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After the Jazz took both games in Utah, the Clippers found themselves in a familiar spot down 2-0 in a playoff series, and as they did against the Mavericks in Game 3 of the first round, they dominated Game 3 against the Jazz to get themselves into the series down 2-1 with another home game coming up on Monday night.

The L.A. offense came alive in Game 3, going 19-for-36 from three-point range and shooting 56.2 percent from the field overall as a team. Paul George and Kawhi Leonard were unstoppable, combining for 65 points and they got big shooting nights from Nic Batum and Reggie Jackson as they did to the Jazz what Utah has done to so many opponents this season, simply overwhelming them on both ends of the floor. Utah shot it well from deep but couldn’t get much of anything going to the basket, which was an indicator of their issues offensively on the night. The Clippers tightened up defensively, particularly in keeping Donovan Mitchell from getting to the rim and the free throw line, as he was just 6-of-15 from two-point range and shot just five free throws.

Game 4 will once again see a waiting game to find out if Mike Conley can return from his hamstring issue, as he’s listed as questionable currently and will be a close to game time decision. Either way, the Jazz have to figure out how to better disrupt the Clippers’ two stars and get their own some more opportunities going downhill.

From a betting perspective, the Clippers covered easily in Game 3 as 4.5-point favorites and the game went well over the total of 224.5.

Game 4 TV Info

Tip Time: Monday, June 14; 10:00 p.m. ET
TV Network: TNT

Game 4 Betting Lines (via DraftKings Sportsbook)

Series Prices: Jazz (-715), Clippers (+475)
Spread: Clippers -5 (-112), Jazz +5 (-110)
Total: Over (-112), Under (-109)
Money Line: Clippers (-205), Jazz (+165)

Since the second half of Game 1, the Philadelphia 76ers have dominated the Atlanta Hawks, falling just short of a massive second half comeback in the opener and having won the last two games by 16 points each. Part of that has been better shot-making from their perimeter players, most notably Tobias Harris and Seth Curry, who have each had a quality efforts to bolster what Joel Embiid has done dominating on the inside in Games 2 and 3.

It has also been a massive turnaround on the defensive end, where they’ve put Ben Simmons and Matisse Thybulle’s length on Trae Young, after starting Game 1 with Danny Green trying his hand at guarding Young — Green is now out for the series with a calf strain. That shift has significantly impacted the Hawks’ ability to produce offensively, as they are a team that goes as far as Young goes on that end even with the talent around him. Going into Game 4, Atlanta is going to have to figure out how to become a bit less dependent on Young’s creation, needing Bogdan Bogdanovic and others to be able to step up when the Sixers close off Young’s driving lanes and are forcing Atlanta to create in secondary action.

Game 3 saw Philly simply run away late as their constant onslaught of size on both ends has seemingly worn down the Hawks, with the Sixers covering easily as slight road favorites and taking the game well over the total of 224.5.

Game 4 TV Info

Tip Time: Monday, June 14; 7:30 p.m. ET
TV Network: TNT

Game 4 Betting Lines (via DraftKings Sportsbook)

Series Prices: Sixers (-715), Hawks (+475)
Spread: Sixers -3.5 (-112), Hawks +3.5 (-109)
Total: Over 225.5 (-112), Under 225.5 (-109)
Money Line: Sixers (-155), Hawks (+130)

For years, the right elbow has been Chris Paul’s favorite spot from the floor. When it’s crunch time, his favorite play is to work his way off of the pick-and-roll and pull-up for that 15-foot jumper, particularly against drop coverage, taking advantage of the sinking big and shooting before his man can get back to fully contest.

It’s not something new — take a look at this shot chart from the 2014-15 season — but it still befuddles defenses.

Part of that is because that is the shot that defenses are alright with conceding, because for most players it’s a low efficiency shot. For Paul — and, increasingly, Devin Booker — it is a high efficiency shot and he routinely kills teams with it in the fourth quarter. Because of how easily he can seemingly get a decent look from there and how good he is at shooting it, many have wondered why he doesn’t go to it more often. The answer is partly that he doesn’t want defenses to adjust and take that away before crunch time when he knows he can get there and get a bucket, but as he’s gotten older it’s also a matter of preserving his energy.

