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After a memorable Game 3 that resulted in a narrow in for the Milwaukee Bucks, the Boston Celtics entered Game 4 with significant urgency on Monday. Though the Celtics were on the road, they needed a win to avoid a dreaded 3-1 deficit and, just before tip-off, word broke that Boston would be without starting center Robert Williams. However, Al Horford turned in a memorable effort and, with the help of a fantastic close from Jayson Tatum, the Celtics earned a 116-108 victory to even the series at 2-2.

The Bucks took control at the outset with the help of a slow start from the Celtics. Boston scored only two points in more than four minutes, opening 1-of-7 from the floor, and Milwaukee took an 8-2 lead.

Shortly after, Tatum injected some life into the Celtics with a massive dunk to stop the early drought.

Still, the Bucks led by as many as 10 points in the opening period and led 25-18 after 12 minutes. Milwaukee shot only 36 percent, but the Bucks had six offensive rebounds to zero for the Celtics. Boston also shot just 36 percent with five turnovers and a scuffling overall offense.

The Celtics did find their footing in the second quarter, using a 16-6 run to take their first lead. That uptick coincided with improved play on both ends, and strong shot-making.

By the halftime break, the Bucks led by one point, and it was a slugfest. In fitting fashion to the series, neither team exceeded ten assists, 40 percent shooting from the floor, or 30 percent from three-point range in the first half. Individually, Giannis Antetokounmpo shot just 6-of-17 from the floor, and Boston’s star duo of Tatum and Jaylen Brown combined to shoot 6-of-18 from the floor.

To begin the third quarter, there were some fireworks. First, Antetokounmpo threw down a monstrous dunk, drawing a controversial technical foul for taunting in the process. Moments later, Horford continued his torrid play with a triple to keep Boston engaged.

The Bucks threw a haymaker midway through the third quarter, though, and it largely came from Antetokounmpo. Milwaukee used a 13-4 run to take an 11-point lead, and the reigning NBA Finals MVP was relentless in taking it to Boston’s defenders.

Boston impressively withstood the onslaught and responded in kind. The Celtics scored 10 straight points between the end of the third quarter and the start of the fourth, erasing the deficit and tying the game at 80-80 when Horford dunked over Antetokounmpo in head-turning style.

The fourth quarter was an exercise in back-and-forth fireworks. For every Antetokounmpo bucket, there was a response from Horford, including a memorable three-point play to give the Celtics a four-point lead.

https://twitter.com/NBCSCeltics/status/1523842654974492679

From there, Tatum scored on two straight possessions and, in conjunction with a pair of empty trips from Milwaukee, Boston seized control. The Celtics led 106-96 with less than four minutes remaining, putting Milwaukee on its heels.

The Bucks did climb within six on a couple of occasions, but that flurry from Tatum proved to be decisive. The Celtics closed things out with effective offense down the stretch, and that was the theme of the closing period. Boston’s fourth quarter offense was utterly remarkable given the opponent and the stakes, shooting 16-of-19 from the floor, 4-of-5 from three-point range, and 7-of-7 at the free throw line. That included 11-of-12 shooting from Tatum and Horford combined, with that pairing scoring 28 points in the fourth quarter alone.

For Milwaukee, Antetokounmpo and Holiday combined for 50 points on 54 field goal attempts, capping the team’s offensive ceiling. The Bucks also shot just 33 percent from three-point range, but a failure to generate consistent stops in the fourth quarter was perhaps the largest difference.

Horford set a new career playoff high with 30 points on 11-of-14 shooting, including 5-of-7 from three-point range. In addition to eight rebounds in his 42 minutes of on-court action, Horford became the oldest Celtics player to score at least 30 points in a postseason game since 1977, and he turned back the clock at an optimal moment. He was flanked by 30 points and 13 rebounds from Tatum, and the Celtics ended the night shooting 50 percent from the floor and 38 percent from three-point range.

