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The 2024 NBA Playoffs will officially get underway on Saturday, although postseason basketball has already begun with the Play-In Tournament that started on Tuesday night.

Those games saw the Lakers take hold of the West’s 7-seed to set up a rematch of last year’s Western Conference Finals with the 2-seeded Nuggets, while the Kings avenged a first round loss a year ago by sending the Warriors into their offseason in the 9/10 game. Sacramento will now go to New Orleans to play for the 8-seed and the right to face the Thunder in the first round, while the East’s Play-In action will get underway on Wednesday night.

The NBA waited for the West’s seeding to get sorted out before releasing the full schedule for the first round, but teams and networks needed to get travel plans together so late Tuesday night they released the complete schedule for the first week of games, along with the dates for all 7 potential games in a series — with the understanding anything beyond a Game 4 are only if necessary.

1. Oklahoma City Thunder vs. 8. Pelicans/Kings

Game 1 (Sunday, 4/21): Pelicans/Kings at Thunder (9:30 p.m. ET, TNT)
Game 2 (Wednesday, 4/24): Pelicans/Kings at Thunder (9:30 p.m. ET, TNT)
Game 3 (Saturday, 4/27): Thunder at Pelicans/Kings (3:30 p.m. ET, TNT)
Game 4 (Monday, 4/29): Thunder at Pelicans/Kings (TBD, TBD)
Game 5 (Wednesday, 5/1): Pelicans/Kings at Thunder (TBD, TBD)*
Game 6 (Friday, 5/3): Thunder at Pelicans/Kings (TBD, TBD)*
Game 7 (Sunday, 5/5): Pelicans/Kings at Thunder (TBD, TBD)*

2. Denver Nuggets vs. 7. Los Angeles Lakers

Game 1 (Saturday, 4/20): Lakers at Nuggets (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC)
Game 2 (Monday, 4/22): Lakers at Nuggets (10:00 p.m. ET, TNT)
Game 3 (Thursday, 4/25): Nuggets at Lakers (10:00 p.m. ET, TNT)
Game 4 (Saturday (4/27): Nuggets at Lakers (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC)
Game 5 (Monday, 4/29): Lakers at Nuggets (TBD, TBD)*
Game 6 (Thursday, 5/2): Nuggets at Lakers (TBD, TBD)*
Game 7 (Saturday, 5/4): Lakers at Nuggets (TBD, TNT)*

3. Minnesota Timberwolves vs. 6. Phoenix Suns

Game 1 (Saturday, 4/20): Suns at Wolves (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN)
Game 2 (Tuesday, 4/23): Suns at Wolves (7:30 p.m. ET, TNT)
Game 3 (Friday, 4/26): Wolves at Suns (10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN)
Game 4 (Sunday, 4/28): Wolves at Suns (9:30 p.m. ET, TNT)
Game 5 (Tuesday, 4/30): Suns at Wolves (TBD, TBD)*
Game 6 (Thursday, 5/2): Wolves at Suns (TBD, TBD)*
Game 7 (Saturday, 5/4): Suns at Wolves (TBD, TNT)*

4. Los Angeles Clippers vs. 5. Dallas Mavericks

Game 1 (Sunday, 4/21): Mavs at Clippers (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC)
Game 2 (Tuesday, 4/23): Mavs at Clippers (10:00 p.m. ET, TNT)
Game 3 (Friday, 4/26): Clippers at Mavs (8:00 p.m. ET, ESPN)
Game 4 (Sunday, 4/28): Clippers at Mavs (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC)
Game 5 (Wednesday 5/1): Mavs at Clippers (TBD, TBD)*
Game 6 (Friday, 5/3): Clippers at Mavs (TBD, TBD)*
Game 7 (Sunday, 5/5): Mavs at Clippers (TBD, TBD)*

