Shake It Off” isn’t over just yet. Though the case was dismissed in early 2018 after a judge found the plaintiffs didn’t have sufficient evidence for an infringement, that decision was apparently overturned by an appeals court last October. And now, the case is now set to move ahead.

Songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler originally filed the lawsuit against Swift’s “Shake It Off” and are seeking a percentage of profits from the hit. The pair said it boasted commonalties to the song “Playas Gon’ Play,” which they wrote for 3LW, the early ’00s girl group composed of Naturi Naughton and Cheetah Girls stars Adrienne Bailon and Kiely Williams.

According to NME, LA judge Michael Fitzgerald gave Butler and Hall the go-ahead to proceed with the lawsuit as they “have sufficiently alleged a protectable selection and arrangement or a sequence of creative expression.” The arrangement in question is Butler and Hall’s chorus, which reads: “Playas, they gonna play, and haters, they gonna hate.”

In a statement to Billboard after the case’s decision was originally overturned, Hall said: “We are happy the court unanimously sided with us. We simply refuse to sit still and have our creative work be culturally appropriated as if it never existed. This case is giving voice to all of those creatives who can’t afford to stand up and protect their work in the face of well-financed Goliaths.”

Swift’s team responded to Hall’s statement, saying: “Mr. Hall is incorrect, the court did not unanimously side in their favor, the court sent the case back to the lower court for further determination. […] These men are not the originators, or creators, of the common phrases ‘Players’ or ‘Haters’ or combinations of them. They did not invent these common phrases nor are they the first to use them in a song. We are confident the true writers of ‘Shake It Off’ will prevail again. Their claim is not a crusade for all creatives, it is a crusade for Mr. Hall’s bank account.”

Listen to “Shake It Off” and “Playas Gon’ Play” above to compare the works for yourself.

The best and most honest review of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 is that I’m still waiting for it to f*ck up. It’s been a few days now, and I’m starting to think it’s just not going to happen.

When it comes to remaking the first two games of the genre-defining skateboarding sim, it’s hard not to consider the version Activision released on Friday without the context of the originals. The games already exist. They were great. To remake or remaster them in any way, at the very least, needs to match the greatness you’ve likely already experienced. It’s the first way the game can fail, a fairly high bar for the title to clear before you can even judge anything else happening in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing, sure, but it only gets you so far if what you’re currently playing isn’t as good as the thing you remembered. The game’s Warehouse Demo was a direct confrontation of that nostalgia. Here’s the stuff you remember, the demo seemed to say, it’s all here again so sharpen your skills because you’re going to need them. And any worry about it relying purely on what came before it gets quickly erased once you experience the full package. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 is a fully-formed, modern video game with a spectacular soundtrack and a deeply customizable experience.

In many ways, the above sentence is typed with relief as much as anything. THPS 1+2 is a game that could have come off as a cash grab, a shameless way to tepidly reheat nostalgia, give skateboarding brands some new shine, and maybe get Goldfinger another royalty check. But it’s more than the sum of its parts thanks to Activision delivering what it promised this spring: an updated version of what fans love with features you’d expect from a game made this decade. Just seeing that it’s possible to make a good, modern Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is satisfying after the disappointments of the series’ most recent entries. But 1+2 plays smoothly, and it seamlessly incorporates newer moves like the manual and revert into the lexicon of cool sh*t you can do in the game’s various levels.

It’s really great to see Downhill Jam and the various School levels done with modern-day graphics, and the various tasks you have to complete in two-minute runs remain intuitive and fun. It’s amazing how much muscle memory for tricks and combos comes back to you after just a few sessions, and how fluidly the search for S-K-A-T-E or hard hats or spotting ways to access secret tapes becomes during your runs. This isn’t reading the same book again looking for new details, but revisiting a book you loved 20 years ago and remembering why as you flip through the pages — maybe on an e-reader this time, I suppose.

If anything, 1+2 offers gamers a useful outlet for the skills they picked up long ago, when a game shaped their childhood and (probably) their musical tastes in a way that’s reverberated through the rest of their lives. Creating a skater and custom-mapping your favorite tricks, or simply grabbing your favorite skater (Bob Burnquist over here) and finding all the secrets in the Hangar will keep you up late into the night, just like the old days. The rust comes off quick, and it’s extremely satisfying to execute high-scoring runs or clearing multiple challenges in a session. The formula has always worked, and once you get a few runs in you’ll start to wonder why these games weren’t remade any sooner.