The series will shift back to Boston with sky-high stakes for Game 5 on Wednesday evening. The Celtics will aim to capitalize on what was a fantastic road win in Game 4, while the Bucks will seek a bounce-back victory and a return to defensive dominance.

For the last two weeks, self-professed rich guy Donald Trump has been amounting some serious debt. Well, not that serious. By not fully cooperating with the New York Attorney General’s office’s investigation into his company’s business, he’s been fined $10,000 a day. As of this writing, that’s $140,000 he owes — chump change, surely, to a guy caught pocketing donations from his cash-strapped supporters. But on Friday, he finally provided an excuse for why he hasn’t turned over all the evidence they’ve requested: He lost it.

As per CNN, Trump issued an affidavit on Friday, in which he addressed some evidence he’s yet to turn over, namely four cellphones associated with the Trump Organization. But he claims he has no idea where they are. Of one of those phones, a Samsung, he swears it “was taken from me at some point while I was president.”

But maybe they’ll turn up: He says he’s attorneys to search his home in Bedminster, New Jersey, Mar-a-Lago in Florida, and his personal residence in Trump Tower.

Despite his famous ability to simply blow off legal requests — or tie them up in frivolous lawsuits — Trump has played ball with the investigation before. He previously turned in one of his current cellphones to be imaged not once but twice, the second time “out of an abundance of caution.” He also says he only use two cellphones now, the second exclusively on his flailing, rinky-dink Twitter clone.

Trump’s previous attempt to shut off the fines from the New York Attorney General’s office did not work. But perhaps doing a variation on “the dog ate my homework” will.

(Via CNN)

There are many things you expect to happen at a music concert. You expect a good show from the artist on stage, you expect to capture a few videos and pictures from the show, and you might even expect to make a friend or have a special moment with a stranger. What you might not expect to happen is to give birth to a baby, but that was the case for a woman who attended a Metallica concert in Brazil over the weekend.

Tattoo artist Joice M. Figueiró was 39 weeks pregnant when she went to the concert on Saturday night. According to Consequence, Figueiró, who watched the show from the accessible seating section, said she felt fine as the opening acts, Ego Kill Talent and Greta Van Fleet, performed. However, shortly after Metallica took the stage, Figueiró began having contractions and her water broke as she made her way to the venue’s outpatient clinic. Unfortunately, there was no time for her to make it to the hospital.

In a post that Figueiró shared later that night, she revealed that Luan Figueiró was born, “shaking all the metal structures,” at 11:15 pm. She claims that Metallica was playing “Enter Sandman” when Luan was born, and there couldn’t be a more appropriate song. “At every show I go to, something has to happen, but this time I think I’ve outdone myself,” she said in the Instagram post. “I bought this ticket three years ago and I never imagined something like this would happen.”

You can view Figueiró’s post about her newborn above.

New Orleans Pelicans guard Jose Alvarado gained notoriety during his rookie season for intense defense and energy that gave his team a significant lift. Beyond that, Alvarado quickly became known for his “sneak attacks” in the backcourt, in which he would intentionally blend into the sideline, only to pounce on an unsuspecting ball-handler to create havoc. On Monday evening, Alvarado took his show on the road to Atlanta to visit TNT’s Inside The NBA set, and his television appearance came in on-brand fashion.

This is a great bit from all parties involved, as Alvarado “ruins” Kenny Smith’s trademark run to the monitor wall with a steal in the process. Alvarado, who played collegiately just down the street from the Turner studios at Georgia Tech, played his part well, and that lent a bit of additional levity to the halftime analysis during Game 4 of Bucks-Celtics on Monday.

As for Alvarado, the 24-year-old really left a mark for the Pelicans this season, joining forces with fellow rookie Herb Jones to boost New Orleans on the defensive end. It will be interesting to see what he can do next season in follow-up, but the undrafted guard is already garnering prime time attention on the most prominent studio show in sports.

The second round series between the Warriors and Grizzlies has not been lacking in drama on and off the court, with the two teams taking turns accusing each other of foul play in the first three games of the series that has seen Golden State take a 2-1 lead into Monday night.

