Jey Uso, who has recently claimed Bray Wyatt’s fireflies as his own, was successful in qualifying for the Money in the Bank ladder match to close out Raw. As he celebrated in the audience, the lights went out around the arena.
While music played, a door creaked open at the top of the entrance ramp and out crawled a woman to Wyatt’s infamous lamp. The camera panned to the backstage area, where fellow members of the new Wyatt clan had laid out members of the roster, dismantled the gorilla backstage position, and had effectively taken over the backstage area.
To end the show, Uncle Howdy pulled the Wyatt Sicks together and posed on stage, saying “We’re here,” before blowing the lamp out. As far as tributes go to the late, great Bray Wyatt, it was about as perfectly executed as they could do. After weeks teasing their arrival, the only question remaining is the identity of the new Wyatt family — it has been reported for quite some time Uncle Howdy is Bo Dallas, the real life brother of Wyatt.
The return of the Wyatts comes after an eventful episode that saw Seth Rollins return to challenge Damian Priest for the World Heavyweight championship at Money in the Bank, Otis turn on Chad Gable, and Drew McIntyre “retiring” from WWE.
The Larry O’Brien trophy is returning to Boston. After looking limp and cracking the door open to make the bad kind of NBA history on Friday night after an embarrassing performance in Game 4 of the 2024 NBA Finals, the Celtics painted a masterpiece in front of their home fans on Monday night. As a result, Boston made the best kind of NBA history, as the team picked up a 106-88 win to pick up the franchise’s 18th championship, breaking a record with their rival Los Angeles Lakers for the most in NBA history.
Boston looked like it was ready to be crowned champions from the jump, as the team raced out to a 9-2 lead at the very start of the game. Not long after that, Joe Mazzulla went to his bench and put in Kristaps Porzingis, who missed the last two games due to a foot injury and received a monstrous ovation from the crowd at TD Garden.
The problem was, this looked like a terrible idea for stretches. Porzingis gave the Celtics nothing on either end of the floor for most of his time out there, as he stood behind the three-point line and missed his only attempt from the field and repeatedly got targeted by the ruthless Mavs offense.
And then, something clicked. After Dallas got the lead down to one point, Boston caught fire to end the period, as it closed things by scoring nine consecutive points. The home crowd came unglued as the Celtics found themselves up 28-18 after the opening period.
The duo of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown spearheaded the Boston attack in the second quarter, with the team’s All-Star duo playing like they had absolutely no intention of returning to Dallas. The pair played absolutely beautiful basketball off of one another, which opened things up for everyone else on the roster.
Slowly but surely, the Boston lead grew, as the Celtics scored 39 points in the second and routinely shredded the vaunted Mavericks defense. And as the quarter came to an end, Boston landed a knockout blow by way of their halfcourt shot specialist, Payton Pritchard. After Luka Doncic missed a free throw, Al Horford grabbed the board and immediately got the ball to Pritchard, who pulled up from the Celtics’ end of the floor, drilled it, and nearly blew the roof off of the building.
As a result, Boston took an emphatic, 67-46 lead into the locker room, with Tatum’s 16 points and nine assists leading the way. Brown went for 15 points, while Jrue Holiday had 11 points and six boards. In addition to the offensive excellence Boston showed, the team shot down both Doncic and Kyrie Irving, who combined for 14 points on 6-for-18 shooting from the floor — Derrick Jones Jr. actually led the team with 10 first half points.
The lid looked like it was on the rim for the Celtics in the third quarter, as the team only scored 19 points in the frame and only made two of their 10 shots from behind the three-point line. But unlike past games where the team’s offense hitting a cold spell meant Boston’s defense slipped just a bit, the team continued to lock in on that end of the floor and put the clamps on Dallas.
This meant that, while the Mavs were able to go on a 13-4 run to trim a 26-point lead down to 17, Boston was able to compose itself, continue to lock in on the defensive end, and keep them from getting any closer. And as the quarter came to an end, the Celtics were up 86-67, and would only miss out on the 18th championship in franchise history if a disaster happened.
It’s hard to know exactly the moment that the crowd in Boston knew that the series was going to end on Monday night. Perhaps it was when they walked in, perhaps it was in the first quarter, perhaps it was after Pritchard made his halfcourt heave. But if there was any doubt into the fourth quarter, it presumably went away in one of two moments: When Derrick White blocked Dereck Lively II at the rim, or when Porzingis threw down a dunk to get the team’s lead back up to 21 points and force timeout by Jason Kidd.
