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It’s been a rough year for hoops. The NBA suffered through a four-month hiatus, and even though the season has successfully resumed in Orlando and the postseason is underway, the circumstances are wildly different from what we’re all accustomed to, and that could be the case for the foreseeable future.

Still, the basketball goods have seen fit to bless us with a first-round matchup that pits the Rockets against the Thunder, a series loaded with intrigue and juggling so many storylines that it’s hard to keep track of all the narrative threads. We’ll get our first taste of it when Game 1 tips off on Tuesday afternoon.

But as far as the interpersonal drama is concerned, James Harden, for his part, claims that he isn’t subscribing to the notion that there’s lingering animosity between him and former teammate Chris Paul, who the Rockets traded to the Thunder last summer for Russell Westbrook.

Via Ben DuBose of Rockets Wire:

“I don’t ever take anything personal. I’m trying to win games, and I’m trying to win a playoff series. I take it one possession at a time, one game at a time.

My role on this team is to go out and perform at a high level, but also to be a leader and make sure that guys that are around me all have that same mindset. If I can do that, then I can give us a chance to win, especially with Russell [Westbrook] being out.”

Paul also tried to downplay in a recent interview with Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, admitting that the two don’t communicate with each other but also saying that it doesn’t necessarily mean that they have beef with one another.

During their tenure in Houston, the Rockets came close to ending the Warriors’ run but ultimately fell short, in part because of untimely injuries. Game 1 of the Rockets-Thunder series in Orlando kicks off at 6:30 ET on TNT.

(Rockets Wire)

f nothing below suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

Looney Tunes (HBO Max) — If you need some comfort food tonight (and let’s face it, who doesn’t?) the good news is that one of HBO Max’s most anticipated offerings is adding a new batch of classic episodes to the collection tonight. Take a left turn at Albuquerque and meet us there.

The Democratic National Convention (Everywhere, all night) — The largely remote political event continues with the presidential roll call vote, along with speakers including Stacey Abrams and Conor Lamb, as well as Bill Clinton, Jill Biden, Chuck Schumer, Sally Yates, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

If you’re looking for comedy as a distraction, Netflix has several new-ish stand-up specials that you may have missed:

Eric Andre: Legalize Everything — This New Orleans-filmed special shows Eric Andre once again busting through comedic boundaries while taking on the wars on sex, drugs, and… fart jokes? Alright. Seriously though, It’s the best comedy special of the year and highly relevant to the U.S. police-related discussion today.

Jim Jefferies: Intolerant — The Aussie comedian (who remains notorious for his gun-control opinion) pulls a 180 from where he was five years ago. He’s less focused on issues these days and grows incredibly banal at times, but he’s still uproariously funny. While reflecting upon the state of comedy today, he manages to dole out some hefty insight on life while telling an epic tale of the pursuit of lactose at all costs.

Rob Schneider: Asian Momma, Mexican Kids (Netflix stand-up special) — After all these years (and Adam Sandler movies), Rob Schneider’s first Netflix special has arrived to take on adulthood. Did you know that his daughter is Elle King? She shows up for an ending diet with dad.

Pete Davidson: Alive From New York — From SNL to a ton of upcoming movies, Pete Davidson’s doing everything, and now, he’s got his very first Netflix original comedy special. Yes, he’s dropping all kinds of unfiltered anecdotes on everything from his SNL-related discomfort to his Louis C.K. beef and Ariana Grande relationship.

Patton Oswalt: I Love Everything — The Emmy and Grammy winning comedian brings his newest comedy special to the streaming giant. Look forward to anecdotes involving a full-scale Millennium Falcon replica and how home buying gets tied to the term “suicide squad.” Stick around for the post-credits bonus, in which Patton introduces another one-hour comedy special, Bob Rubin: Oddities & Rarities.

Jerry Seinfeld: 23 Hours To Kill — The legendary Jerry Seinfeld has dropped his second Netflix special. Expect him to keep mining everyday life to unveil comedy in the commonplace. Although the title of this special feels Bond-esque, Seinfeld doesn’t disappoint those expecting his trademarked sharp perceptions about everyday life.

Sam Jay: 3 In The Morning (Netflix standup special) — For her first hour-long comedy special with the streaming giant, SNL writer Sam Jay headed to Atlanta, Georgia to get witty, candid, and raw at The Masquerade club.