Looming over Game 4 was the question of Ja Morant’s availability after suffering a knee injury in the Game 3 loss, with not a lot of optimism about his status after he did not participate in shootaround — and later it was confirmed he would not be able to play. On the Warriors side, word broke late on Monday that there will be a surprising absence from their bench, as the team announced Steve Kerr had tested positive for COVID-19 and would not coach in Game 4.

Mike Brown, who was officially named the Sacramento Kings head coach earlier in the day, will move up a seat on the bench and take over head coaching duties for the game and, possibly, for Game 5 as well. As to how this will impact the Warriors, one would think there wouldn’t be a ton of changes with Brown taking over, as this is a coaching staff that has been together for a long time — Brown is in his sixth season as an assistant to Kerr — and the players on the floor are quite experienced in postseason play, which should help mitigate any issues with their coach being out. Still, it’s not an ideal situation in an important game, as the Warriors have a chance to take a commanding series lead with a win, and will now have to navigate life without their head coach at least for a game and possibly longer.

Lil Baby was not kidding when he said he planned to take over 2022. The rapper has been relentless over the past couple of months as he prepares to release his upcoming yet-to-be-titled third album. Last month, Baby kicked things off with a pair of singles, “Right On” and “In A Minute,” which officially launched his 2022 campaign. He continued with the recently-released “Frozen,” a record that captured his laser-focused approach to the world. For his latest act, Baby teamed up with Memphis Grizzlies’ star point guard Ja Morant and Beats By Dre to preview a new song in a recent commercial.

The commercial was released prior to the Grizzlies game three playoff game against the Golden State Warriors. The 90-second black-and-white ad is soundtracked by Lil Baby’s unreleased track, “Dark Mode,” which the Atlanta rapper uses to comment on his position in the game while keeping his eye on the prize and keeping his family close.

“Ja has been one of my favorite players to watch,” Lil Baby said in a press release. “We’ve been locked in. This is not my first time partnering with Beats, but we took it up a notch with this original song. The world gets to experience ‘Dark Mode’ for the first time in a way that’s crazy!”

It remains to be seen whether or not “Dark Mode” will appear on Baby’s upcoming third album.

You can listen to “Dark Mode” in the video above.

In the era of the mega-billionaire, much has been made of how such gargantuan wealth is built and what kind of taxes on wealth are fair and unfair.

The intricacies of economics can make such questions a bit tricky both practically and ethically, but there’s no question that billionaires get enormous tax breaks through loopholes in our tax system and through straight-up tax legislation favoring the wealthy.

For the average American who will never see so much as one percent of a billion dollars in our entire lifetime, wrapping our minds around the financial workings of extreme wealth is like trying to learn another language. The whole “here’s how much money I earn, here’s what I can write off, here’s what I pay in taxes” thing is pretty straightforward, but not how the uber-rich life works. Wealth doesn’t equal money in uber-rich-land—except when it does.

In a Between the Scenes moment, Trevor Noah highlighted the weird way billionaire wealth sometimes counts as money and sometimes doesn’t in a segment on The Daily Show. In his signature funny-but-smart way, Noah broke down the hypocrisy of billionaires being able to treat their stock shares as money when it comes to buying businesses, but not when it comes to paying taxes.

“I’m by no means an economist, nor am I an expert on stock markets and all things finance-related, but you have to admit, a lot of what happens on Wall Street seems like a scam,” he began.

He talked about how the stock market went up one day because of what Chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell said about raising interest rates, then plummeted the next day because of people misinterpreting what he said.

“First of all, how does that happen?” he asked. “How are markets changing because somebody didn’t read something or understand—and all of you at the same time? And secondly, why do markets do that?”

He said the nature of stock markets going up and down feels “scammy,” and somehow we’re supposed to be convinced that the stock market is good for us.

“I get it for people’s retirements, and I get it for 401Ks and I understand those aspects of it,” he said. “But I’ve realized there are so many things that are designed in such a slick, scammy way.”