1. Boston Celtics vs. 8. Hawks/Bulls/Heat/Sixers

Game 1 (Sunday, 4/21): 8-Seed at Celtics (1:00 p.m. ET, ABC)
Game 2 (Wednesday, 4/24): 8-Seed at Celtics (7:00 p.m. ET, TNT)
Game 3 (Saturday, 4/27): Celtics at 8-Seed (t:00 p.m. ET, TNT)
Game 4 (Monday, 4/29): Celtics at 8-Seed (TBD, TBD)
Game 5 (Wednesday, 5/1): 8-Seed at Celtics (TBD, TBD)*
Game 6 (Friday, 5/3): Celtics at 8-Seed (TBD, TBD)*
Game 7 (Sunday, 5/5): 8-Seed at Celtics (TBD, TBD)*

2. New York Knicks vs. 7. Heat/Sixers

Game 1 (Saturday, 4/20): Heat/Sixers at Knicks (6:00 p.m. ET, ESPN)
Game 2 (Monday, 4/22): Heat/Sixers at Knicks (7:30 p.m. ET, TNT)
Game 3 (Thursday, 4/25): Knicks at Heat/Sixers (7:30 p.m. ET, TNT)
Game 4 (Sunday, 4/28): Knicks at Heat/Sixers (1:00 p.m. ET, ABC)
Game 5 (Tuesday, 4/30): Heat/Sixers at Knicks (TBD, TBD)*
Game 6 (Thursday, 5/2): Knicks at Heat/Sixers (TBD, TBD)*
Game 7 (Saturday, 5/4): Heat/Sixers at Knicks (TBD, TNT)*

3. Milwaukee Bucks vs. 6. Indiana Pacers

Game 1 (Sunday, 4/21): Pacers at Bucks (7:00 p.m. ET, TNT)
Game 2 (Tuesday, 4/23): Pacers at Bucks (8:30 p.m. ET, NBATV)
Game 3 (Friday, 4/26): Bucks at Pacers (5:30 p.m. ET, ESPN)
Game 4 (Sunday, 4/28): Bucks at Pacers (7:00 p.m. ET, TNT)
Game 5 (Tuesday, 4/30): Pacers at Bucks (TBD, TBD)*
Game 6 (Thursday, 5/2): Bucks at Pacers (TBD, TBD)*
Game 7 (Saturday, 5/4): Pacers at Bucks (TBD, TNT)*

4. Cleveland Cavaliers vs. 5. Orlando Magic

Game 1 (Saturday, 4/20): Magic at Cavs (1:00 p.m. ET, ESPN)
Game 2 (Monday, 4/22): Magic at Cavs (7:00 p.m. ET, NBATV)
Game 3 (Thursday, 4/25): Cavs at Magic (7:00 p.m. ET, NBATV)
Game 4 (Saturday, 4/27): Cavs at Magic (1:00 p.m. ET, TNT)
Game 5 (Tuesday, 4/30): Magic at Cavs (TBD, TBD)*
Game 6 (Friday, 5/3): Cavs at Magic (TBD, TBD)*
Game 7 (Sunday, 5/5): Magic at Cavs (TBD, TBD)*

Avant-pop singer Charli XCX, just two months from the release of her sixth album, Brat, and Australian singer-songwriter Troye Sivan, who just teamed up with Ariana Grande, are teaming up this autumn for the co-headlining Sweat Tour. Supported by English DJ Shygirl, the tour promises in a press release to turn “iconic US and Canadian venues into raves.” Here’s how you can buy tickets:

Beginning on Friday, April 26 at 10 AM local time, you can hit LiveNation.com for the general sale, but you can sign up for the advance presale now through April 25 at sweat-tour.com. The limited-quantity artist presale begins Thursday, April 25 at 10 AM local time. You can see the list of tour dates below.