Overall the game’s new soundtrack additions fit in with the old and kept the fun, catchy vibe of the originals. I never needed to switch to a particular song for a big run, but the option was there if I ever got tired of letting the new mix of hip-hop and old school classics ride.

Both the custom skaters and the game’s overall roster offer a lot of new challenges and individual options with which to tinker. The game’s collectable skill points can be swapped to different categories as you find them and swapped on the fly, making finishing some challenges less of a grind and offering a more customized play experience for those that struggle with certain skills or need one run with monster air to land an important gap. The only frustrations I found were with myself, not the game’s camera or wonky physics or anything that often sinks sports sims. The pitfalls that usually besiege projects like these, especially in a year like this, never really came up.

The in-game currency builds up quickly as you complete challenges and allows you to purchase plenty of new boards, wheels, and other merch for customizing if you need it. The most fruitful customizing option in the coming months, though, will be the game’s Create A Park mode. It’s sprawling, seems fairly intuitive and has loads of options to make themed parks and wild mashups. I will be happy to let other people find their calling in that mode and reap the benefits they share online, but it looks to be a satisfying ride for everyone involved.

Perhaps the strongest endorsement I can give Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 is that it’s not just for people amped up on nostalgia. I handed the controller over to someone who had never played and they were gently guided through a tutorial of the basics by Tony Hawk himself. It was a reminder that the skills the game takes are learned, and they’ve been dormant inside millions of gamers who are eager to once again give them a use. But watching someone learn how to escape an empty pool and pull off a lip trick with some friendly guidance from the legend himself, it became clear that this game isn’t just for those who want to hear “Guerilla Radio” while they live in the past for a little bit.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 is poised to be a modern classic, even if you don’t remember the skateboarding world back when it was a lot more pixelated.

It’s Labor Day weekend, and that means it’s time for All Elite Wrestling’s All Out PPV. Although things are still not completely normal in light of the pandemic, there are going to be limited fans at this outdoor event, and the card is looking pretty legit.

Whether you haven’t been watching AEW Dynamite lately or you’re just looking for a refresher, let’s take a quick look at all of Saturday night’s matches and what’s going on in them.

Tooth & Nail Match: Britt Baker vs Big Swole

The Deal: Doctor Britt Baker is a dentist, but she’s also a bully. She’s been causing problems for Big Swole for months now. Swole’s got a good heart but a quick temper, and she’s not that hard to bait. But she won a handicap match a couple of weeks ago, earning the right to choose what kind of match she wants to have with Britt.

Big Swole chose a Tooth and Nail Match without explain what that means. She did say she was going to show up where Britt works, and the rumor is that this will be a cinematic match in a dentist office.

The Likely Outcome: This is a story with a clear hero and villain, so ultimately Big Swole needs to win. But I’m betting this match just leads to a rematch in an actual wrestling ring, probably when Doctor Baker is a little more healed from her recent injury.

The Young Bucks vs Jurassic Express

The Deal: The Young Bucks aren’t just going to, like, not be on a PPV from the company they started! So they had an eight-man tag match on Dynamite, with the stipulation that the winners would fight each other at All Out. The Bucks and Jurassic Express won, so here they are. The Bucks have been acting like jerks lately, so they’ll probably work heel against the heroic Jurassic Express.

The Likely Outcome: The Bucks went to the effort of putting themselves on the PPV, I have a feeling they’ll win the match. Unless this leads into some really specific plan for one or both teams, the Young Bucks definitely go over.

The Dark Order vs The Natural Nightmares, Matt Cardona, & Scorpio Sky

The Deal: Colt Cabana has been saying for weeks that he hasn’t joined the Dark Order, he’s just friends with them. But this graphic doesn’t say “Dark Order and Colt Cabana,” so I think we have to officially consider him one of them now.

The Dark Order beat the hell out of Cody and Brandi Rhodes after their leader Mister Brodie Lee defeated Cody for the TNT Championship. So the team going up against the Dark Order is basically the Cody Rhodes revenge squad: Cody’s best friends QT Marshall and Matt Cardona, his brother Dustin Rhodes, and Local Superhero Scorpio Sky.

The Likely Outcome: The Dark Order is clearly on the rise to become the big threat of AEW, especially with Brodie Lee as the TNT Champion. They’re absolutely going to win this match, and as long as Scorpio Sky looks good in it and doesn’t take the pin, I think that’s fine.

