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The return of Joel Embiid to the Sixers lineup reinvigorated the team in Game 3 as they swiped their first win of the series against the Heat on Friday night with a dominant defensive performance, but Game 4 saw maybe an even more important development in Philadelphia, as James Harden came to life for a full game for really the first time this postseason.

In the first quarter, it was the Joel Embiid show for Philly, as he scored 15 in the opening period in what was clearly a concerted effort to get the big man going after a relatively quiet series debut offensively in Game 3.

Bam Adebayo had the answer on the other end, though, as Miami hung tough for most of the first half thanks to strong play inside from he and Jimmy Butler.

However, the Sixers would pull ahead to an 8-point lead at the break, thanks to another strong second quarter from James Harden, as that has been his best quarter in each game so far this series. The issue for Harden has been sustaining that effort, as the second halves have been disasters through three games of this series for him, but he finally put together a complete game in Game 4 with 31 points on 18 shots, including a 6-of-10 night from three-point range, stepping up in a huge way for the Sixers.

While Harden had 31, he was not the high point man of the evening, as that title belonged to Jimmy Butler who kept the Heat in the game in the second half through sheer force of will, scoring 40 on the night, despite his teammates being unable to knock down a three-point shot to save their lives.

Butler’s effort kept the Heat within four at the break — which apparently wasn’t exciting enough to keep everyone seated courtside awake — but in the fourth quarter James Harden came alive to stretch the lead back out to double figures with haste.

Miami wouldn’t go away, though, as Butler and Adebayo continued to keep them within striking distance, but the shots simply would not fall for the Heat, who finished the game 7-of-35 from three-point range, to allow them to reel in the Sixers. On the other side, Harden stayed hot late, putting the daggers in the Heat every time they made a push to get the game within a couple of possessions, scoring 16 in the final quarter of play.

It was the exact type of performance the Sixers have been waiting for from Harden, as he was able to finally find some success going downhill despite still clearly not having the burst of old off his first step, but more importantly the perimeter shot started falling, which he’s struggled to consistently hit so far. With Embiid steadily rounding into form (24 points and 11 rebounds in this one), Harden finding anything approaching his shooting form of old would flip this series on its head, as the Sixers would have the ideal version of their offensive trio, with Tyrese Maxey providing additional shooting and creation, as well as the pace they otherwise lack in transition.

For Miami, they’ll have to hope that Harden’s shooting night in Game 4 was a mirage, because they have their own issues to worry about offensively. Going home should help their “others” find the bottom of the net more, but Kyle Lowry’s hamstring injury is clearly still bothering him and his ineffectiveness on the offensive end because of that really puts a ton of pressure on Butler, who was as good as you could hope for and they still came up short.

We’ll see whether the Sixers can travel these good vibes with them to Miami or not on Tuesday night when they play a pivotal Game 5, but they have to feel significantly better about their position in this series than they did a few days ago.

Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals series between the Sixers and Heat in Philadelphia was a tight one through three quarters, with the Sixers in control most of the way but Jimmy Butler almost single-handedly keeping Miami attached.

With 20 seconds to play, the Heat had the ball down four on a crucial possession and the camera cut to Kyle Lowry bringing the ball up the floor, but fans watching at home couldn’t help but notice there was a man absolutely sawing logs in a courtside seat on the baseline behind Lowry.

This is a tense, loud environment and this guy has completely shut out the lights, which naturally became an instant meme for NBA Twitter as folks had plenty of jokes because, well, it’s objectively hilarious to be stone cold asleep as a full grown adult while courtside at an NBA Playoff game.

As someone who has fallen asleep at a very loud sporting event before (the Coca-Cola 600), I can attest from real-life experience that this has to be partially attributed to a large number of adult beverages being consumed, alongside some carb and meat-heavy meals over the course of the day. I hope he woke up in time for the fourth quarter, because it was a highly entertaining finish (particularly if you are a Sixers fan).

Four days before his fifth album Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers is set to arrive, Kendrick Lamar made a grand return on Happy Mother’s Day with “The Heart Part 5.” The song is the fifth installment in Kendrick’s “Heart” series which began in 2010 and was last updated with 2017’s “The Heart Part 5.” The song is a lengthy one as it clocks in at a little over five and a half minutes, but through it, Kendrick speaks on Black culture and how he views it nowadays. In a video attached with the song, Kendrick uses deep fake technology to morph into several faces that included OJ Simpson, Kanye West, Jussie Smollet, Will Smith, Kobe Bryant, and Nipsey Hussle.