09/14, 2024 – Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
09/16, 2024 – Laval, QC @ Place Bell
09/18, 2024 – Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
09/20, 2024 – Columbus, OH @ Nationwide Arena
09/23, 2024 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
09/25, 2024 – Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
09/26, 2024 – Baltimore, MD @ CFG Bank Arena
09/28, 2024 – Boston, MA @ TD Garden
09/30, 2024 – Chicago, IL @ United Center
10/02, 2024 – Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
10/03, 2024 – Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
10/05, 2024 – Miami, FL @ Kaseya Center
10/06, 2024 – Orlando, FL @ Kia Center
10/09, 2024 – Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
10/11, 2024 – Denver, CO @ Ball Arena
10/13, 2024 – Phoenix, AZ @ Footprint Center
10/15, 2024 – Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum
10/18, 2024 – San Diego, CA @ Viejas Arena
10/20, 2024 – San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center
10/22, 2024 – Portland, OR @ Moda Center
10/23, 2024 – Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Not everyone can grow facial hair. This is a known fact backed by science and genetics! That doesn’t mean that they can’t try. But some people are blessed with the ability to be a real-life chia pet, like Jack Black or Keanu Reeves (just one of his many talents). Henry Cavill has been known to play some clean-shaved men in the past, but his latest role shows off his impressive mustache, which is real.

Cavill stars in Guy Ritchie’s latest flick The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and while most critics are praising the plot and all that nonsense, the real story here is Cavill’s powerful beard, which he grew himself. “I did indeed grow that myself,” Cavill told People of his facial hair. he has come a long way from the infamous Mustache Debacle of Justice League.

“I didn’t have someone else grow it and then just take it on,” Cavill continued, because that would just be too easy. “I wanted to have an interesting bit of facial hair for this, just to switch things up. And a twirly-whirly mustache became an option and I thought, ‘I’m just going to keep on leaning into this.’” He could consider auditioning for the role of Milburn Pennybags for Margot Robbie’s upcoming Monopoly pic.

In The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare , Cavill portrays a fictional version of Major Gus March-Phillips, founder of the British Army’s Special Forces. He stars alongside Eiza González, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettifer, Tig Schweiger, and Henry Golding in the flick, which hits theaters this week.

Of the hair, Cavill grew quite fond of its unruliness, saying it “became quite a fun look, and it sort of helped inform my character a bit as well, because having facial hair like that sort of implies a certain personality.”

Besides his hair, Cavill is mostly proud of his Nazi-killing tactics in the film, which is followed by some aggressive tongue movements. “It was a co-improvisation between Guy and myself,” Cavill told Variety. “Guy said, ‘I want you to have more fun with it. Stick your tongue out or something.’ And so we did and it stuck, as featured quite well in the trailer. That was the first moment where we decided Gus was going to be slightly unhinged in these moments, and that makes it more fun.” Just like a twisty mustache.

(Via People)

If you will allow me to sound like a 10,000-year-old man for a minute: I recall a time when the internet felt bigger. Remember that? It was like the Wild West, only cleaner and more murderous.

Back then, I had a routine and I would wager you had the same routine if you were a music fan. It goes like this: You wake up, you log on, and you start circulating through a mental checklist of websites and blogs. Might be 10, might be 15, might be 50. But you punch in the URL for each one. Then, you peruse every front page like it’s a magazine, dipping in on this link and lingering at this other link. Most of the stuff you read is about things you have never heard of. You discover a lot of music you don’t care about, a decent amount of music you actively dislike, and — if you’re lucky — a song or two that you enjoy and maybe even kind of love. But if you don’t find that song or two, the routine is still nice, like taking a leisurely walk through a vast digital space. Only you don’t realize how nice it is, because it’s routine. But it won’t be for long.

That digital space isn’t so vast anymore. I mean, it is big, but most of us are now housed behind the thick walls of social-media apps and streaming platforms. We don’t go out much anymore. We stay in one place and have our content delivered like UberEats. For a music fan, there is still so much to discover and enjoy. And a lot of it comes from artists who don’t receive nearly the attention they deserve. But the meals keep coming in five-minute intervals. You try to gorge as the endless scroll shotguns sustenance in your general direction, but you can only take so much. What was once fun now seems like work.

