GoneTrending

In case his performances in the first three games of the series weren’t enough, Luka Doncic announced his arrival on the NBA’s biggest stage with an exclamation point on Sunday evening in Orlando. The second-year star had 43 points, 17 rebounds, and 13 assists, including burying the game-winner in overtime at the buzzer with a stepback three over Reggie Jackson after the Clippers had just taken a one-point advantage.

It was the kind of shot that lives on highlight reels for perpetuity, and it’s one that ensured everyone in the league took notice of what the Slovenian sensation is doing. That he did it against a Clippers team that most believe is one of the top three title contenders in the league — with some of the league’s best wing defenders — only further amplifies what he’s doing. Doncic is already on the shortlist of the league’s best players, and almost all of the others that populate that list were dialed in to his performance on Sunday.

When his stepback three dropped, LeBron James, Steph Curry, Damian Lillard, Bradley Beal, and a whole host of NBA stars reacted like every fan at home, hopping on Twitter to share their thoughts and reaction to an unbelievable shot from a budding superstar in the league.

https://twitter.com/Dame_Lillard/status/1297664572883709953https://twitter.com/RealDealBeal23/status/1297663841329963011

It’s always cool to see the best in the league giving flowers to the next generation of stars when they are doing incredible things on the floor, and there’s little doubt Doncic will be providing jaw-dropping moments on the court for years to come.

The Mavericks entered Game 4 of their first round series with the Clippers down 2-1 and with their superstar Luka Doncic battling a sprained left ankle that had him listed as a gametime decision. Doncic would be cleared to play, but Dallas saw its other young star, Kristaps Porzingis, end up as a late scratch with knee soreness. To start the game, it looked like the Mavs playoff hopes might end up being squashed on Sunday afternoon.

The Clippers ran out to a 21-point lead in the mid-second quarter and there seemed to be little in the way of hope for the Mavs. Kawhi Leonard and Lou Williams led the way for the L.A. offense, as Williams erupted for his best performance of the Bubble, a positive sign for a team that could use his on-ball creation. However, the Mavs crept back into the game, closing the deficit to just eight at the half and then came out on a tear in the third quarter, led by Doncic, to take an eight-point lead into the fourth quarter.It was Leonard and Williams who pulled the Clippers back into the game down the stretch to force overtime, where L.A. took a late 133-132 lead after Leonard found Marcus Morris Sr. in the corner for the go-ahead bucket with nine seconds to play.

But this was a game where Doncic was not going to be denied, as the Slovenian superstar had 43 points, 17 rebounds, and 13 assists. His final act was one of sheer brilliance, as he took the inbound on the Mavs final possession, got to his spot deep on the left wing, and drilled a stepback game-winner between the eyes of Reggie Jackson to give Dallas a 135-133 victory and even the series at 2-2.

Doncic’s performance all night was sublime, as he kept Dallas ahead late in the fourth quarter with a pair of deep threes, and even played some strong defense on Paul George.

He had a few ridiculous passes, as we’ve come to expect from the young All-Star, and he went toe to toe with one of the game’s very best in Leonard, who, while George remains lost in the wilderness, showed in Game 4 why he’s still so hard to beat. Leonard hit big buckets late in the fourth and to open overtime, while also putting the clamps on Doncic on a couple key late possessions.

On this Sunday evening, it was Doncic’s time to shine as he showed little in the way of ill-effects of his sprained ankle on the court and powered this Mavs team — with some big help from Tim Hardaway Jr. and Trey Burke — past tremendous outings from Leonard and Williams, who combined for 68 points in the loss.

John Oliver has a tendency to go off. Each episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight finds the former Daily Show correspondent zeroing in on an important subject and unrelentingly calling out those he thinks makes life for all of us worse than it is already. He’s also prone to absurdist asides. One of those came during Oliver’s most recent episode, when he singled out a Connecticut city for scorn and wound up getting met in kind by its current mayor.

This comes from The Hollywood Reporter, who noted that Oliver had brought up Danbury, Connecticut during an episode about racial disparities in jury selection. While speaking about how Danbury is one of many sources of this problem, he made sure to get in a little dig as well. “If you’re going to forget a town in Connecticut, why not forget Danbury?” Oliver said. “Because, and this is true, f*ck Danbury!”

One person not amused — or rather, willing to throw clap back — was Danbury mayor Mark Boughton, who responded with a more long-lasting gag. In a tongue-in-cheek video posted to Facebook, Boughton said he was going to name the local sewage plant after the Last Week Tonight host.

“We are going to rename it the John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant,” the Republican mayor said. “Why? Because it’s full of crap just like you, John.”

For the record, Oliver did have a few nice things to say about Danbury before he sounded off. He noted its “charming railway museum” and its “historic Hearthstone Castle.” He also pointed out some of its achievements. “I know exactly three things about Danbury,” Oliver said. “USA Today ranked it the second-best city to live in in 2015, it was once the center of the American hat industry and if you’re from there, you have a standing invite to come get a thrashing from John Oliver — children included — f*ck you.”

Anyway, congrats? Then again, maybe this isn’t the best way to respond to accusations of racial disparity in jury selection.