In Game 4 of the Western Conference Semifinals against the Denver Nuggets, however, Paul smelled blood in the water with a 3-0 lead and recognized an opportunity to get possibly a full week of rest with a win. Knowing a win put the Suns in the conference finals with the Jazz and Clippers seemingly locked in a tight series, Paul did what many have hoped he would do more often and went to his pet play earlier in the game, torching the Nuggets for 37 points on a flat out ridiculous 14-of-19 shooting. Just watch this supercut of Paul getting to almost the same spot — his last one he drew Jokic deeper and went to a baseline shot just to get a little added flavor — over and over, absolutely cooking Denver en route to a win and a sweep.

It doesn’t matter what Denver does or how the Suns constructed the pick-and-roll, Paul was going to get to that spot to rise and fire. He got there off of screens to the right, screens to the left, and double drags. He faced drop and blitzes, guys going over and under, and it simply didn’t matter. It was a virtuoso performance from one of basketball’s all-time great maestros. Paul, at 36 years old, is seemingly at the peak of his powers when it comes to controlling a game and in Game 4, that meant taking over as a scorer to get his team to the conference finals, spamming the same play over and over to get what he wanted every time.

The Phoenix Suns entered Game 4 in Denver hoping to close things out on the road, and got off to a strong start in their quest to do so, taking a 20-10 lead at one point to put the Nuggets in an early hole.

As has been the case for a few years now, the Nuggets showed their resilience and made little runs throughout the first half to keep things close, but they could never fully reel in the Suns, who always seemed capable of coming up with a timely bucket or stop whenever Denver would pull within a score or two as Nikola Jokic and Devin Booker dueled early with the Suns up eight at the half.

The Nuggets making runs to no avail was was a theme throughout the game, as it was clear that Chris Paul and Devin Booker were looking at Game 4 as their opportunity to get this series over with and rest up before a showdown in the conference finals with either the Jazz or the Clippers. In the third quarter, Paul in particular was marvelous, running pick-and-roll after pick-and-roll to get to his spot on the right elbow where he was 6-for-6 from in the quarter, including hitting a fading midrange shot on four straight possessions at one point, literally toying with the Nuggets.

Then, things turned dramatically in the third when Nikola Jokic got ejected for a Flagrant 2 after winding up to foul Cam Payne out of frustration, hammering the Suns reserve guard in the face on his way down to the ball.

Denver fought admirably from that point on, but similarly to the first three quarters, every run they made to get within a possession earned a response from the Suns’ dynamic duo. Chris Paul put, effectively, the dagger in with a drive all the way to the rim as Denver finally stepped up to stop his pull-up jumper and Phoenix countered with an extra back screen to get Paul to the hoop instead.

Paul finished the game with a game-high 37 points, seven assists, three rebounds, and two steals, doing so on insane efficiency as he was 14-of-19 from the field, 9-of-9 from the free throw line, and had just two turnovers on the night in what became a 125-118 Suns win. Booker was terrific as well with 34 points, 10 rebounds, and five assists, providing the first half lift before letting Paul take over in closing time. The Suns now head into the conference finals with immense confidence, as they simply dismantled a good Denver team that, while missing some backcourt depth, had just outplayed a great backcourt team in Portland. The Suns showed their tremendous balance in this series, with Chris Paul looking as good as ever, clearly feeling good after the shoulder issue in the Lakers series.

Denver now enters the offseason with a bit of a conundrum. They were without their second-best player in Jamal Murray and made it to the conference semis, and also were without some key perimeter depth as well. However, the same flaws that crept up against the Lakers were apparent against the Suns as they could not get a stop against great 1-on-1 and pick-and-roll players, which seemingly puts a ceiling on how good they can be, fully healthy or not. How they proceed will be interesting, with plenty of reason to believe they could run it back but on the flip side, plenty of reason to believe changes — and fairly significant ones — are needed.