One of the biggest moments on “The Heart Part 5” comes during the song’s third verse. Here, Kendrick honors the late Nipsey Hussle and raps from his perspective to close the song. From Nipsey’s perspective, he indirectly reflects on his contributions to his community, rapping:

“Reflecting on my life and what I’ve done
Paid dues made rules change out of love
Them same views make schools change curriculums
But then change be starin’ down the barrel with a gun
Should I feel resentful I didn’t see my full potential?
Should I feel regret about the good I was into?
Everything is everything, this ain’t coincidental”

Just a few bars later, it becomes a bit clearer that Kendrick is rapping from Nipsey’s perspective:

“To my brother, to my kids, I’m in Heaven
To my mother, to my sis’, I’m in Heaven
To my father, to my wife, I am serious, this is Heaven
To my friends, make sure you countin’ them blessings
To my fans, make sure you make them investments
And to the killer that sped up my demise
I forgive you, just know your soul’s in question
I seen that pain in your pupil when that trigger had squeezed
And though you did me gruesome, I was surely relieved
I completed my mission, wasn’t ready to leave
But fulfilled my days, my creator was pleased”

Finally, Kendrick mentions Blacc Sam, Nipsey’s older brother, and it’s now undeniable that this verse is told from Nipsey’s point of view.

And Sam, I be watchin’ over you
Make sure my kids watch all my interviews
Make sure you live out our dreams we produced
Keep that genius in your brain on the move
And to my neighborhood, let the good prevail
Make sure them babies and the leaders outta jail
Look for salvation when troubles get real
‘Cause you can’t help the world until you help yourself

You can listen to “The Heart Part 5” in the video above and you can read some fan reactions to the verse below.

Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers is out 5/13 PgLang/TDE/Aftermath/Interscope.

Chris Paul had a dreadful Game 4 in Dallas, scoring just five points in 23 minutes of play before fouling out of a 111-101 loss to the Mavericks that evened the second round series at 2-2.

His frustrating night on the court was compounded off of it due to an apparent incident involving his family that was at the game. Paul exited his postgame presser early, asking Suns PR if he could leave the podium in order to not get fined, which most assumed was due to the officiating after picking up six fouls in 23 minutes.

However, shortly after that, Paul sent a tweet that offered the first indication that there was more going on after the game than him being upset with calls.

To that point, there had been no reporting on an incident in the stands, but Dave McMenamin of ESPN did some digging and learned that a Mavs fan had put his hands on Paul’s mother, with his wife also being pushed in the stands during the game. Video also hit Twitter of Paul speaking with Mavs security, clearly saying “he put hands on my mom.”

The Mavericks announced they were aware of the incident and the fan in question had been quickly booted from the game after it was pointed out to security.

Further video emerged of the fans in question being ejected and Paul saying “I’ll see you later.”

Players’ families shouldn’t have to deal with fans crossing the line during games with physical intimidation, and hopefully there won’t be any more incidents moving forward in the postseason.

Finally.

Late last month, Kendrick Lamar arrived with news that the music world spent the last three or so years waiting to hear from him. He revealed that his fifth album, titled Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers, would arrive on May 13. The announcement was made in a statement from his PgLang agency, which he founded with longtime partner Dave Free. Aside from the album’s title, its release date, and some very early projections of the project’s first-week numbers, there’s little we know about the nature of Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers. With just less than five days until the album arrives, officially launches his new era with “The Heart Part 5.”

The new track is the fifth installment in the series that Kendrick has run in between albums since 2010 with the last edition coming in 2017 with “The Heart Part 4.” Just like “The Heart Part 5,” the 2017 track was released a short time before Kendrick’s fourth album Damn. “The Heart Part 5” is the first piece of music with Kendrick as the lead artist that we’ve received since his contributions to the 2018 Black Panther soundtrack. One of his more recent musical contributions overall came on Baby Keem’s “Family Ties,” which the two won a Grammy award for last month.

The new track also arrives after Kendrick appeared beside Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, and Mary J. Blige at the upcoming Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show. As the group’s performance neared, rumors swirled that Kendrick would use the marquee weekend to make his long-awaited and that turned out to be the case.

One final note about Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers: it’s set to be Kendrick’s final album on TDE, a label he’s called home since 2004. Once Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers is released to the world, it remains to be seen what Kendrick’s next moves as one of rap’s biggest superstars will be.

You can press play on the video above to hear “The Heart Part 5.”