Marc Maron: End Times Fun — The long-time standup comic, GLOW star, and prolific podcaster unleashes his latest comedy special. Expect Maron’s thoughts on cell phones, vaccinations, and Tumeric. Oh, and he’s definitely talking about his ongoing beef with Marvel movie fans.

George Lopez: We’ll Do It For Half (Netflix stand-up special, Tuesday) — Somehow, this is Lopez’s first Netflix comedy special despite his storied stand-up roots. In one hour, Lopez dives into lessons that he’s learned from the Latino community, along with issues related to emotional support animals, gender reveal parties, and elevator etiquette.

Hannah Gadsby: Douglas (Netflix stand-up special) — The newest Netflix comedy special arrives today with Hannah Gadsby following up on Nanette with a second turn named after one of her dogs. Gadsby’s hope was that Douglas would “inspire comedy disobedience,” according to Netflix, and this LA-filmed special promises to upend all expectations.

The Bucks hadn’t looked especially good in the Disney Bubble restart, but the expectation was that when the playoffs started and they squared off with the 8-seeded Magic, who limped home with a 1-5 record in their final six games of the seeding round, they would get back to their dominant ways.

Orlando, however, had different ideas, and much like last year’s first round when they took Game 1 off of the eventual champion Toronto Raptors, the Magic looked terrific in the opener against Milwaukee, stunning the Bucks in a 122-110 win.

Despite being without Aaron Gordon, Orlando jumped on the Bucks after falling to an early deficit thanks to an 18-2 run that saw Milwaukee sloppily turning the ball over and unable to prevent the Magic from getting open looks, as the likes Markelle Fultz and Gary Clark, both of whom had 15 points on the night, hit big shots early.

The one player the Magic know they can count on for production any given night is Nikola Vucevic, and he stepped up in a big way, scoring 35 points (a playoff career-high) to go along with 14 rebounds as he lit up the Bucks defense to the tune of a 15-for-24 shooting night and hitting 5-of-8 from three-point range.

The Magic took a 10-point lead into the break and, as expected, the Bucks came out hot to start the third quarter, erasing that deficit fairly quickly, but Orlando refused to fold, building back a 13-point lead entering the fourth quarter. In the final period, seemingly every time the Bucks got a couple buckets to inch closer to Orlando, someone on the Magic, from D.J. Augustin (11 points) to Terrance Ross (18 points), hit a big shot to keep Milwaukee at arms length.

For the Bucks, it was Giannis Antetokounmpo doing a little of everything with 31 points, 17 rebounds, and seven assists, but he got little in the way of support from the rest of his teammates. Khris Middleton struggled mightily to the tune of just 14 points on 4-of-12 shooting, showing visible frustration late as he was just unable to find his rhythm. As a team, Milwaukee shot just 14-of-42 (31.7%) from three-point range, with Giannis leading the way at a 3-of-7 clip. It was a woeful performance from just about everyone else on the Bucks, which they obviously need to clean up along the way.

The dagger, as it were, came in the form of back-to-back threes Evan Fournier, who was quiet much of the night before scoring all nine of his points in the fourth, buried two straight threes to extend the Magic lead to 118-102.

The question now is how do the Bucks respond to a rather humiliating loss. This is a team that needs to exorcise some postseason demons of the past and this kind of loss can either serve as a wake up call to bring back the dominant team from the regular season or sow seeds of doubt and a “here we go again” feeling. There’s much to work on for Milwaukee on both ends, where their offense can get painfully stagnant and they have yet to find the defensive cohesion that made them the league’s best on that end in the regular season.

For Orlando, it’ll be all about keeping these vibes going into the next game. They shot 39 percent from three-point range and against a Bucks defense that is happy to provide second and third options with looks, continuing that is the recipe for winning. Despite Giannis’ productive night, they did well keeping Milwaukee out of transition and limited Giannis to just nine free throw attempts, as Steve Clifford had a masterful gameplan in place for the Bucks and their MVP.

Rich Brian follows up his quarantine hit “Bali” with a defiant new single, “Don’t Care.” The song, produced by Brian himself, features a percolating, synth-heavy beat, over which Brian ruminates about haters and the like, brushing them off with the confidence and swagger he’s developed since making his way into the rap game all the way from Jakarta, Indonesia.