The rest of the fourth quarter was a mere formality — at no point did it seem like Dallas was going to have enough of anything on either end of the floor to make this a game. Every basket Doncic or Irving made seemed like it was just an effort to pad stats on a night where they did nothing to pad their stats for three quarters, while Boston — knowing full well that they had one hand on the Larry O’Brien trophy — did not ever show signs of slipping up.
And with just over two minutes left, Mazzulla started to let his guys get curtain calls. Horford, the venerated center who had never won a ring before in his lengthy career, was the first to go to the bench. Brown and Tatum were next, and not long after, Holiday and White got their moments of celebration. The clocked kept ticking down to zero, and when the horn sounded, confetti started to cover the floor at TD Garden as the tears streamed down the faces of the Celtics players.
Tatum led all scorers on the night with 31 points, along with 11 assists, eight rebounds, and two steals. Brown had 21 points, right rebounds, six assists, and two steals, while Holiday had a double-double with 15 points and 11 boards. Doncic had 28 points, 12 rebounds, five assists, and three steals for the Mavs, while Irving had 15 points and Josh Green scored 14 off the bench.
Creed has gone through quite the renaissance in the last year or so. While the band was huge back in the late-90s and early-00s, it’s not unusual to hear one of their songs like “Higher” or “One Last Breath” get used as a sound on TikTok by someone who was 100 percent not alive when Creed was one of the biggest bands in the United States.
As part of the band’s renewed popularity, Creed is about to embark on a tour with a bunch of acts that were also popular back then: 3 Doors Down, Daughtry, Switchfoot, Tonic, Big Wreck, and Finger Eleven will all be involved at one point or another. And hopefully, this mariachi band that played “Higher” during Monday night’s game between the New York Mets and the Texas Rangers gets some love at one point on the tour, because this is legitimately a beautiful cover of the song.
The streaming feed of the Mets game just cut to a mariachi band playing “Higher” by Creed during the commercial.
That little musical section before the chorus is terrific — well, the whole thing is terrific, but that was my favorite part. And while it took a second for the Mets’ SNY broadcast to catch onto the performance, once they did, they loved it.
SNY finally caught onto the mariachi Creed thing and showed it on the main broadcast.
Keith Hernandez: “Mexican music is just beautiful.”
Imagine being able to reliably detect when someone is lying. You could catch your kids in a fib or quickly find out when a used car salesman is trying to pull one over on you. If people could be 100% perfect in determining the truth, it would make the legal system so much easier for everyone involved.
In an interview with Steven Bartlett on his “Dairy of a CEO” podcast, former Secret Service Special Agent Evy Poumpouras shared how she can tell when someone is being dishonest.
Poumpouras is the author of “Becoming Bulletproof: Protect Yourself, Read People, Influence Situations, Live Fearlessly.” She also served in the Presidential Protective Division, working for Barack Obama, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.
In this TikTok video with over 350,000 views, Poumpouras shares some signs someone is lying and how it’s possible to detect lies.
I asked Former U.S. Secret Service Special Agent Evy Poumpouras how to tell if someone is lying…
I asked Former U.S. Secret Service Special Agent Evy Poumpouras how to tell if someone is lying… #p#podcastp#podcastclipss#stevenbartlettd#diaryofaceos#specialagents#secretservices#securityevypoumpouras #lying #liar
What are signs someone is lying?
Poumpouras believes the key is to talk to someone for a while to get a “baseline” on their behavior. She used the podcast’s host, Steven Bartlett, as an example. “So if I sit and I speak to someone and the whole time they’re speaking, like when you talk, Steven, your hands are usually here. You go on the iPad, you do this. That’s your baseline, right? You do a lock, eye contact,” Poumpouras said.
Once she has established a baseline of behavior, she can tell when someone is being deceptive if it suddenly changes.
“This whole time I’m talking to Steven, he’s locked in with me. He’s got a certain posture. I asked him this question. He just showed me something different,” she said. “And then now I know to be curious… when you’re done asking or answering my question, I come in with good follow-up questions. Cause you’re showing me something is happening here.”
Once Poumpouras sees a dramatic shift in the subject’s body language, she begins to ask some follow-up questions. The key is to be measured and not too pushy during the interrogation. “You don’t want to be nosy, but you want to be curious,” she adds.
Poumpouras says you should always trust your gut when you think someone may be lying. “You can figure out who’s full of B.S. and who isn’t one,” she continued. “You feel it. I think your intuition is a huge thing and we dismiss it.”
