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Paul George last played a basketball game on Dec. 22, 2021. The Los Angeles Clippers star suffered a torn ligament in his elbow, and ever since, he’s been in a race against the clock to return to the team before the postseason rolls around. After a day or two of rumors that he was on the verge of suiting up again, George made it back on Tuesday night for the Clippers’ game against the Utah Jazz and did not look like he missed a beat as he spearheaded a torrid comeback.

Los Angeles found itself in an 18-point deficit at the end of the first quarter and trailed by as many as 25 points in the third quarter against its Western Conference foes. And then, as they have done so many times in recent years — including in Game 6 of the Western Conference Semifinals against the Jazz last year, when they erased the exact same deficit — the Clippers scratched and clawed their way back en route to a 121-115 win.

George was the catalyst for the comeback. After scoring eight points in the first half, George exploded for 26 in the second, finishing his night with 34 points on 10-for-20 shooting and a 6-for-9 clip from three with six assists, four steals, two rebounds, and a block in 31 minutes of work.

At one point, he managed to make the most of a lob that was far too ambitious by reeling it in with one hand and feeding Isaiah Hartenstein for a bucket — the big man was an important part of the comeback, as he had 14 points, seven rebounds, and six assists against Rudy Gobert off the bench.

To celebrate his return, George’s teammates poured a whole lot of water on him right before his postgame interview.

The win puts the Clippers at 37-39 on the year, and while they’re not officially locked into the 8-seed yet, they’re six games behind the Minnesota Timberwolves for the 7-seed and 5.5 games up on the New Orleans Pelicans in ninth. With George back in the fold, though, it’s not hard to imagine Los Angeles surviving the play-in tournament and being a tough out in the playoffs.

The Utah Jazz blew a 25-point lead to the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday night en route to a 121-115 loss at Crypto.com Arena. While Donovan Mitchell had a pretty good performance, one rather unfortunate moment at the end of the game played a role in the Clipper lead becoming insurmountable.

Utah trailed by four points with 10 seconds remaining and Mitchell taking the ball out underneath their own basket. If all went well, he would inbound the ball to someone, the Jazz would get a quick basket, they’d foul and get the ball back with a chance to make something happen, and either force overtime or get a walk-off bucket.

The issue: Los Angeles defended the inbound pass perfectly, and Mitchell did not have to whom he could get the ball. So he decided to call a timeout despite the fact that the Jazz were all out of ’em. It took a split second for the referees to blow the whistle, but after a brief review, Mitchell was assessed a technical foul.

Due to Mitchell pulling a Chris Webber, Reggie Jackson buried a free throw and the Clippers were given the ball. It was a game to forget in Utah, and while Mitchell had 33 points and six assists, this ended his evening on a sour note.

Nearly three and a half years ago, Gunna brought his talents to A COLORS Show, the popular YouTube music series that invites artists to perform a song of theirs in front of a simple and vibrant background. During that appearance on the show, Gunna performed “Top Off,” a standout from his 2018 mixtape Drip Season 3. The performance spawned plenty of memes and it resurfaces on social media every few months just like any fan-favorite moment does. Fast-forward to now and Gunna returns to A COLORS Show for a new performance, this time for a song from his third album DS4EVER.

In his return to the music series, Gunna serenades with a performance of “Private Island.” The track is the soft-hearted introduction to DS4EVER, and it stands as one of Gunna’s more tender records in his discography. As expected, Gunna is also dressed to impress during his appearance.

Gunna’s return to A COLORS Show comes after he recently lent guest features to DDG, Machine Gun Kelly, and Lil Durk. He’s also given performances of “Die Alone” and “Empire” since the release of DS4EVER

You can watch Gunna’s performance of “Private Island” above.

DS4EVER is out now via YSL Records/300 Entertainment. You can pre-save it here.

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

At this Sunday’ss Grammy Awards, Japanese Breakfast will be up for two awards: Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album for Jubilee. The album also topped the 2021 Uproxx Music Critics Poll, which isn’t quite a Grammy Award, but still, it’s been a heckuva year+ for Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner, who also released the best-selling book Crying In H Mart. Now ahead of the Grammy Awards, Japanese Breakfast has released a pair of tracks for the Spotify Singles Series, including a cover of Bon Iver’s classic cut, “Skinny Love.”