While the song’s hook acknowledges the troubles that pester him, Brian’s warbling chorus declares his freedom from stressing over them. “I don’t really care what they say,” he croons. “It’s just another day.” The uplifting track also features a music video that finds Brian wandering California’s Zuma Ridge Trail at dusk, getting lost in his thoughts and distancing himself from the anxieties of fast-paced modern life.

“Don’t Care,” along with “Bali,” “Changes,” and “Love In My Pocket,” is presumed to appear on Brian’s upcoming EP, 1999. It’ll be his first project since 2019’s The Sailor and is set for release August 25. Brian also made waves this summer with his “Tokyo Drift Freestyle” video, borrowing the beat from the theme song of the popular film franchises’ third installment and filming himself around his house as he isolated himself during the early days of the US outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Brian was also a critical part of 88Rising’s fifth anniversary livestream and its accompanying film.

Watch to Rich Brian’s “Don’t Care” video above.

1999 is due 8/25 via 88rising. Pre-save it here.

Mike Lindell is the CEO and founder of MyPillow, and more importantly, not a medical doctor. So when the very vocal Trump supporter started touting an oleander extract as a “miracle cure for COVID-19,” skepticism is the proper response, and CNN’s Anderson Cooper brought plenty of it during an on-air confrontation with Lindell on Tuesday.

In short, oleander is highly toxic. It is literally poison. So when Lindell tried to argue with Cooper that it’s the “miracle of all time,” and that he’s safely tested it on a a thousand people, the CNN anchor wasn’t having any of it. After noting that Lindell has a direct financial interest in pitching the “miracle cure” to the president in an effort to get it approved by the FDA, Cooper went off on the MyPillow CEO. Via The Daily Beast:

“You have no medical background,” Cooper exclaimed as Lindell objected. “You are not a scientist. A guy called in April saying he had this product. You are now on the board and going to make money from the sale of this product.”

“The reason he reached out to you is because you have the ear of the president and could get a meeting with the president and you stand to make money from it,” the veteran newsman added. “How do you sleep at night?!”

It only got more brutal from there. Cooper went on to call Lindell a “snake-oil salesman” and highlighted his F-rating with the Better Business Bureau, along with MyPillow’s recent settlement for “deceptive marketing.” In response, Lindell said he’s merely doing what Jesus wants him to do, which went over real well with Cooper:

“Jesus wants you promoting remedies that are never tested?” Cooper shot back.

“Ask yourself, why would I ruin my reputation?” Lindell countered.

“Money,” the anchor replied.

You can watch Anderson Cooper tear apart Lindell below:

(Via CNN, The Daily Beast)

Flatbush Zombies only gave fans a short warning before dropping their six-track EP Now, More Than Ever last June. After sharing the project, Flatbush Zombies dropped yet another single, “Afterlife,” with a beat produced by James Blake. While Blake’s collaboration with the group seems out of left field, the musician actually has quite a close relationship with the group.

In a recent interview with Complex‘s Pigeons & Planes, Flatbush members revealed they are working on an upcoming full-length release produced by Blake. Erick Arc Elliott spoke highly of the musician, calling him “a spiritual guiding being:”

“The first thing I’m going to say is that James Blake is not a human being. He’s an entity. He’s a spiritual guiding being. He’s one of my closest friends, man. More than music, this guy introduced me to so much about myself and how to really improve as a producer. It’s a certain level of respect and courtesy that you show and give to people, especially him coming into our situation, where I’m the sole producer. He didn’t want to stray us to anything that we weren’t comfortable with, but also he wanted to put us in a new place.

I’m looking for someone who’s not scared to take the risk, and also passionate about his shit enough to be like, ‘Yo, here’s what I think you should do.’ The respect for the music and the love for the music makes me automatically open my ears to say, ‘What you got?’ This was about two years ago, we met each other. Ever since then, I feel like I’ve reached new heights of production. […] James gave me the chance to develop as a lyricist and a writer.”

Read the full Flatbush Zombies interview here.

Now, More Than Ever is out now via Glorious Dead. Get it here.

Nas started teasing his new album, King’s Disease, last week with the release of his Doja Cat-dissing “Ultra Black,” and now he has unveiled more info. Today, the legendary rapper has shared the tracklist for his upcoming thirteenth album.

The project runs for a concise 13 tracks and features assists from Anderson .Paak, Big Sean, Charlie Wilson, Hit-Boy, Don Toliver, Lil Durk, Brucie B., The Firm, Fivio Foreign, and ASAP Ferg.