The Casino Battle Royal

The Deal: A Casino Battle Royale is like AEW’s take on the Royal Rumble, with more people joining as the match goes along. To the victor goes a World Title Shot, so it’s a match worth winning. Eddie Kingston and his whole faction will be in it this year, as well as Darby Allin, Brian Cage, Lance Archer, and basically everybody else with nothing else to do. Plus there will probably be a surprise entrant or two — I admit, I’m still holding out hope for a certain handsome Miroslav.

The Likely Outcome: This is hard to predict. Darby Allin is a possibility. Either of the Lucha Brothers. Eddie Kingston would make a lot of sense. Let’s consider Kingston my official pick, but with an asterisk (*) and underneath it says “* How am I supposed to know?”

Broken Rules Match: Sammy Guevara vs Matt Hardy

The Deal: Matt Hardy is a veteran wrestler with a lot to teach, but he’s clearly mentally unstable. Sammy Guevara is a promising young wrestler with boundless potential, but he’s also an idiot with a lot to learn. Chris Jericho has taken Guevara under his wing this past year, but Hardy thinks he’d be a better mentor. Sammy isn’t interested in the guidance, and they’ve been having increasingly violent fights about it. Now they’re having a hardcore match, and the loser is supposedly leaving AEW.

The Likely Outcome: Neither of these guys is really leaving, but one of them might take some time off and possibly get repackaged. Of course, repackaging is obsolete when it comes to Matt Hardy, since he can just morph from character to character and everyone accepts it. For Sammy Guevara, though, it would make a lot of sense. It seems like the Inner Circle may be breaking up before long, and if that is happening, Sammy could take a little time away and come back doing something totally different. So I’m picking Matt Hardy to win here.

Mimosa Mayhem Match: Chris Jericho vs Orange Cassidy

The Deal: Chris Jericho is veteran who thinks he understands everything about wrestling. Orange Cassidy is a slacker who displays surprising skills in the ring on those rare occasions when he can be bothered to care about a match. Jericho hates Cassidy, just like every other wrestler over the age of 45 does. This is the rubber match after Jericho won the first time they fought, and Cassidy won the second time.

In addition to pinfall and submission, it’s going to be possible to win this match by dumping your opponent in a giant vat of champagne and orange juice. With the possibility of a finish that good, it makes you wonder why they need to leave in pinfall and submission.

The Likely Outcome: Jericho seems determined to make Orange Cassidy a star with this feud, and if that’s the goal it makes sense to put Orange over in this match. The mimosa aspect leaves lots of space for semi-shmozzy finish if they feel like they need to protect Jericho, but honestly I don’t see why a star of his age and caliber needs to be protected. Jericho can take the loss, and the win will be a huge deal for Orange.

AEW Tag Team Championship Match: Hangman Page & Kenny Omega (c) vs FTR

The Deal: There’s a lot of tension between champs Hangman Adam Page and Kenny Omega, who have nothing in common except being moody and very good at wrestling. For one thing, Kenny’s still close friends with the Young Bucks, who Hangman doesn’t get along with anymore.

Meanwhile, FTR arrived in their old-timey pickup truck looking to do some fisting. They’re young men but old-timey wrestlers, proud southern people who be ready to fight (say yeah). They’re also the most anticipated “I can’t wait till they go to AEW” team to arrive since the company was founded. They won this title shot in a gauntlet match.

The Likely Outcome: The conflict between Page and Omega seems ready to come to a head, and losing their titles (no matter whose fault it is) is the perfect set-up for that. Meanwhile, FTR will be amazing champs, and if not now, when?

AEW Women’s Championship Match: Hikaru Shida (c) vs Thunder Rosa

The Deal: AEW’s Women’s division has never been packed with contenders, and they’ve really thinned out since the pandemic hit. With almost nobody left to fight, Shida made it clear that she would accept a challenge from any woman in the world. Not long afterward, along came National Wrestling Alliance Women’s Champion Thunder Rosa. Having already won that belt from Allysin Kay, she’s looking to take Shida’s belt and become one of those double champs everybody talks about these days.

The Likely Outcome: Exactly what the future holds for NWA (who haven’t held a show since quarantine started) seems very up in the air right now. Most likely, since she’s carrying their belt, Rosa’s just visiting AEW. So it wouldn’t make much sense for her to win this match. Plus, as little competition as she’s had, Hikaru Shida kind of needs a really impressive match in which she retains, which is how I expect this to go.