If you relate at all to the previous three paragraphs — and if you are also interested in left-field, word-of-mouth indie-rock hits — there’s a good chance you have fallen under the spell of Diamond Jubilee, a 32-song retro-pop masterwork by a songwriter, guitarist and drag performer based in North Carolina named Patrick Flegel, who currently records and performs under the moniker Cindy Lee. On March 29, Flegel released Diamond Jubilee on YouTube and via a “Wild West internet era”-looking GeoCities site, where they solicited a voluntary $30 fee — in Canadian dollars, as Flegel originally hails from Calgary — for the expansive double album. There were no advance singles, no press photos, and no PR campaign of any kind. It was not available to stream on Spotify or Apple Music, and it was not put up for purchase on Bandcamp. Diamond Jubilee was, for all intents and purposes, off the grid for how music is typically heard and discovered in 2024.

And yet, in just a few short weeks, Diamond Jubilee became one of the most critically acclaimed and — among a small-ish but quickly growing cult following — intensely adored indie albums of recent years. I heard about it in early April, after my podcast partner Ian Cohen recommended it on our show. Over the following weekend, I quickly became obsessed. Here was an immersive LP that tried to encapsulate a pocket history of modern popular music — ’60s Motown, ’70s bubblegum pop, ’80s C86 jangle, ’90s lo-fi indie — in a way that felt warmly familiar and fascinatingly alien. It was like a record you knew you already loved but couldn’t remember ever hearing before. The lyrics were lovelorn and miserably romantic, endlessly dwelling on doomed affairs in the manner of all classic pop tunes. And the music evoked the underground rock of the 1980s (particularly the “Velvet Underground meets Phil Spector” girl-group goth-isms of The Jesus And Mary Chain), the ’90s (think Broadcast meets Belle And Sebastian) and the aughts era acts that were similarly drawn to collisions of pure throwback pop and droning noise (The Concretes, Camera Obscura, Saturday Looks Good To Me). The pileup of references and allusions were irresistible for a critic inclined to dissect pop songs, but Diamond Jubilee ultimately exists outside of time or carefully curated genres. That’s what so cool about it. It’s like listening to the best of the past harmonize with an exciting future, right here in our boring present.

And then there was the matter of how Diamond Jubilee was released. If the album itself invites you into a world that feels singular and also weirdly reassuring, the flaunting of modern music platforms made the online world feel a little bigger again. If you wanted to hear Diamond Jubilee, you had to take at least a small step outside the internet’s usual fortified walls. As Aquarium Drunkard — a stalwart holdover from the Wild West days — put it, “Diamond Jubilee feels like a throwback to a different, weirder, cooler, better era in independent music.”

By the time that Pitchfork awarded Diamond Jubilee its highest score in four years last week, something had … happened. One couldn’t help but note the improbability of this album’s rapid ascent in the midst of rollouts for two of the year’s most massive pop juggernauts, one of which has already dominated popular discourse (Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter) and one that will surely be escapable once it drops on Friday (Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department). To be clear: Cindy Lee has not and will not garner even a tiny fraction of the dialogue afforded those blockbusters. But it still feels like a glitch in the matrix, the kind of record that is not supposed to be here but is definitely here nevertheless. The sort of upstart success that was presumed to be impossible without TikTok or some other social-media chicanery. Diamond Jubilee might be a great album, but it’s an even better story.