This weekend was quite the active one for Jack Harlow and Drake. The former released his second album Come Home The Kids Miss You which featured an appearance from Drake as well as Lil Wayne, Pharrell, and Justin Timberlake. Harlow and Drake’s collaboration, “Churchill Downs,” is named after the famed horse racing complex in Harlow’s hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. It’s also the site of this year’s Kentuck Derby which Harlow and Drake both attended on Saturday along with other big names like DJ Drama, Michael Jordan, Lewis Hamilton, and David Beckham.

Jack Harlow took a moment to speak with an NBC Sports reporter during his time at the Derby, and it’s here that things took a hilarious turn. In the middle of the interview, Drake steps in and says, “I was just trying to listen to what you guys got going on, adding, “I just want to hear the conversation. I’m not really here to speak on nothing.” That didn’t last too long as an intoxicated Drake soon took a moment to show some love to Harlow. “I just had to show up. I’m so proud of this guy,” Drake said before adding, “And we’re drunk.” He’d quickly correct himself and clarify that he was drunk while Harlow was sober.

The duo was then asked if they placed any bets on a horse. “We got a lot going on,” Drake said. Harlow added, “We were forced to make a move, on the one and only Happy Jack. He’s really giving a good description of how I feel right now. [If there] was a Happy Aubrey, we’d run that too.” Unfortunately for Harlow at least, Happy Jack finished in 14th place while Rich Strike, who entered with an 80-1 shot of winning, took home the Kentucky Derby crown.

Towards the end of Harlow and now Drake’s TV interview, the rappers seemingly received a cue from the production crew to wrap up the interview, but Drake wasn’t quite ready to end things. “You can’t give the wrap-it-up signal,” he said. “What are you gonna cut to? What are you gonna cut to? A shot of, like, poorly manicured grass, or something?”

You can watch clips from Drake and Harlow’s time at the Kentucky Derby above.

Come Home The Kids Miss You is out now via Atlantic. You can stream it here.

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Sacramento Kings were one of three NBA teams to have a head coach vacancy following this regular season, with the Lakers and Hornets also joining the coaching carousel, and have been the most active to this point in conducting interviews and narrowing their search.

On Sunday night, word broke that the Kings had found their next head coach just down the road in San Francisco, as ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Warriors assistant Mike Brown had agreed to a four-year deal with the Kings.

Brown has been a head coach on three occasions, twice in Cleveland and once in Los Angeles with the Lakers, compiling a 347-216 record in seven-plus seasons at the helm. Brown has been an assistant in Golden State ever since the 2016-17 season, winning championships with the Warriors where current Kings owner Vivek Ranadive was formerly a minority stakeholder in the team — and he was seen courtside on Saturday night for the Warriors win over Memphis.

Whether Brown can find success with the Kings and snap the NBA’s longest postseason drought remains to be seen, and will likely come down to personnel and whether Sacramento can put together a coherent roster, finally. But his initial task will be making the De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis pairing as successful as possible, while trying to coax a decent defense out of a team that has struggled mightily on that end for many years.

Brown got the nod in Sacramento over ESPN’s Mark Jackson, who has likewise interviewed with the Lakers as he looks to leave the booth for the sidelines once again after his three-year tenure in Golden State from 2012-14.

U2 recently received an invitation to Ukraine from the country’s president Volodymyr Zelensky. With that, Bono and The Edge from the band decided to take Zelensky up on his offer and visit the country. During their trip there, Bono and The Edge took over a subway station-turned-bomb-shelter to hold an acoustic concert for nearby citizens. “The people in Ukraine are not just fighting for your own freedom, you are fighting for all of us who love freedom,” Bono told the audience, which included soldiers, according to Rolling Stone. “We pray that you will enjoy some of that peace soon.”

The Irish Times reports that the duo played songs that included “With or Without You,” “Desire,” “Angel of Harlem,” and “Vertigo.” Bono and The Edge also covered Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” which replaced the word “Me” with “Ukraine.” U2’s set also featured appearances by Ukrainian musicians that were pushed into military duty after Russia invaded the country. One of them included singer Taras Topolya from the Ukrainian band Antytila.

Bono and The Edge’s performance comes after they appeared in Global Citizen’s “Stand Up For Ukraine” livestream where they performed a rendition of “Walk On” which addressed the invasion.

You can check out videos from Bono and The Edge’s performance in Ukraine in the videos above.

Game 4 of the Mavs-Suns series was defined by three-point shooting, as Dallas rolled to a 111-101 victory to even the series at 2-2 going back to Phoenix in one of the most impressive shooting displays of the postseason.