AEW World Championship Match: Jon Moxley (c) vs Maxwell Jacob Friedman

The Deal: MJF is a spoiled trust fund kid, but he’s also a pretty good wrestler. He’s been campaigning for AEW World Champion like it’s a political office, but he points out that he’s never been pinned or submitted in singles competition, so that does make some sense.

Jon Moxley has been AEW champion since the Revolution PPV in February. He’s just a regular down-to-earth guy from Ohio who really, really loves hardcore violence and is very good at both inflicting and receiving it. MJF will do anything to win this match, but Mox will do anything to win any match.

The Likely Outcome: I was starting to buy into the idea that MJF might win the belt here. After all, it does make sense at this point to make a homegrown AEW star the champion. But then MJF beat the snot out of Moxley at the end of the AEW Dynamite go-home show. I don’t think they would have let Mox get beaten that badly if he was also going to lose this match. Therefore, I predict he wins it.

It is hard to walk into a dog shelter without wanting to take them all home. In the case of Meghan Wedge and Sarah Bauer, one turned into ten—and quickly.

It all started outside Meghan’s work in Dalton, GA. Some colleagues of hers came into the office and said that there was a dog badly injured in the parking lot just outside. As Wedge told PBS39, “As soon as she got up, she’d fall back down. When she did finally get up, you could see that she couldn’t put her weight on her one back leg. I wanted to help her, so I started posting on social media, just asking if anyone was able to help this dog. I didn’t want to call the pound on her. I was hoping to find her a home.” That was when she made a phone call to her sister, Sarah Bauer, who lived in Quakertown, PA. At that moment, for the dog who would soon be named Izzy, things were about to change.

As Megan recalls, “Sarah was like: What if I take the dog? I said: Are you sure you want to do this? You don’t know what you may be getting yourself into.” But there was no talking Sarah out of it. They met in Virginia where Sarah met Izzy and took him home.

The first order of business for Sarah was to take Izzy to the vet. That was when she learned how bad the trauma that Izzy had suffered really was. “Because of Covid-19 and everything going on, I couldn’t go into the vet with her, which was hard in itself,” said Bauer. “The vet comes out to my car and tells me that her hip is dislocated, she has abrasions on her legs and that she was probably hit by a car. She also told me that she was hit by buckshot. At that point, I started tearing up. To think that this sweet girl had been treated that way…I don’t even want to think about someone hurting her on purpose.”

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As Sarah pointed out to PBS39 on Izzy’s X-rays, “The tiny white dots—that’s the buckshot—all over her body. This is just showing her abdomen. I also picked a couple out of her ears, arms and legs.” As expected, when Megan heard this from Sarah it was heartbreaking. “When Sarah told me all of that, I started crying,” said Wedge. “I have a rescue dog myself, and she was abused before I got her. To me, dog is God spelled backwards. Dogs are angels. I think it’s sickening that people would even think about hurting an animal.”

So Izzy had been hit by a car and had buckshot all over her body, but there was one more discovery about to be made. Izzy was also pregnant.

“The vet told me that she found a heartbeat,” said Bauer. “So, just to know that a little puppy was alive after everything that her mom went through, that was incredible!” The thing is, they were wrong. It would turn out not to be a heartbeat. It would turn out to be nine of them.

“The vet tech came out and said: So, we don’t just have a puppy, we have puppies! Do you want to guess how many? I said: Three or four? She said: Nine! I said: Nine puppies…that’s crazy,” said Bauer. “She’s really come alive since the first time that I met her. I think the puppies really brought out the puppy in her. She manages pretty well, but I know that she’s in discomfort every day, especially if she tries to go up or down steps or even just to run around with her puppies, she won’t put weight on that leg. I just want her to have the best life, that’s why I brought her home with me, I just want her to have a good life.”

To assist Sarah with the vet bills of over $4,000, and to help her feed the nine new family members, you can go to the GoFundMe page that was created.

It certainly sounds like Izzy could not have landed in a better home than the one she shares with Sarah Bauer.

Live music was one of the first industries to suffer in a big way following the COVID-19 lockdown. While artists and venues have largely followed CDC safety guidelines by moving concerts to online livestreams, Smash Mouth decided to do the opposite. The band performed to thousands last month at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota and health officials worried the event would be a super-spreader. Just one week later, more than 100 cases of COVID-19 were confirmed to be connected to the event and now, the first COVID-related death has been linked to the largely-unmasked event in South Dakota.