As readers of Pitchfork scrambled to YouTube or tried in vain to figure what GeoCities is, some grumbled that the release strategy was a gimmick. As if putting WAV files on a site so janky that X (formerly Twitter) wouldn’t let me post a link is some can’t-miss publicity scheme. The criticism also overlooks Flegel’s long career — hardly a flash-in-the-pan, they have put out seven albums as Cindy Lee following a stint as a member of the influential and combustible ’00s indie band Women. In the Cindy Lee guise, Flegel performs in a sequin dress, fur coat, boots, and blue wig, singing in a ghostly falsetto and playing beautiful guitar lines over pre-recorded backing tracks. Judging by YouTube clips — Flegel is currently in the midst of a “farewell” tour that has suddenly become a hot ticket — the vibe of the live show approximates Dean Stockwell’s theatrical pantomime of Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” from Blue Velvet. It is spooky and lovely, melancholy and tough, and always unpredictable.

The paradox of writing about Diamond Jubilee is that it threatens to undermine the album’s charm. Flegel has already expressed misgivings about engaging their fans in the music press. No matter the protestations of hype-averse skeptics, Flegel did not actively court indie fame before the album’s release. “If you want to sell units sometimes you have to do stuff,” Flegel told Gimme Zine in 2020, when they were just starting to conceive Diamond Jubilee. “I got a publicist for the last record, but you watch the press and publicist (who’s a friend of mine) people stumbling around queer… branding you… the whole thing makes me squirm.”

In another interview, Flegel gives some clues to Diamond Jubilee‘s backstory when they talk about listening to AM oldies radio as a child in the ’90s along with contemporary hits by everyone from Soundgarden to C+C Music Factory. These catholic tastes are evidenced by the oft-surprising combination of music styles on Diamond Jubilee — the Philly soul strings stabbing through the springy GBV-esque guitars on “Olive Drab,” the bassline lifted from Tommy James’ “Draggin’ The Line” that melds with the clanging Joy Division sonics of “Flesh And Blood,” the guitar lick that somehow nods to both Can and Coldplay’s “Strawberry Swing” in “Kingdom Come,” the unlikely summit of The Supremes and The Brain Jonestown Massacre that is “If You Hear Me Crying.”

After surveying Cindy Lee’s previous work, the relative accessibility of these songs is immediately apparent. Flegel typically slathers their melodies with paint-peeling squalls of white noise; on this record, the songs beam and crackle brightly like transmissions from a magical transistor radio. This soothing aspect to Diamond Jubilee apparently was intentional. “The kind of music I have been listening to more, over the last four or five years, has been basically easy listening, light music,” Flegel told Gimme Zine. “What I have in my head is a pleasant-sounding record that’s comforting and isn’t just some kind of hell ride.”

Diamond Jubilee is composed of material stockpiled during the pandemic-era lockdown, though the final result sounds like a carefully plotted concept record documenting the career of a late, great (and imaginary) pop group. I burned the songs onto two CD-Rs, and listening to Diamond Jubilee this way enhances the feeling of listening to a greatest hits collection of made-up “greatest hits.” The first disc is very good but somewhat less refined, with nods to the dulcet third VU record (“Wild One”), grindhouse Eurotrash horror soundtracks (“Le Machiniste Fantome”), and The Pod era Ween (“Demon Bitch”). The second disc, meanwhile, is a near-masterpiece, affecting a more consistent psych-soul sound that moves from sinister (“Stone Faces”) to delirious (“Dracula”) to heartbroken (“If You Hear Me Crying”) to haunted (“Durham City Limit”).

I wonder what Flegel thinks now that Diamond Jubilee has reached listeners outside the usual ranks of Cindy Lee fans. I hope they are proud of making an album that’s already touched a lot of people, as well as the achievement of denting our stultifying music and media system in a small but significant way. It’s good to be reminded of that vast world beyond the walls we willfully imprison ourselves inside of. Out there, there are many diamonds in the rough, just waiting to be discovered.

Not everyone is convinced by Sydney Sweeney‘s rise to the A list.

Producer Carol Baum, whose work includes Kicking and Screaming, Father of the Bride, and the pre-TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, claimed that the actress is “isn’t pretty” and “can’t act.” She made the comments during a discussion with New York Times film critic Janet Maslin at a screening of David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers last week, according to the Daily Mail.