He gave Elon Musk’s pending purchase of Twitter as an example.

“People argue that you cannot tax billionaires on the shares that they hold in a company because it is an ‘unrealized gain,” he said. Then he explained that he understands that argument because the shares haven’t been sold, so there’s no actual money in hand. “So you’re worth the money, but you don’t have the money…and it could also crash, and then you have nothing, so we can’t tax you on it.”

“You can’t tax the people on a thing because they don’t have it, it’s just there,” he says. “Okay fine.”

Then he talked about Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter, in which Musk put up his shares of Tesla stock as collateral. Noah explained how using his Tesla stock as collateral to get banks and investors to put up the cash for him to borrow to buy Twitter.

“So you can buy a thing based on what you have, yes. But when we want to tax you, you can say ‘I don’t have it,'” said Noah. “It’s such a fun game that billionaires get to play because all their money is in that.”

Noah points out how we can’t fudge around with the IRS due to where our money is located. “You can’t be like, ‘That money’s in the bank, I don’t have that money. What money? It’s in the bank. Only when I take it out, then you can tax me. For now, it’s in the bank, IRS.”

That’s not something the IRS would accept.

“But if you have billions in shares, you can then use that as money, to then get more money, but not get taxed on any money, because you ‘don’t have money.'”

Noah said he’s not suggesting that we tax people on unrealized gains.

“But I am saying, it seems to me that you then shouldn’t be able to use a thing that’s unrealized as collateral,” she said.

That last point is worth restating. Noah isn’t saying that billionaire wealth in the form of stock shares should be taxed like liquid money. He’s questioning whether people should be able to use their untaxed wealth as collateral to get liquid money loans to avoid having to liquidate their own wealth (which they would then have to pay taxes on).

Food for thought. Watch:

This from Trevor Noah on taxing billionaires is u2026 pretty perceptive!pic.twitter.com/8hv4HKZLtQ

— Teddy Schleifer (@Teddy Schleifer)
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Last week Dave Chappelle was attacked at the end of a set he was doing at the “Netflix is a Joke” festival. It raised concerns about the safety of stand-ups after what Will Smith did to Chris Rock at this year’s Oscars. It also prompted a lot of jokes. But if you weren’t physically present at the show, which was held at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, then you’ll probably never see it beyond some rinky-dink bootleg.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix used the festival in part to generate content. Some of the sets will one day appear on the streamer. There will even be a “Best of the Festival,” rounding up highlights from the prolific fest, which featured 336 comics doing 228 shows at 35 venues. Alas, Chappelle’s explosive set won’t be one of them.

Mind you, it’s not because of the attack. Chappelle’s set was never one of the ones Netflix was going to film with professionals for later airing. There is footage of it, though, filmed by Chappelle’s own team, for his private use, as comics often have their shows taped for later consultation. Even if he ever made the footage available to the public, it likely isn’t the kind of slick, multi-camera production you get with most stand-up specials. Then again, the world has already seen its shocking conclusion.

(Via THR)

Singer and guitarist Phill Celeste, better known by his stage name Life On Planets, is a man on the move who recently made his debut on the Do Lab Stage at this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, he found his passion for music within the city’s vibrant scene and inclusive community. He started with street performing and worked his way up to playing at clubs and recording with electronic music producers.

Local success opened the door for Planets to travel for festivals and gigs in major U.S. cities like New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit. The artist’s unique sound — an eclectic blend of soul, R&B, and house — eventually sent him international to Japan, Romania, Russia, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, and beyond. But while traveling and playing shows in destinations far and wide is an exciting venture, there’s nothing quite like going back to your roots.

“Baltimore was an amazing place to get my start in music,” Planets says. “You can catch everything from B’more club, new hip hop, experimental music, and incredible art any time of the year.”

To learn more about what makes Baltimore worth a visit, we asked Life on Plents to share everything a first-time tourist should see, do and eat.