The .Paak-featuring “All Bad” could have perhaps been one of the results of a studio session that .Paak had to leave early back in December. .Paak told James Corden on a recent Late Late Show, “The only thing is I had a session with Dr. Dre and Kanye West right before, and I had to leave that session early to get to The Price Is Right. I didn’t want to tell them I had to go to The Price Is Right. I was like, ‘Yo, I got this thing I got to do, you know…’ We got the work done, but man, it was the craziest day of my life: That session, going from there to The Price Is Right… it was amazing.”

Check out the King’s Disease art and tracklist below.

1. “King’s Disease”
2. “Blue Benz”
3. “Car #85” Feat. Charlie Wilson
4. “Ultra Black” Feat. Hit-Boy
5. “27 Summers”
6. “Replace Me” Feat. Don Toliver and Big Sean
7. “Til The War Is Won” Feat. Lil Durk
8. “All Bad” Feat. Anderson .Paak
9. “The Definition” Feat. Brucie B.
10. “Full Circle” Feat. The Firm
11. “10 Points”
12. “The Cure”
13. “Spicy” Feat. Fivio Foreign and ASAP Ferg

King’s Disease is out 8/21 via Mass Appeal.

The NBA Playoffs kicked off on Monday in Orlando with a four-game slate, and they didn’t waste anytime at all before we had our first fireworks of the opening round, with Donovan Mitchell putting on a historic 57-point performance, despite Utah dropping Game 1 to the Nuggets.

The Jazz, of course, are without two key players in this series, with Bojan Bogdonavic out for the season and Mike Conley exiting the bubble over the weekend for the birth of his son, Elijah. Initial reports indicated that Conley would likely miss much of their first-round series against Denver having left the Bubble and needing to quarantine upon return.

But Utah got some promising news on Tuesday. According to the latest reports, Conley returned to Orlando on Monday night, and the Jazz are hoping to have him back in the lineup for Game 3 on Friday, rather than having to wait to Game 4 on Sunday.

Via Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN:

The Jazz confirmed that Conley had returned to campus on Tuesday afternoon. There’s an expectation that he could be able to pass four coronavirus tests in the window prior to the 4 p.m. ET Game 3 in the first-round Western Conference playoff series, sources said.

The NBA researches a player’s contacts and possible exposure while outside the bubble, but Conley’s exit on Sunday morning to join his wife in a Columbus, Ohio, hospital for the birth of their son Elijah Michael likely makes his case stronger for the shorter four-day quarantine period.

Conley, who had struggled to find his rhythm in Utah before the hiatus, has had something of a resurgence since the eight seeding games started, averaging 18 points per game and five assists. His return to the lineup would alleviate some of the immense offensive pressure facing Donovan Mitchell, who showed exactly how much he has to do in Game 1.

Kristin Urquiza isn’t running for the House of Representatives or the Senate. She isn’t a governor or up-and-coming mayor. But her speech on the first night of the Democratic National Convention was one of its most moving.

Kristin lost her father, Mark, in June to COVID-19. In her speech, she shared how it wouldn’t have happened if President Trump and his “mouthpieces” spoke honestly about the seriousness of the pandemic.

“He had faith in Donald Trump,” she said. “[He] listened to him, believed him and his mouthpieces when they said that coronavirus was under control and going to disappear; that it was OK to end social distancing rules before it was safe and that if you had no underlying health conditions.”

Kristin Urquiza speech at the Democratic Convention | Joe Biden For President 2020

www.youtube.com

Mark went out to a karaoke bar in May, right after the state of Arizona prematurely reopened businesses, and contracted COVID-19. He was placed on a ventilator and died June 30.

“After five agonizing days, he died alone in the ICU with a nurse holding his hand,” she said.

Dealing with the death of a family member is devastating for anyone, but for the Urquiza family it was even worse because they couldn’t comfort him while he was in the hospital.

Kristen said goodbye to him over Facetime.

“One of the last things that my father said to me was that he felt betrayed by the likes of Donald Trump,” Urquiza said. “And so, when I cast my vote for Joe Biden, I will do it for my dad.”

Urquiza belives that Trump didn’t cause the virus, “but his dishonesty and his irresponsible actions made it so much worse.”