“I don’t get Sydney Sweeney. I was watching on the plane Sydney Sweeney’s movie because I wanted to watch it,” Baum said about Anyone But You, Sweeney’s romantic comedy with Glen Powell. “I wanted to know who she is and why everybody’s talking about her. I watched this unwatchable movie — sorry to people who love this movie — [this] romantic comedy where they hate each other.” She continued:

Referencing the producing class she teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Baum added: “I said to my class, ‘Explain this girl to me. She’s not pretty, she can’t act. Why is she so hot?’ Nobody had an answer but then the question was asked, ‘Well if you could get your movie made because she was in it, would you do it?’ I said, “Well that’s a really good question… that’s a very hard question to answer because we all want to get the movie made and who walks away from a green light? Nobody I know. Your job is to get the movie made.”

Sweeney has been outspoken about people not taking her seriously as an actor because they’re too focused on… you know. “The White Lotus has been a completely different kind of turning point,” she told Cosmopolitan in 2022. “I don’t think as many people took me seriously in Euphoria because I took my shirt off. With The White Lotus, all of a sudden, all these people came out of the woodwork like, ‘You’re the most amazing…’ and I’m like, ‘But I went through the craziest emotional roller coaster in Euphoria.’ So, thanks?”

Sweeney’s fans came to her defense on social media:

“Why are people so mean to Sydney Sweeney? Just stop it.” — @FilmMomatic

“me if i were blind” — @ZoeRoseBryant

“Never seen her act but if you put this woman in front of a cartoon dog or cat from the 50s their eyes would pop fully out of their sockets” — @yellowpackjim

“I legit through this was satire for a sec. She then goes to say she would produce a film with her in it, if it makes money. So why say this out loud?” — @emmie_rylan

“This is like when I say NBA players aren’t athletic and can’t ball” — @purple_n_orange

“I’m, she’s legit one of the most beautiful women in the world by most standards. I also think she is a very solid actor, and seems like a decent person who works hard for her success. And regardless, this is just a shitty thing to say about someone.” — @TheMikeSnyder

“Is this the new ‘Margot Robbie is mid’? Idk, how about we just let women live?” — @_Britt_Martinez

“I think maybe people should just stop being so mean to this young woman” — @TheMovieMermaid

You can watch Sweeney give a very good performance in Immaculate, now out on digital.

(Via the Daily Mail)

Chris Hemsworth might be one of the biggest rising stars in Hollywood, but he still can’t snatch roles away from Kevin Costner.

While attending this year’s CinemaCon, Hemsworth revealed that he tried to enter the Western genre after falling in love with a script, but he was rebuffed by the Yellowstone star, who was already attached to the part. Costner had no intentions of giving up the role despite Hemsworth’s best efforts.

Via Entertainment Tonight:

“There was a movie, a script that I’d read and loved and was like, ‘I want to get that,’ and then someone said, ‘Kevin Costner has that [role],’” Hemsworth told ET‘s Kevin Frazier. “I’d love [to have] him as a director. I was like, ‘Goddamnit!’ [I spent] an hour the other day trying to convince him and he was like, ‘I’m doing it, kid.’ Didn’t work. I didn’t get the part.”

As for why Costner didn’t hand over the role, he gave a hilariously blunt response to ET about telling the Thor star to “wait his turn.”

“As long as I’m still young enough to play it, I’ll play it,” Costner quipped before taking a moment to speak highly of Hemsworth.

“He’s so handsome and he’s so good,” Costner said. “He’s going to have to go find his [own] love story. [But] I’m glad he likes this one. If I reach a moment where I [don’t] think I could do that, I would [reach out]. He’s certainly one of our great leading men right now.”

Neither Costner nor Hemsworth revealed the film, but a quick look at Costner’s IMDb page says he has an untitled project with Ariel Vromen on his acting slate. Costner is also listed as the writer of the film, which could explain his reluctance to part with the role if it’s the project that Hemsworth was talking about.