The Denver Nuggets scrapped throughout the first three quarters of Game 4 as they tried to stave off elimination, but as the Suns kept pushing every comeback attempt away — often with Chris Paul hitting jumper after jumper — frustration began to build for a Denver team on the verge of being swept.

Down 8 in the third quarter, Nikola Jokic felt he had gotten fouled and lost it, taking a frustration foul in the backcourt on Cameron Payne, but did so with a violent swing that caught Payne across the face, sparking a brief kerfuffle in which Devin Booker got in Jokic’s face, who seemed ready to rumble with the Suns star if need be.

You can see from this angle how Jokic wound up and swung down on Payne, hitting him across the nose which left the Suns reserve guard down on the ground for some time although he would stay in the game to hit his free throws.

The hard hit to the face and the manner in which he wound up earned Jokic an ejection for a Flagrant 2 foul and it seemed likely that the MVP’s spectacular season would end on the most sour of notes with a terrible decision to go at Payne the way he did. Jokic would apologize to Payne before he left the floor, with the Nuggets season all but walking out the door with him.

Kayleigh McEnany was Donald Trump’s fourth and arguably most destructive press secretary, who many believed was somehow able to top the cartoon villainy of Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee Sanders. (His third, Stephanie Grisham, perhaps wisely kept a low profile, which is to say she almost never did her job, which is speaking to the press.) She was rude, she was condescending, and she was always spinning the truth, attempting to protect her frequently lawless employer. (She also seems to be pretty bitter about her successor.) So when she told a crowd she’d never lied on the job, people online were quick to call bull.

As per Newsweek, the Trump staffer — who, of course, wound up at Fox News — was speaking Sunday at the Young Women’s Leadership Summit, put on by the conservative group Turning Point USA. She recalled one of her most infamous moments: Her first day on the job, back in May 2020, when a journalist, already burned by her three predecessors, asked her a blunt question: “Will you pledge to never lie to us from the podium?”

McEnany’s replied, simply, “I will never lie to you.” The line earned her instant infamy, and she proceeded to spend the next three-quarters of a year telling one whopper after another.

But McEnany didn’t see it that way. She told her own version of the story, in which she was relentlessly on-the-level with journalists trying to relay information from a famously shifty administration. She reminisced about being asked that question, looking back with rose-colored glasses.

“And I said without hesitation, ‘No,’” McEnany said. “And I never did. As a woman of faith, as a mother of baby Blake, as a person who meticulously prepared at some of the world’s hardest institutions, I never lied. I sourced my information. But that will never top the press from calling me a liar.”

She also revealed the administration’s alleged take on their quite scabrous relationship with the press. “Our motto was this: ‘Offense only,’” McEnany told the crowd. “Because I knew what we were up against. Republicans always get the bad headlines, always get the false stories, always get the lies—if I can use that word—told by the press. There is one standard for Democrats and another for Republicans. And we must be on offense.”

When news of McEnany’s appearance made its way onto social media, her spin on her White House tenure was treated with, shall we say, skepticism.

Raw Story even compiled a helpful list of the many times McEnany fibbed on the job.

And so it seems the former Trump staffers, much like their old boss, continues to act like they’re still on the job.

(Via Newsweek)

Ned Beatty, one of the most consistently jolly character actors in movies over the last half decade, has passed away, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 83.

Born in Kentucky, Beatty first got involved in entertainment as a young a cappella singer. He even scored a scholarship due to his vocal gifts. But he transitioned into stage work instead, and by his mid-30s he’d pivoted into screen work as well. His film debut turned heads: He played one of the bougie Northerners canoeing through the bayou in 1972’s Deliverance. He played the character whose violation became one of the era’s most disturbing scenes. It instantly cemented him as a go-to supporting scene-stealer until his retirement some four decades later.

Good-natured and lovable, even when playing squirrelly ne’er-do-wells, Beatty alternated between genre fare, like the Burt Reynolds vehicles White Lightning and Stoker Ace as well as the Richard Pryor-Gene Wilder action comedy Silver Streak, and more serious fare, like Nashville and All the President’s Men. In the scorching satire Network, his one-scene wonder earned him his first and only Academy Award nomination.