The “Skinny Love” cover is part of Spotify’s ongoing series of releases from artists in the Grammy Best New Artist category. Arlo Parks released a cover of Kaytranada and Syd’s “You’re The One” earlier this week and Finneas covered also covered a Bon Iver song earlier this month, in “Flume.” For the “Skinny Love” cover, Japanese Breakfast peels back their typical arrangements for a twangy take on the Justin Vernon-led classic. “We decided to record Bon Iver’s ‘Skinny Love’ because it felt like a very surprising cover for Japanese Breakfast,” Zauner said. “It’s so moving and sparse. We felt we could add some interesting instrumentation to the track and celebrate our fellow label mate Bon Iver.” A revamped version of Japanese Breakfast’s “Be Sweet” was also released, with a slight disco-lean and tweaked vocal arrangements.

Listen to Japanese Breakfast’s “Skinny Love” cover and “Be Sweet” above.

At the end of last week, Nicki Minaj dropped off her third record of the year with “We Goin Up” alongside Fivio Foreign. The record is one she previously previewed on Instagram Live while noting that it would not appear on her long-awaited fifth album. Despite this, Nicki still celebrated the song’s release and she joined Fivio and others to party the night away. While the night may have gone well, one person had a comment about Nicki’s outing and it eventually earned a response from Nicki herself.

In response to a video of Nicki at the party with Fivio and others, the Twitter user wrote, “I wish she’d move on from this lifestyle this isn’t you anymore Nicki.” She eventually caught wind of the comment and did not hold back on a response. “Tell me you don’t know anything about Nicki Minaj w/o telling me,” Nicki wrote. “Ppl rlly create their own perception of you then tell you not to be you. Girl eat sh*t. Thank you.” She added, “Out of all the 3 wishes a b*tch get a b*tch using 1 wish to tell me not to be who I’ve ALWAYS [f*cking] been.”

Nicki continued, “My whole AUTHENTIC come up is fully documented for the world to see. YouTube is free I think still. Y’all want me 2b some rich RNB singer/pop star so bad. (well not the smart ppl) they know my story. 1 thing u can never change is ur story. I can&will only be me. Take it or [leave].” Another person questions the first user’s intention between their tweets and Nicki wrote, “Other races can do it tho,” while adding in another tweet, “Ppl rlly make up an imaginary ‘you’ in their head. Sh*t wild.”

To conclude her message, Nicki wrote, “Can y’all please let me enjoy the moment? Please?”

You can view the original tweet and Nicki’s responses above.

Chris Rock hasn’t said a thing since Oscar night, when he made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith and got smacked on live television by her husband, who then won an Academy Award. Though the incident initially left many confused, the tide has turned more or less definitively against Will Smith. His actions have been slammed by many, with Zoe Kravitz, who was present, calling it assault. But at least there’s been some great news for Rock himself.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, in the two days since the chaotic ceremony, Rock’s stand-up ticket sales have spiked through the roof:

StubHub, the ticket exchange and resale company, said it experienced more than 25x the daily sales each of the past two days than occurred last month for Rock’s tour. The company added that cumulative sales over the past two days are more than the total sales for Rock’s tour in the entirety of March. Additionally, the average price of tickets sold jumped from between $150-$200 a ticket to about $250 a ticket.

Ticket sales, StubHub told THR, tend to spike in the day or two before a show. Thing is, Rock’s next show isn’t even until April 8, leading them to blame the surge on what may wind up being the most famous thing to ever happen in the near century of Academy Awards ceremonies (including the naked jogger and, yes, the Moonlight kerfuffle).

During Sunday’s Oscars, Rock joked about Pinkett Smith’s shaved head, which is the result of a hair loss condition called alopecia. (It’s not yet clear whether Rock knew about this ailment.) Her husband then stormed the stage, struck him across the face, then yelled profanities at him. The American broadcast cut the sound for most of the incident, but it played uncensored in other countries.

The following day Smith issued a formal apology to Rock, while Pinkett Smith wrote a more cryptic statement about what happened. Smith’s actions have been met with widespread condemnation, even from Richard Williams, who Smith played in the film for which he won an Oscar.

You can purchase tickets to upcoming Chris Rock shows here.

(Via THR)

The Los Angeles Lakers didn’t have the services of LeBron James or Anthony Davis on Tuesday night during their trip to Dallas to take on the Mavericks. Unsurprisingly, this did not work out particularly well for them, as the Lakers suffered a 128-110 loss.

While Davis is targeting a return in the coming days from an injury that has held him out since mid-February and James hasn’t been ruled out for an extended period despite dealing with swelling in his left ankle, the loss made the Lakers’ already-unenviable situation a little worse. L.A. fell to 31-44 on the season, which puts them in 11th place and out of the Western Conference play-in tournament altogether. Currently, the Lakers are tied with the San Antonio Spurs, who hold the tiebreaker over them for the 10-seed.