The New York Times reported a man from Minnesota is the first known Sturgis Rally attendee to die from COVID-19 complications. The state’s health officials revealed the man was in his 60’s and had pre-existing health conditions. The man was admitted to the hospital where he remained under intensive care for several weeks.

Though the Sturgis Rally was in South Dakota, more than 50 cases confirmed COVID cases in Minnesota have been linked to the rally. This past week, South Dakota reported more than 2,000 new cases, setting a record for most cases reported by the state in one day.

Cases continue to rise in the state but South Dakota is still going forward with holding a state fair. The fair has warned attendees of health risks associated with attending large scale events on their website: “Exposure to COVID-19 is an inherent risk in any public location where people are present. By visiting the South Dakota State Fairgrounds, you voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19.”

Read the New York Times‘ full report here.

Four of the biggest stars in the NBA will collide on Friday night when the Lakers and Rockets tip off their second round series. It’s a battle between a championship favorite and the West’s perennial upset candidate. It’s a clash of the smallest team left in the NBA playoffs and one of the biggest. It’s LeBron James vs. James Harden, a battle we’ve never seen in the postseason.

Los Angeles hasn’t played in a week, biding their time in the Bubble, while Houston just gritted out a wild Game 7 win over Oklahoma City two nights ago. That also means the Lakers are the healthier team at the top, as James Harden continued to look tired at the end of the Rockets’ first round games and Russell Westbrook only recently returned from a quad injury.

Those are just the biggest bullet points. Here are some of the other factors that will decide this series.

The battle of the second stars

The last time these two teams played at full strength was just after the trade deadline in early February. That game was decided in large part by Russell Westbrook outplaying Anthony Davis. This was during Westbrook’s best stretch of the season, when he was a nightly presence on social media thanks to highlight-reel finishes against bigger defenders following Houston’s decision to go all-in on hyper smallball. Like a linebacker, Westbrook was able to put up 41 against the Lakers’ third-ranked defense by putting his shoulder into Davis time and again at the rim to provide balance to the Rockets’ half court offense.

On the other end, as the Rockets adjusted to their center-less lineup, they were aggressive sending double-teams at Davis in the post. The Lakers created an early lead because of Davis’ passing in those situations, but as has been increasingly the case in the Bubble, the Lakers’ role players stopped making their shots late as Westbrook and Harden closed the game.

Though Davis scored 32 of his own and was incredible defensively late in the game, the combination of Westbrook’s inside pressure, Harden’s perimeter play-making, and the team’s overall shooting was too much for the Lakers to deal with.

But that version of Westbrook seems far away right now. When he tried to take over late in Game 6, the results were miserable, including an air-ball and multiple turnovers. All in all, in two slugfest elimination games against the Thunder, Westbrook had nine turnovers compared to five assists and averaged just 19.5 points per game.

Yet Davis’ defense matters here, too. Much was made of Houston winning in February because of the overreaction to their trade for Robert Covington, but the game was pretty evenly matched. James missed a late three that tilted things in Houston’s favor. Davis was a monster on defense to close the game. The underestimated part of the Rockets playing small is that they usually force the opponent to do the same, and not many teams have a great option when that time comes. Oklahoma City refused to put Danilo Gallinari in at center even if it might have helped their defense, but the Lakers’ choice is much simpler. JaVale McGee and Dwight Howard combined for just 20 minutes in that February matchup, while Davis was at center almost full-time. The Lakers can size down and not sacrifice much, so long as Davis is a two-way beast on a nightly basis.

Harden and James will still be the focal points of their team’s schemes on offense, but the Lakers traded for the ultimate small-ball trump card for a reason, and this is the series where he can show his worth.

Role player matchups to watch

When these teams faced off early in 2020, Jeff Green was not on the Rockets. He has increasingly filled in as the team’s nominal center and could get a shot defending Davis post-ups early on. Because he can also match up with James on switches, playing Green more alongside P.J. Tucker or Robert Covington could allow the Rockets to help neutralize the James/Davis pick-and-roll more effectively, taking away some of those easy lobs James is so good at finding.

It might sound crazy, but Vogel could consider going to his centers a little more in the first game or two of the series. The Thunder refused to go small, but they also took Houston to a Game 7, so it didn’t hurt them all that much. So long as the Lakers can keep enough shooting and wing defense on the floor with Howard or McGee, it’s not a bad thing to see if they can turn the tide of a game with their rim protection or defense. Tucker shot 37 percent from deep in the first round but Oklahoma City decided it was fine to sacrifice those shots to him and Green so long as Steven Adams could stay on the floor. If Howard or McGee can have a better series than Adams did, that would be gigantic for the Lakers.