On her website, Poumpouras adds another dead giveaway that someone isn’t being honest: if they take a longer time than usual to answer a question. She says that this is part of an F3 response, short for flight-fight-freeze. When some people are placed in situations where they are experiencing high anxiety or sense danger, their response is to freeze and become incommunicative.
“Long pauses or silence after being asked a direct question can be a huge indication of deception,” she wrote. “When the liar doesn’t see the question coming, their F3 kicks in, causing them to freeze as they frantically try to think of what to say or what lie to spin.”
The Boston Celtics looked to close out the Dallas Mavericks on Monday night in Game 5 of the NBA Finals, and got a bit of an emotional boost, if nothing else, in the form of Kristaps Porzingis’ return to the court for the first time since Game 2 when he suffered a rare leg injury.
Porzingis’ return certainly injected some life to the TD Garden crowd, but the Mavs were also quick to try and test him, attacking him on most every possession as a defender. They also looked to bring physicality to him on the other end, with PJ Washington getting a bit too physical and picking up an early second quarter foul away from the ball by tossing Porzingis to the court.
It was deemed simply a common foul on review, and while the ESPN crew watched the replays, Doris Burke couldn’t help herself from making a joke about how if that were Caitlin Clark, the foul would “spark debate for a week.”
Burke is, of course, making light of how much overreaction there has been to every time Clark takes a hard foul, and how those moments become leading topics on the various sports debate shows — including ESPN’s. Most recently, Clark took a hard hit from Angel Reese on a very normal basketball play, as Reese went for a block on a layup by Clark and missed the ball, catching the No. 1 pick in the head. It was made a Flagrant 1 and everyone moved on on the court, but it became national news on a level that’s honestly outrageous. Places like CNN and Deadline Hollywood were covering it like breaking news, and some on social media were claiming it was assault and doing exactly what Clark asked them to stop doing, which is using her as a prop to push racist and misogynist agendas.
That all stands in stark contrast to how quickly we move on from something like Porzingis getting tossed to the floor jostling for post position in the NBA, and Burke earned some laughs from her colleagues by pointing that out.
Tom Thibodeau is known as a coach who has his favorites. The truth is, every coach trusts guys they’ve had success with, but Thibs is particularly aggressive about bringing in vets he’s worked with in the past.
A big reason for that is, Thibs isn’t exactly everyone’s cup of tea when it comes to his coaching style. He is as demanding as it gets as an NBA coach, particularly with his expectations on defense, and it’s pretty tough for someone not wired just the right way to get dropped onto one of his teams and succeed. That’s why New York has been so deliberate with the kinds of guys they’ve gone out and acquired, with Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo as shining examples of players who quickly became “Thibs Guys.”
However, there is no one who embodies being a “Thibs Guy” more than Taj Gibson, who has played for Thibodeau in three different places — Chicago, Minnesota, and New York. He’s had brief stops in between each of those, but Thibs always comes calling when he needs some frontcourt depth. Gibson was out of the league for the first half of the 2023-24 season, but when Julius Randle got hurt in January, the Knicks found themselves with a need for a big man.
On a recent episode of the Club 520 Podcast with Jeff Teague, Gibson hilariously recounted seeing Randle get hurt, noting to himself there’s no way the Knicks call him, and then waking up at 3 AM to Thibs calling and asking “you in shape?” and “can you be ready tomorrow?”
Taj on Thibs signing him last year:
“I see the player get hurt. I’m like ‘I know this fool ain’t gonna call me.’ I go to sleep.
“I wake up it’s 3am: ‘Yo you in shape?…Can you be ready tomorrow?…’
The best part is Gibson explaining he was told they’d ease him in, but instead got thrown in the game immediately, which caused Teague to laugh and go “that’s Thibs!” As Teague notes, Taj is one of those guys that will always have a spot if they want it on a Thibodeau team — also admitting he is also one of Thibs’ favorites from his time in Minnesota. Gibson played 16 games for the Knicks before finishing his season with the Pistons, appearing in four games, and we’ll find out this summer if he ends up anywhere for training camp or if he’ll just have to make a decision during the 24-25 season when the inevitable Thibs call arrives.
While the Los Angeles Lakers are busy trying to figure out who will be their next basketball coach in the aftermath of Dan Hurley turning down their offer to return to UConn, LeBron James has decided to hop into the podcast game. Earlier this year, James started the “Mind the Game” podcast with ESPN analyst JJ Redick, and the show has received praise for its high-level approach to talking about ball.