(Via Entertainment Tonight)

It seems like Drake and Rick Ross aren’t burying the hatchet anytime soon. Yesterday (April 16), Drake shared a few Instagram Stories featuring supposed exchanges between him and Ross.

He captioned one of the Stories, saying, “Look how I talk to this turkey. You shoulda just asked for another feature.”

In a DM to Ross featured in the Story, Drake accuses Ross of exaggerating his luxurious lifestyle.

“Your star island house on a sliver of cheesecake,” Drake said to Ross. “your lot 40000 square feet my crib 40000 square feet Leonard.”

“And you put a wrap on your timeshare jet. That sh*t coming off when it’s the other people turn to fly,” Drake said, alluding to Ross’ customized Gulfstream G550.

One of Ross’ earliest hits was 2006’s “Hustlin’,” which introduced his entrepreneurial spirit with the catchy “everyday I’m hustlin’” chorus. However, Drake suggested that Ross is no longer a self-starter, claiming he’s a “worker” for Brett Berrish, founder of Luc Belaire champagne, which Ross is often seen drinking.

“You Brett Berrish [sic] worker. How many cases you gotta move before you got a cheque finally,” Drake said. “You’re Brett son now you not Rozay anymore.”

The exchange comes after back-and-forth disses, including Drake’s “Push Ups” and Ross’ response, “Champagne Moments.”

You can see the exchange above.

The Golden State Warriors will not participate in the playoffs this year. Despite going 46-36 during the regular season, Golden State needed to survive the Play-In Tournament as the 10-seed in order to earn a postseason berth, and on Tuesday night, they were unable to get past the Sacramento Kings. As such, they’re heading into an offseason that could end up shaking the foundation upon which their dynasty has been built.

While Steph Curry and Draymond Green are both under contract for the foreseeable future, Klay Thompson is slated to hit unrestricted free agency this summer, as the two sides have not been able to work out an extension. It’s led to questions about whether he could actually leave, and unfortunately for Thompson, his final opportunity to play this year went as bad as it possibly could — he had zero points in 32 minutes against the Kings and went 0-for-10 from the field.

After the game, Curry was asked to comment on what the future could hold for Thompson, and made clear that he can’t see a future where the team’s longtime trio don’t play with one another.

“I could never see myself not with those two guys,” Curry said. “I understand this league changes and there’s so many things that go into it and we’re not gonna play forever, but we’ve experienced so much together, and at the end of the day, again, I know they want to win, I know I want to win, and that’s all I’m worried about.”

The good news for the 34-year-old wing is that he was still a productive player this year. While Thompson had his ups and downs during the 2023-24 campaign, he still averaged 17.9 points in 29.7 minutes per game while shooting 38.7 percent from three.

Rick Ross recently added to the Drake drama after he claimed the Toronto rapper had a nose job on his Instagram story. Ross posted a side-by-side photo of Drake, complete with the caption: “The bridge of your nose somehow got smaller BBL Drizzy @champagnepapi.” He would also go on to include it as a diss on his “Champagne Moments” song.

Did Drake Actually Get A Nose Job Like Rick Ross Claims?

Drake then responded by sharing a text conversation he had with his mom about the rumors. “I would have got us a 2-for-1 deal if I went ma,” he answered her when she asked if he actually had one done.

Since then, the two keep going back and forth about whether Drake had the procedure. Most recently, the Daily Mail featured some real-life plastic surgeons to get their outside opinions on whether they thought Drake had work done.

Dr. Elie Levine, a surgeon from NYC, shared, “It’s not like he has gone from looking like one person to a totally different person, but there is definitely more definition in the later photos. Light can always affect these things and can make a difference. But, if you really scrutinize it — there is a high likelihood that he did some nasal contouring.”

“There is a high likelihood he had a rhinoplasty because his tip looks smaller and his nasal bridge is narrower,” another surgeon, Dr. Raja Mohan from Texas, told the outlet.