“Meet artists, medical professionals, filmmakers, diehard Ravens fans, farmers, nomads, and more communing together at its bars, cafes, clubs, markets, gardens, parks, and warehouse parties,” he says. “Get to know the folks and the culture and you’ll find that although the city is small, it has everything you need to agree with the city benches that read ‘The Greatest City in America.’”

Not convinced to book your flight yet? Check Life on Planets’ full guide to his city, below.

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North Avenue Marketplace

The North Avenue Market has food, drinks, an arcade, and a live music venue where you can check out new directions in dance music from artists like Mateyo. From here you can also walk over to the Maryland Institute College Of Art, MICA, to see some of the student artwork as well.

The Crown

I used to go to The Crown seven nights a week! There are dope Korean munchies, interesting people, and epic dance parties. Everything from comedy shows, hip hop, and house music under one roof. Bmore is a city that celebrates its BIPOC/Queer community, and I found The Crown to be the most diverse in its artist bookings and in its patrons.

Loved coming through and meeting people and just catching the vibe of the diverse crowd. Definitely stop through for Karaoke Tuesdays.

Metro Gallery

Metro Gallery offers an upscale vibe while delivering the local flavors for Bmore music. Catch hometown legends like Future Islands, DDm, or James Nasty and take home some of the art on the wall. Hit The Charles Theatre across the street for an indie film before the show.

R. House

Baltimore is a super walkable city and Remington is becoming more and more of a hub. With options for every type of foodie (vegan and vegetarian friendly!) I would visit R. House often for a good meal or one of their many special brews on tap. Hit it for some Instagrammable bites and drinks before or after the Baltimore Museum of Art.

The Wyman Dell down the street is also a great place to relax, dog watch, and take your food for a picnic. Take a stroll through the Johns Hopkins campus to walk off the grub.

Washington Monument

They say Washington himself is buried deep below…who knows. The Washington Monument is surrounded by beautiful parks and architecture. I used to come here to do a little yoga or pluck out tunes on the guitar. Super chill area. Nearby you’ll find the Walters Art Museum, the Peabody Conservatory, and plenty of dope shops and restaurants along Charles St.

Visionary Art Museum

See the world through some of the most creative and eccentric minds in the Visionary Art Museum focused on creations from self-taught artists. The exhibitions feature works collected from mental asylums, street artists, and even pieces by Alex Gray. Very enlightening and inspiring. On the way take a walk by the Inner Harbor and catch the more frequent hangs like the Aquarium and the mall for shopping.

33rd St Farmers Market

I used to busk at the 33rd St Farmers Market on Saturdays. Get the Black Sauce Kitchen biscuits for an otherworldly experience and catch the live music from different street performers. Also, load up on local coffee from Zekes and fresh veggies from Baltimore farms. Afterward, stop by Normals for dope esoteric books and vinyl.

If there’s one inanimate object that’s having a great 2022 so far, it’s Taco Bell’s Mexican Pizza. The food chain’s beloved item was removed from their menu towards the end of 2020, a move that upset many, but less than two years later, it’s set to make its return later this month. At the end of her Coachella set last month, Doja Cat announced that she successfully convinced Taco Bell to bring back the Mexican Pizza. Additionally, she revealed that the Mexican Pizza would make its official return on May 19. Now, it appears that Dolly Parton will join in on the Mexican Pizza fun.

The legendary country singer and 2022 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee announced on her Instagram page today that she will star in a TikTok musical about the Taco Bell item and it will premiere later this month. “I’m making #MexicanPizzaTheMusical with @TacoBell,” Parton wrote in the post, which features a photo of the screenplay for the musical. That post also reveals that the musical is “based on the true story of the Internet losing its mind” presumably after Taco Bell removed it from their menus almost two years ago.

According to NBC News, the musical is inspired by the viral video TikTok star Victor Kunda released in March. In it, she parodied what a rehearsal of the musical would look like, based on the song Doja Cat made for the menu item, which the “Need To Know” singer said was “contractual.”

The Taco Bell Mexican Pizza musical will be released at 8 pm EST on May 26 through the social media platform.

You can view Parton’s post above.