Dallas came out hot from the jump, as Dorian Finney-Smith, Davis Bertans, and Spencer Dinwiddie all got rolling from beyond the arc in the first half as the Mavs pumped in 12 three-pointers to take a 12-point lead into halftime.

The other storyline in the game was foul trouble for the Suns, namely Chris Paul, who picked up four first half fouls and was largely ineffective in the game, scoring just five points on 2-of-4 shooting with seven assists in 23 minutes of action. Devin Booker did his best to pick up the pieces, scoring 35 points and holding the Suns in it, but with Cam Payne continuing his postseason struggles, the Suns couldn’t afford Paul to be on the bench as much as he was.

Most of the Mavs did cool off considerably in the second half, starting it 9-of-33 from the field, as Phoenix reeled them in, cutting the lead to as few as four with 1:17 to go in the third, but Dallas was able to find timely buckets to answer every Suns run. In the fourth quarter, Devin Booker did his best to lead the Suns back into the game, giving a strong two-way effort to open the period as Phoenix once again trimmed the Mavs lead to six.

However, Phoenix had to figure out a way to close the game without Paul, who picked up his sixth reaching in on Jalen Brunson on an offensive rebound with nine minutes to play.

While Doncic struggled to find his stroke from the outside, his teammates continued to provide the lift, with Dorian Finney-Smith taking over briefly with back-to-back threes to once again push Dallas to a double-digit advantage, as he finished the night with 24 points, all on three-pointers, as he hit 8-of-12 from deep to give the Mavs a much-needed lift.

While it was a tough shooting night from Doncic, he came up with big plays down the stretch when he committed to creating for his teammates, as Phoenix continuously collapsed on Doncic’s drives and helped off the corners despite the Mavs shooters burying everything from there all night. Reggie Bullock and Jalen Brunson cashed in on corner three opportunities created by Doncic in the closing minutes as Dallas once again opened up a healthy lead in the final four minutes, with the star putting the dagger in with some fancy footwork in the post with just over two minutes to go.

There was plenty of commentary on the officiating during the game from fans of both sides, but the difference was simply Dallas’ lights out shooting. Non-Doncic Mavs went 19-of-34 from three, headlined by Finney-Smith’s night, while the Suns were a solid but unremarkable 9-of-25 from deep. No one other than Booker could really get it going for Phoenix, and that proved to be too much of a burden for the Suns’ star to bear down the stretch, as he could never get them within more than two possessions of the lead.

Now the series shifts back to Phoenix where the Suns looked terrific to open the series and it may simply come down to whether the Mavs’ “others” can be effective away from their home arena. Doncic had 26 points, 11 assists, and seven rebounds in the win, but was a dreadful 1-of-10 from distance and needed the pick-up from his teammates to get this game across the finish line. The Suns have clearly decided they’ll let the Mavs’ role players get open looks off of Doncic’s creation, and in Game 4 that came back to bite them as the Mavs buried shots throughout the night.

The Golden State Warriors dominated Game 3 against the Grizzlies on Saturday night, piling up 142 points in a 30-point blowout win to take a 2-1 series lead, but after the game much of the conversation was about Ja Morant’s knee injury that caused him to leave the game for the locker room early in the fourth quarter.

There were a couple of plays in the late third and early fourth that seemed to leave the All-Star guard hobbling a bit, but head coach Taylor Jenkins and the Grizzlies focused on a play in the early fourth that saw Jordan Poole grabbing for the ball but instead pull on Morant’s knee. After Steve Kerr called Memphis out for dirty play in Game 2 headlined by Dillon Brooks’ clothesline of Gary Payton II that left him with a fractured elbow and led to a Brooks suspension, the Grizzlies took this play as some sort of effort at retribution from the Warriors — who unsurprisingly insisted it was incidental.

On Sunday, Jenkins met with the media and offered a less than positive update on Morant, who was continuing to have tests done on his knee and had no official diagnosis, but did note that there was a “really good chance” the star guard will be out for Game 4.

That’s obviously a big blow for Memphis, although they did have a stellar record without Morant during the regular season, as Morant was the lone bright spot in the Game 3 loss before he exited. It was always going to be a steep hill to climb for the Grizzlies against the Warriors, but the margin for error gets brought down to effectively nil if Morant is unable to play. Memphis would need a significantly better effort from their other guards, particularly Tyus Jones, if they are to find a way to even the series without Morant — or even if Ja can play but is limited.