Beatty was also at the ground floor of the modern superhero movie era, serving as the comic relief sidekick to Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor in the first two Superman films, from 1978 and 1980. He spent decades popping up to sprinkle pixie dust over movies as diverse as Back to School, Rudy, He Got Game, and Toy Story 3, in which he played the villainous Lots-O-Huggin’ Bear.

Like most character actors, Beatty was a regular on TV as well, and he would swing by the likes of Kojak, The Rockford Files, M*A*S*H, Hawaii 5-O, and Murder, She Wrote. (He would have made a terrific Columbo baddie.) He was an occasional guest on Roseanne, playing father to John Goodman’s Dan Conner, and he spent 33 episodes amidst the top shelf ensemble cast of Homicide: Life on the Street. His final screen role was in 2013’s Baggage Claim.

To answer one possible question: No, he had no relation to Warren Beatty. (Ditto Shirley MacLaine.) When asked, as he often was, he had a wry answer perfectly in keeping with the benevolent persona he created onscreen. He called him his “illegitimate uncle.”

(Via THR)

The trailer for Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin revealed by Square Enix at E3 on Sunday is spectacular. Unfortunately, it is not spectacular for the reasons that the developers probably intended. It, by the name and appearance of the game, appears to be a modern retelling of the original Final Fantasy story. Right now we don’t know for certain, but there’s definitely some elements to it based on how developers describe the game.

Via The Verge.

With the memory of their struggle buried deep in their hearts… Jack and his allies, Ash and Jed, burn with resolve to defeat Chaos as they throw open the gates to the Chaos Shrine. Yet doubts remain — are they truly the Warriors of Light the prophecy foretold?  Step into a world of dark fantasy and revel in the exhilarating, action-packed battles.

It all sounds a lot like the original Final Fantasy, but the way the game looks is definitely not that beloved title. For starters, the game itself is an action-oriented hack and slasher with a very Dark Souls feel to it. That in itself isn’t the problem. Making an action spin-off of Final Fantasy is fine, especially with how much more action-focused the gameplay was in Final Fantasy XV. But the issue in the trailer is some wonky dialogue dialogue, with a one-note main character and heavy usage of the word “chaos.”

None of this is to say that Final Fantasy Origin will be bad. The plot can be ridiculous and the writing can be poor, but as long as the game is fun to play then that is enough. But it looks especially jarring when the trailer is revealed on the same day that Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster was announced.

Coming to mobile and steam, players will be able to go through remasters of all their favorite Final Fantasy titles from the NES and SNES. Unlike previous remakes, however, this is just going to be a remaster of those original pixels. Players that never got to experience the original sprites of games like Final Fantasy 3, which never got a Western release in pixel format, will finally be able to experience these games as they were originally designed. That is an experience that many video game fans have been begging to have for years. The only downside is all these games will likely be sold separately instead of in a package deal. Not a dealbreaker by any means, but a little unfortunate.

These two announcements is really Final Fantasy at its best and worst. The original Final Fantasy games are classics, and while some haven’t aged as well as others, they’re still worth experiencing. Stranger of Paradise, on the other hand, is a new take on the franchise that seems more focused on flash and less on the story. This is unfortunate because so many gamers got into this franchise for the story in the first place. Hopefully, the original trailer was just a misrepresentation of what it’s going to actually be. If not, well at least we have Pixel Remaster to enjoy instead.

The Milwaukee Bucks clawed their way back into their second round series with the Brooklyn Nets with a hard fought, 86-83 win in Game 3 to make it a 2-1 series deficit with a chance to even things up with another home game in Game 4. After Milwaukee jumped on Brooklyn early in Game 3, taking a 30-9 lead and then holding on the rest of the way, it was the Nets who jumped out early to a 9-2 advantage in Game 4 thanks to some tremendous shot-making from Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.

The Bucks would settle in from there, though, and the hyper-competitive series we had expected from the beginning seemed to be taking shape, as the two teams traded runs — first a 13-0 from Brooklyn followed by a 12-0 from Milwaukee — to trade leads in the first half.