However, this isn’t fully concrete evidence — and the debate about Drake’s nose job will likely continue for a while.

Guy Ritchie’s latest film, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, comes out this week, and critics are already raving about Henry Cavill and Alan Ritchson leading this swaggering World War II adventure.

Described as a back-door James Bond audition by way of Inglourious Basterds, the Ritchie film appears to be at his best when he’s letting his leads cut loose and banter with their comrades before, during, and after their Nazi-killing missions. While Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is still bested by Tarantino’s crackling World War II film, it’s not for lack of trying.

You can see what the critics are saying below:

Peter Debruge, Variety:

While hardly shy on attitude, Ministry finds the stylistically aggressive director in a tamer, slightly more traditional mode, featuring relatively conservative repartee (including loads of clunky exposition) and fairly straightforward set-pieces. As a whole, the movie hews to the standard men-on-a-mission formula, joining classics such as The Guns of Navarone and The Dirty Dozen in assembling a pack of highly skilled — if slightly disreputable — pros to attempt the impossible.

Kristy Puchko, Mashable:

Make no mistake. Cavill is a blast here. Freed from the demanded stiffness of heroes like the DCEU’s Superman and The Witcher‘s Geralt, he clearly relishes the devil-may-care attitude of the ungentlemanly spy, exuding a mischievous allure. Ritchson, who’ve played his fair share of steely toughs in Fast X and Reacher, likewise lets loose, boasting an effervescence that’s unexpected considering his mountainous frame. Indeed, he’s even burlier than the former superhero star. The sheer beefiness of the pair make the well-fit Golding and Tiffin seem like Victorian wastrels by comparison. All together, they have a kinetic energy that’s intoxicating, and fuels scenes of strategizing, spying, and onslaught alike.

David Ehrlich, IndieWire:

Aside from the fact that some of its characters are historical figures, and that World War II is a thing that actually happened, Ritchie’s film plays so fast and loose with the facts that it makes Inglourious Basterds feel like a Ken Burns documentary by comparison. It may not outdo Tarantino’s masterpiece in any other department, but that certainly isn’t for lack of trying. From the opening notes of Christopher Benstead’s jangly, Jacques Loussier-inspired score, it’s clear that Ritchie is gunning for that same kind of grindhouse-adjacent pastiche, and The Ministry is at its best when it embraces the cigar-chomping ultra-violence that “Basterds” elevated into high art.

Pete Hammond, Deadline:

This is miles above junk like The Expendables, which Lionsgate beat to death. For true inspiration, if you are a fan of this kind of 1960s-style WWII movie it is impossible not to think of Robert Aldrich’s seminal 1967 The Dirty Dozen, in which Lee Marvin led a similar unkempt team. There aren’t a dozen this time by my count, and this flick is a lot talkier, but the spirit is there no doubt.

Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com:

Unlike Alex Garland’s Civil War, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is commendably upfront about its politics. That is, it’s extremely anti-Nazi. No prevarication here. Germans exist in this film pretty much only to be shot (with bullets and arrows) or stabbed (multiple times and in the most sensitive-to-stabbing corporeal locations) to death. Sometimes before they die, they deliver smug Nazi speeches, which gives their subsequent horrible painful deaths an added thrill.

William Bibbiani, The Wrap:

It’s a larger than life World War II thriller in the Guy Ritchie house style, and he strikes a fine, fun balance between the threat that the Nazis posed and the thrill of watching hunky heroes slaughter them at great length, then chuckle and smoke cigarettes and call each other “old boy” about 50 million times. Cavill, rocking a beautifully curly mustache, is clearly enjoying himself. “Reacher” star Alan Ritchson seems born to murder bad guys (on camera). The whole cast is having a wonderful time. It’s a hangout movie about taking down white supremacists, en masse and with violent glee. It’s hard not to get swept up in this film’s simple pleasures.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare storms into theaters on April 19.