Of course, Redick is one of the favorites to earn the Lakers head coaching position, which opened up after the team decided to fire Darvin Ham after two years at the helm. And apparently, the fact that James started a podcast with someone who is now in the running to replace Ham while he was on the hot seat during the season has rubbed some people in the coaching world the wrong way, according to Stephen A. Smith on Monday’s episode of First Take.
“Numerous coaches, Black coaches called me expressing how they took issue with that podcast taking place.” – Stephen A. Smith on the timing of LeBron James-JJ Redick podcast. pic.twitter.com/XrLHO44mYn
“Numerous coaches, Black coaches, called me expressing how they took issue with that podcast taking place,” Smith said about Mind The Game, and went as far as to say there were coaches who felt “very salty about that.”
Molly Qerim interjected and asked a specific question: Was the frustration over this pod because James did the podcast with “a white guy,” or was it because of what this did to Darvin Ham?
“Cause it hurt Darvin Ham, cause it hurt Darvin Ham,” Smith clarified. “So, any of us would do a podcast with LeBron James. Anybody who says otherwise, that they wouldn’t do a podcast with LeBron James, is lying through their damn teeth. I know I would, I know you would, I know anybody would. That would be an honor for us because he’s one of the greatest who have ever played, he’s a basketball savant.
“So, we’re not faulting JJ in any way for doing the podcast, or for the content on the podcast with LeBron James,” Smith continued. “But at some point in time, we do have to do this, Jay. As I said to [Brian Windhorst] last week, we have to remember the things that we’ve said about LeBron James as it pertains to his brilliance, as it pertains to controlling a narrative, as it pertains to being two, three, five steps ahead of others, in terms of what you’re plotting and what you’re planning and what have you. And then that’ll raise an antenna. We knew before the podcast ever started that Darvin Ham was on the hot seat, we knew this.”
Smith pointed out that James and Redick starting the podcast was celebrated on First Take, but started to link together the launch of the podcast with the pressure that came onto Ham, including from Lakers teammate Anthony Davis. Then, when you tie everything together, Smith believes launching the podcast didn’t look all that great.
“Couldn’t have started it during the playoffs?” Smith asked. “Couldn’t have started it after Darvin Ham lost a job? Did you have to start it in the middle of the damn season when he’s on the hot seat? Because why? That’s what some of the coaches were saying.”
Qerim then pushed back on this, saying it’s a bit absurd to suggest that James would go to these lengths to show he didn’t want Ham as his coach, before Smith quickly clarified that wasn’t what he was trying to imply.
“I’m not saying he orchestrated something to push Darvin Ham out the door to get JJ Redick the job, that’s not what I’m saying,” Smith said. “I’m not going there. What I’m saying is you are a person known for being mindful and cognizant of the optics. How could you possibly think that was going to look good?”
The art of quick change has captivated viewers since the 17th (or perhaps even 15th) century. Perhaps it’s one of the more enduring styles of illusion because it can adapt along with ever changing fashion trends. Or maybe the concept of taking mere seconds to do any mundane task will always baffle us. Either way, it’s an act audiences love time and time again.
The Portugal-born magician, who just so happens to hold the Guiness World Record for most costume changes in a single minute, stunned the crowd with a number that had 5 seamless outfit swaps, along with a color changing purse and money that appeared out of nowhere. Talk about living the dream.
Besides the quick changes, part of what makes the act so magical is Kardinaly’s charisma and stage presence. She’s clearly having so much fun strutting to Madonna’s “Material Girl” as her character goes on a shopping spree.
Watch:
After her performance, Kardinaly got nothing but praise from judges Heidi Klum, Sofia Vergara, Howie Mandel and Simon Cowell, who agreed she was “the best quick-change artist [they] had ever seen” and voted for her to move on to the competition’s next round.
Of course, the judges weren’t the only ones who were impressed. Check out some of these lovely comments from online viewers:
“She’s not doing quick change only,but she’s a magician as well.this is mind blowing
Great concept and great storytelling. Awesome job!”
“If this isn’t magic, I don’t know what is! Absolutely enchanted by your performance!”
“Even when slowed down to 25% speed you cannot see how she does it, incredible.”
“Not many people know how much work n how much detail goes into a quick change act like this , she truly a wonderful craft lady.”