However, Game 4 shifted dramatically in the second quarter, though, when Kyrie landed on Giannis’ foot in the paint and suffered a sprained right ankle, forcing him out for the remainder of the game and leaving his longterm status in question.

The Nets were able to hold on to keep the deficit to three at the half, but it was clear it would take a Herculean effort from Kevin Durant to keep their offense running at a level to keep pace with the Bucks in the second half.

In the third quarter, the Bucks started to assert their will as the Nets struggled to score without Irving, pulling ahead by as many as 16 on a couple of occasions. Brooklyn clawed their way back late thanks to a run sparked by KD, who found his way to the free throw line to get in rhythm and then made some incredibly tough shots, including this scramble drill baseline jumper to cut the lead to nine with just six seconds to play in the quarter.

That suddenly made things seem like they would be very interesting going into the fourth, but Khris Middleton ensured Milwaukee entered the final frame with a double-digit lead, hitting a ridiculous three over what seemed like the entire Nets team at the buzzer.

The two teams traded shots early in the fourth, but the Bucks started to pull away again as Brooklyn simply struggled to keep up on the offensive end. Milwaukee took as much as a 19-point lead after threes from Khris Middleton and then Jrue Holiday with six minutes to play, and it seemed as though it might be curtains on the Nets in Game 4.

To Brooklyn’s credit, they continued battling, but weren’t able to get the led any closer than 13 with just over five minutes to play before Steve Nash pulled the plug on the starters and inserted a five-man bench unit with 4:28 to play and Brooklyn trailing 99-84. The Bucks left their starting unit out there for another minute and Giannis put an exclamation point on the victory with a vicious block on one end followed by a thunderous alley-oop dunk on the other to give him 34 points and 12 rebounds on an afternoon where he was a +29 in his 38 minutes of action.

Milwaukee would then empty its bench with just over three minutes to play, eventually cruising to a 107-96 win to even the series at two games apiece going back to Brooklyn. Given where the series was when they left Barclays Center last week, things have shifted dramatically to where, given Irving and Harden’s injuries, the Bucks will likely find themselves as the betting favorites to win the series. The Nets certainly still have a chance, as does any team that can deploy Kevin Durant, but so much of what happens the rest of the way in this series will be determined by the injuries to their two star guards.

Harden has been able to do some on-court work, but Steve Nash indicated before Game 4 that he still has a number of hurdles yet to clear in his rehab before he would be able to play in a game. Irving, meanwhile, will surely undergo further testing and an MRI to determine the extent of his ankle sprain, but given the pain he was in leaving Game 4, it would be fairly stunning if he was a go for Game 5 back in Brooklyn.

The Disney+ cycle of Marvel limited series has moved on from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier to Loki, with new episodes following the trickster god coming out on Wednesdays over the next few weeks. But fans of the MCU are still buzzing about WandaVision, and we’re starting to learn more about how secretive things were in the show’s casting process.

In fact, one pivotal actor in the show’s limited run essentially had no idea what she was auditioning for. Teyonah Parris, who played Monica Rambeau and helped set the stage for various other parts of the MCU in the process, apparently had little context and “no clue” what the connection was between the scenes she used in her audition.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Parris talked about a number of things, including her great stretch as Dawn on Mad Men. But the main part of the interview was about WandaVision, and she the way she describes it, landing the part sounds… confusing. When asked about the audition, she revealed that she didn’t know very much at all. Mild spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen the show.

I knew it was Marvel, but that’s about it. I didn’t know the context, just the sides for what I now know was the scene between Monica, as Geraldine, and Wanda [Elizabeth Olsen], when Wanda’s water breaks and that stork was walking around, and the scene where Monica wakes up from the blip. Imagine being given those two scenes and told it’s the same character! I had no clue. So, I had to play broad sitcom and drama.

It’s funny to imagine those very different characters being in the same universe, but given that she took part in both realities during WandaVision, it’s no surprise that Parris was able to handle the casting process. And with Rambeau teased as having a big future in the MCU, it’s likely we’ll see a lot more of her in the future.

[via Hollywood Reporter]