“The coronavirus has made clear that there are two Americas: the America that Donald Trump lives in and the America that my father died in,” she said.

Trump’s False Statements on COVID-19 Testing, A Supercut | NowThis

www.youtube.com

Kristen’s testimony was powerful because it proves that there are real-world consequences when people in power lie.

Trump has been one of the most dishonest politicians in recent history. As of July 2020, The Washington Post has counted Trump lying over 20,000 times. Even though it’s blatantly obvious to most people in the country that he shouldn’t be trusted on any issue — let alone a deadly pandemic — there are millions who still take his word as gospel.

A recent poll by NBC News found that “58 percent of Americans say they don’t trust what Trump has said about the pandemic, while 31 percent say they do trust his comments.”

Trump’s reckless dishonesty makes him an accomplice to the deaths of tens of thousands of people, one of them being Mark Urquiza.

In early February, Trump claimed the virus would weaken “when we get to April, in the warmer weather.” Later that month, he said it would “disappear” one day, “like a miracle.”

In June, he claimed the virus was “fading away” and in July it was “under control.”

Kristin Urquiza will long be remembered for putting a face to the COVID-19 pandemic. Let’s hope that her tragic story will make those in power think a second time before lying about serious, life-or-death issues.

If you missed Michelle Obama’s speech during the opening night of the Democratic National Committee convention, you truly missed out. In a prerecorded speech, the former first lady managed to hit just the right balance of empathy and honesty that’s so badly missing from most of politics today. The fact that she’s not a politician and doesn’t even particularly care for politics, yet has a more intimate knowledge of the job of President of the United States than most, makes her a powerful voice at this juncture.

And she used that voice to speak directly to the American people, to call on our better angels and explain why this election matters. She pointed out that Joe Biden knows how to bring back an economy and beat back a pandemic—he helped do both during his eight years in the vice presidency. And in a somewhat uncharacteristic move, she explicitly named Donald Trump—not pointing to his many character flaws, his problematic policies, and the thousands of lies he has told, but making the simple case that he has proven he can’t do the job we need him to do.

“Let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can,” she said. “Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.”

She also referred to her previously viral statement, “When they go low, we go high,” pointing out that it doesn’t mean to overlook the very real problems present in our politics.

“Going high does not mean putting on a smile and saying nice things when confronted by viciousness and cruelty,” she said. “Going high means unlocking the shackles of lies and mistrust with the only thing that can truly set us free: the cold hard truth.”

The speech drew widespread praise, even from unlikely sources. Fox New anchors Chris Wallace and Dana Perino both lauded Obama for the authentic, effective way she addressed the nation and made the case for Biden.

“You got the sense when you talk about authenticity, she has it in spades,” said Perino (who served as President George W. Bush’s press secretary). “She has that voice, she has clarity, and she knows what she is out there wanting to do. She was trying to get everybody to really focus and then she had a call to action: Ask for your ballot tonight.”

“I think that the DNC, if they look over the course of the night—the first virtual convention of our history—I think they would say that Michelle Obama stuck the landing,” she added.

Wallace was a bit more colorful in his commentary, calling her speech “effective” and “a heck of a contribution.”

“She really flayed, sliced and diced Donald Trump, talking about the chaos and confusion and lack of empathy, especially coming from this president and this White House. Spoke more about the deficits of Donald Trump than the pluses of Joe Biden, but did talk about especially, not so much policies, but especially his empathy and what he has been through and his care for average Americans.”

You know when Fox News heaps praise on a DNC speech, something historic just happened. Though, of course, the network did manage to have at least one of their big names throw in some criticism.

Obama opponents tried their best to deflect from the near-universal positive reactions to her speech by circulating a video from 2013 of Michelle Obama praising Harvey Weinstein, but such attempts fall flat when it takes ten seconds to find multiple photos and videos of Donald Trump with both Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein. The sad truth is that most of us probably know and admire people who are slimy sexual assaulters behind closed doors. Praising or hanging out with someone before we find out their true nature can be forgiven. Offering well wishes to publicly known and charged child sex traffickers, as Trump recently did with Epstein partner Ghislaine Maxwell, is far more problematic.

But that’s another story.

Last night, Michelle Obama proved once again that she has her finger on the pulse of America far more than practically anyone else associated with politics. She’s the world’s most admired woman for a reason, and her DNC speech drove that reason home.