“Even though I understand how this sort of trick is performed, I was still very impressed. She pulls it off flawlessly. Her transitions are lightning fast with no pulling or bunching. It is obvious that she has spent A LOT of time perfecting her technique.”
“Freaking awesome…She is really good and knows how to present her craft to the audience.”
Now, if you please excuse me while I take at least 45 minutes to get into ONE outfit today…
Whether you’re a basketball fan or not, there is no escaping the names Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark. The two powerhouse players catapulted into public consciousness when their friendly rivalry went viral in 2023. There’s no denying that each player is amazing at the sport. In fact, they were both drafted to the WNBA right after their last college season and almost immediately hit the court as professionals.
Their rivalry has brought more eyes on the WNBA breaking viewership and attendance records but some fans have noticed a discrepancy in how Clark is treated versus Reese. Mr. Ernest Crim III, a former classroom teacher took to social media to highlight what he believes is racial bias, and he brings some receipts to back up his claims.
Clark is a white player who transitioned from the University of Iowa to the WNBA’s Indiana team and Reese is a Black player with the Chicago Sky whose Louisiana State University team won the 2023 championship.
The two have explained that they respect each other’s game and have no ill intentions toward each other, but this doesn’t seem to stop the inflammatory headlines or comments. Crim brings up how fouling is applied differently for similar instances depending on if the person being fouled is Reese or Clark. The former teacher tied in statistics on how what he sees as implicit bias leads to harsher punishments for Black girls and women.
Implicit bias isn’t something that people do on purpose. In fact, most people don’t even realize they may be acting with any sort of bias because it’s not intentional.
“This reminds me of how Black girls are disproportionately treated at school and as a former classroom teacher, I just gotta keep speaking on it. Because Caitlin Clark was intentionally bumped and it was upgraded to a flagrant 1 but when Angel Reese was intentionally bumped it was just a regular foul,” Crim says.
Reese came to the defense of her teammate who received a flagrant foul for bumping Clark, encouraging reporters to review the clip, “go check the clip, it’s the same.”
Crim presents multiple examples in the video below:
The man wasn’t the only one thinking there was something off with the treatment of the two basketball stars, commenters shared their thoughts as well.
“THIS. Thank you for your support. Appreciate you,” one person says.
“Angel Reese is also one of the main reasons the WNBA is getting a larger support base. Not just Caitlin Clark like so many are saying. I will say I am disappointed in the WNBA alumni in their treatment of Reese and Clark,” someone says.
“Not to mention the fact that she waved her hand at the ref which is whatever and Caitlin has done it several times and not been thrown out although she was assessed technical fouls. I love them both but the BS narrative continues but she will continue to fight against it and the difference now is she has a lot of support whereas in past years or decades she might have been run out of the league,” another commenter explains.
In 1933, Adolf Hitler handed the power of Jewish cultural life in Nazi Germany to his chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels established a team of of regulators that would oversee the works of Jewish artists in film, theater, music, fine arts, literature, broadcasting, and the press.
Goebbels’ new regulations essentially eliminated Jewish people from participating in mainstream German cultural activities by requiring them to have a license to do so.
This attempt by the Nazis to purge Germany of any culture that wasn’t Aryan in origin led to the questioning of artists from outside the country.
In 1938, English author J. R. R. Tolkien and his British publisher, Stanley Unwin, opened talks with Rütten & Loening, a Berlin-based publishing house, about a German translation of his recently-published hit novel, “The Hobbit.”
Privately, according to “1937 The Hobbit or There and Back Again,” Tolkien told Unwin he hated Nazi “race-doctrine” as “wholly pernicious and unscientific.” He added he had many Jewish friends and was considering abandoning the idea of a German translation altogether.
The Berlin-based publishing house sent Tolkien a letter asking for proof of his Aryan descent. Tolkien was incensed by the request and gave his publisher two responses, one in which he sidestepped the question, another in which he clapped back ’30s-style with pure class.
His publisher sent the classy clap-back.
In the letter sent to Rütten & Loening, Tolkien notes that Aryans are of Indo-Iranian “extraction,” correcting the incorrect Nazi aumption that Aryans come from northern Europe. He cuts to the chase by saying that he is not Jewish but holds them in high regard. “I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people,” Tolkien wrote.
Tolkien also takes a shot at the race policies of Nazi Germany by saying he’s beginning to regret his German surname. “The time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride,” he writes.
Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.
My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.
Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung. I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and remain yours faithfully,
J. R. R. Tolkien
This article originally appeared on 2.15.22
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
Game 5 on ABC 