What happens in the half court stays in the half court

As much as the teams are defined by their stars, neither is particularly effective scoring in the half court. That’s why the secondary stars are so important, but it’s also why the team that is able to get out and run the most might walk away the winner.

The Lakers scored a whopping 62 of their 111 points in that Feb. 6 meeting on the fast break despite each team turning it over 16 times apiece. In the open court, Los Angeles was able to actually take advantage of the chemistry between James and Alex Caruso as well as the Lakers’ size on lobs and easy post-ups for Davis.

James lately hasn’t been able to bully players into layups like in years past, meaning the Lakers’ ace in the hole is not as effective. In order to create great offense, they will need to push Houston’s transition defense and get to the rim off of turnovers and misses as much as possible.

This is also where Westbrook is best. Apart from the cross matches referenced earlier, Westbrook still maintains the speed and strength to ram his way to layups and free throws at will when he’s healthy. James’ increasingly brilliant passing or Westbrook’s creative, overwhelming transition attacks winning out — and which team takes care of the ball best to prevent those plays in the first place — could decide which team has an easier time scoring in this series.

Is Kyle Kuzma the difference?

The Lakers have gotten a new gear from Kuzma defensively in the Bubble. That has been huge for a Los Angeles team that had no true wing defenders most of the season and is now without Avery Bradley as well. Don’t let James’ late-game stop against Paul George in the seeding games fool you, the King is not locking down on Harden for 40 minutes a night at age 35.

But could Kuzma? As Pete Zayas of the Lakers outlined in his latest video, it’s not just that the team had to rely on Kuzma or that his results were better against an equally shallow Portland wing rotation. Kuzma has genuinely improved his defensive skills as well.

As Luguentz Dort showed us in the last series, part of Harden getting tired and making mistakes is wearing him out by making him work for shots. Functional defensive strength has always been the underestimated part of keeping Harden in check, and even the rookie Dort is already one of the sturdiest dudes in basketball.

Dort was able to deny Harden’s drives and crowd his space on jumpers in a way we really haven’t seen at all during Harden’s career. And while Kuzma’s body looks nothing like Dort’s, the Lakers forward can hold his ground defensively and his length may allow him to stay with Harden, too.

In that February matchup, Lakers coach Frank Vogel did not put Kuzma on Harden at all. Their Aug. 6 contest in the Bubble is moot because James and Westbrook both missed it, but Kuzma hardly defended Harden then, either. The job was mostly left to Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, though one area where Westbrook was especially important in the winter game was forcing bad cross-matches onto the Lakers that often left Davis on an island.

Vogel has thinned out his rotation recently and Kuzma is playing more. If the Lakers want their best guys to play as much as possible, Kuzma will need to at least get a crack at Harden early in the series. Should his newfound defensive consistency prove legit, it would go a long way in limiting one of the best offensive weapons in the NBA.

For a long time now we’ve been searching for a way to combine our love of whiskey with our insatiable hunger for travel. And while a distillery tour or a dram at a local haunt is all fine and good, they just don’t scream “whisky” enough for our tastes. Which is why we couldn’t be more psyched about the whiskey-themed hotel that is coming to Los Angeles.

The Whiskey Hotel, a… (shocker incoming) whiskey-themed hotel, is slated to open in Hollywood sometime in 2022 and will feature 134 rooms in a seven-story structure with a rooftop greenhouse-style restaurant, which will surely boast amazing views of the Los Angeles skyline, whiskey-filled minibars, a whiskey fountain, and a complimentary dram for every guest upon check-in.

We’re going to call it early: someone is going to try to swim in that whiskey fountain within the hotel’s first year of opening. Lay your bets.

The hotel will also have Whisk(e)y Sommeliers on hand to guide guests through the hotel’s dense craft spirits collection. EaterLA reports that the hotel is owned by Adolfo Suaya — a bit of a fixture on the LA scene, opening the Gaucho Grill, The Phoenix, Bar Delux, Surly Goat, Dole, and The Lodge. Suaya has now fully secured funding for the $35 million dollar hotel, which is set to open in 2022.

If you’re the mid-century, whiskey-loving Donny Drapes type, this might be the place to make a booze-related travel stop whenever this god-awful pandemic is behind us.