Perhaps the hardest pill to swallow for L.A. is that their final seven games this season are absolutely brutal. Four of their remaining seven contests are on the road and all of them come against teams firmly in the playoffs: Utah on March 31, Phoenix on April 5, Golden State on April 7, and Denver on April 10. While their home schedule is not as arduous, they still play a team fighting hard to stick in the play-in tournament (New Orleans on April 1) and a playoff team (Denver on April 3) before suiting up against the Oklahoma City Thunder — against whom they are 1-2 on the year — in their home finale on April 8. According to Tankathon, only Memphis and Chicago have more difficult schedules to close out the year. If there is a silver lining, it is that San Antonio has the fifth-toughest schedule in the league with seven games to go.

Should they make the play-in, history has shown that it’s not especially easy to beat a team with James on it in a one-game series, while Davis should be healthy and rested by the time that rolls around. Of course, that assumes they are able to make it in the first place, and that is by no means guaranteed.

After a strong 2021 year that was led by the release of his chart-topping sixth album Call Me If You Get Lost, Tyler The Creator is keeping the energy alive in 2022. He’s currently on tour in support of the album and he brought a talented roster of artists on the road with him. Kali Uchis, Vince Staples, and Teezo Touchdown have all joined Tyler for the string of shows that kicked off in mid-February and is set to continue until April 8. So far, things have been going well on tour, but Tyler has one pet peeve with fans and he took to Twitter to make a stern request to them.

In a tweet, Tyler wrote, “Stop throwing your sh*t on stage, i dont want it, now mid show i gotta move it, whats the logic f*cking stop thanks b.” After sharing the tweet, Tyler reposted a video from the fan where it shows him being forced to stop a show after an object was thrown on stage. “I don’t understand the logic of throwing your sh*t up here,” Tyler said. “Not only for safety reasons, but bro I don’t want it. I’m not even being funny, every show someone throws something up here and I don’t understand the logic. Then if I slip and break my foot, stop throwing your f*cking sh*t up here, bro!”

Baby Keem later replied to Tyler’s tweet in agreeance, writing, “Please stop dawg. Please.”

You can view Tyler’s tweet and video from his concert above.

Very little has gone right for the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2021-22 NBA season, including injury-related issues and a disappointing win-loss performance. Still, the Lakers are alive in the postseason race, and Los Angeles got a bit of good news on Tuesday evening. During what was a dismal first half for the Lakers in a nationally televised game against Dallas, Chris Haynes of TNT and Yahoo Sports reported that star big man Anthony Davis is aiming to return on Friday when the Lakers take on the New Orleans Pelicans.

As Haynes notes, LeBron James missed Tuesday’s game with an ankle issue, and indicates that James will miss Thursday’s game as well. Still, there seems to be optimism that he’ll be back in the near future, and Haynes cites sources in saying Davis, barring setbacks, is targeting Friday against New Orleans or Sunday against Denver. Within the same report, however, Haynes does indicate that Kendrick Nunn, who has not appeared all season, is not likely to debut for Los Angeles before the end of the regular season.

Davis has appeared in only 37 of 75 games for the Lakers this season, and he hasn’t appeared since suffering an injury on Feb. 16. Despite a dismal 18.2 percent three-point shooting clip in a small sample, Davis is averaging 23.1 points and 9.7 rebounds per game and, at the very least, he would bring a desperately needed infusion of high-end talent for the Lakers. Though he may not be 100 percent upon arrival, any lingering optimism for the Lakers is tied to the hopes that James and Davis can overcome the rest of the organizational drawbacks when the bright lights come on in the playoffs, and this is a step toward that potential.

This past October marked one year since Wizkid released his fourth album Made In Lagos. While the world was barred from enjoying the project in an outdoor setting, which tends to be appropriate for an afrobeats project, Made In Lagos grew to be Wizkid’s most popular release yet. It was spearheaded by the success of “Essence,” which features Tems and became a song of the summer entry in 2021 as it was later remixed by Justin Bieber. Despite bit being a bit removed from the release of Made In Lagos, Wizkid is back with a new music video for a fan favorite from the project.

At long last, Wizkid shares the video for “True Love,” which features Tay Iwar and Projexx. The new visual includes an appearance from Jamaican-Canadian model and vitiligo awareness spokeswoman Winnie Harlow. In it, Wizkid takes center stage in a gladiator-like stadium as a group of women dance around him. Soon, Harlow joins him and they intimately dance and cozy up beside each other for the remainder of the visual.

Wizkid released the video for “True Love” a few months after landing a pair of nominations for the upcoming Grammy awards. He was selected in the Best Global Music category with Made In Lagos and the Best Global Music Performance category with “Essence.”

You can watch the video for “True Love” above.