(Via THR)

The streak continues for Taylor Swift as she finds her most recent album, Folklore, atop the Billboard albums chart for the fourth week in a row. Her streak began with a monstrous debut, which saw the album land 846,000 equivalent units in its first week, followed by over 100,000 in each of the ensuing weeks. In the process, Taylor collected a number of accolades, among them the most No. 1 debuts and the third-most No. 1 albums among female artists. In landing a fourth week atop the charts, Taylor adds yet another accolade to her growing list.

Netting an additional 101,000 equivalent album units, the record makes Taylor Swift the first woman since 2015 to spend her first four weeks atop the albums chart since Adele did with 25. The last artist overall to do it was The Weeknd with After Hours, which spent its first four weeks at No. 1 earlier this year. If Taylor is able to land a fifth straight week at No. 1 next week, she would be the first musical act to do this since Drake’s Scorpion, all while also tying Lil Baby’s My Turn for most weeks at No. 1 in 2020.

Taylor’s fourth week at No. 1 comes after the singer surprised a number of indie record stores with autographed copies of Folklore.

Elsewhere on the charts we find Pop Smoke’s Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon at No. 2, Juice WRLD’s Legends Never Die at No. 3, Young Dolph’s Rich Slave at No. 4, and the original Broadway cast recording of Hamilton: An American Musical at No. 5.

(via Billboard)

Pop Smoke is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music.

No one likes to rake leaves. And when something gets in the way of you accomplishing such a task, it is even more annoying. Unless it is this video of baby pandas trying prevent a woman from excommunicating said leaves from her yard.

Some of you might have read the piece about Tuscan, the stray dog who had the persistence to hang around a car dealership until he got a job greeting customers and is now positioned to star in a national car commercial. But these are baby pandas just trying to rake a yard. And this is no slight on dogs. I am owned by two of them. It just seems like the woman in this video isn’t really giving the pandas the shot they deserve to try and get the job done. It could very well be that she does not realize that they think she is awesome and deserves a coffee break.

Cute！What did panda do when zookeeper cleaning the leaves

www.youtube.com

Perhaps people should recognize that pandas do not rake the yard the same way as we do. Look no further than the viral video called The Honor of the Opportunity where a father talks about how his son mowing the lawn in his own way.

It just kind of feels like the pandas had the rake taken away from them before they had sufficient time to start a task they dont know they are supposed to be doing with a tool which they have never been privy to. Remember the first time you held a guitar and knew how to play it without even knowing what it was? No one is perfect. I, myself, just completed a thought with a preposition because I was too insecure about finishing a sentence with the word “privy”. So, I can understand the mindset of taking a gardening tool out of the hands of a bear.

The streak continues for Taylor Swift as she finds her most recent album, Folklore, atop the Billboard albums chart for the fourth week in a row. Her streak began with a monstrous debut, which saw the album land 846,000 equivalent units in its first week, followed by over 100,000 in each of the ensuing weeks. In the process, Taylor collected a number of accolades, among them the most No. 1 debuts and the third-most No. 1 albums among female artists. In landing a fourth week atop the charts, Taylor adds yet another accolade to her growing list.

Netting an additional 101,000 equivalent album units, the record makes Taylor Swift the first woman since 2015 to spend her first four weeks atop the albums chart since Adele did with 25. The last artist overall to do it was The Weeknd with After Hours, which spent its first four weeks at No. 1 earlier this year. If Taylor is able to land a fifth straight week at No. 1 next week, she would be the first musical act to do this since Drake’s Scorpion, all while also tying Lil Baby’s My Turn for most weeks at No. 1 in 2020.

Taylor’s fourth week at No. 1 comes after the singer surprised a number of indie record stores with autographed copies of Folklore.

Elsewhere on the charts we find Pop Smoke’s Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon at No. 2, Juice WRLD’s Legends Never Die at No. 3, Young Dolph’s Rich Slave at No. 4, and the original Broadway cast recording of Hamilton: An American Musical at No. 5.

(via Billboard)

Pop Smoke is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music.

Kobe Bryant is one of the most iconic athletes to ever play the sport of basketball. The former Lakers star is well known thanks to his highly competitive drive, spectacular individual and team achievements, and the impact he had on others. Many players that play today see Bryant as their model for who they base their game and drive after.

In January, Bryant tragically died in a helicopter accident that left both him and his oldest daughter Gigi dead. The basketball world mourned then and continues do do so now, particularly on Sunday. August 23 is Bryant’s birthday and many have used the opportunity to honor Bryant. Nike, the brand that helped Bryant begin his “Black Mamba” image, is spending the entire week of Bryant’s birthday honoring him. Dubbed “Mamba Week” there will be events throughout the week honoring Bryant and what he represented to the basketball world. On Sunday, they started Mamba Week with a Kendrick Lamar voiced video tribute.

Mamba Week will feature many of basketball’s biggest stars and even some outside the sport. It will feature the likes of Diana Taurasi, Jewell Loyd, Anthony Davis, Devin Booker, and Sydney Leroux, via NIKE.

“Kobe built the Mamba Mentality on the values of Passion, Focus, Honesty, Fearless, and Optimism. He dedicated himself to inspiring the next generation to be better by applying these values to their own lives. This week we continue that legacy. Join our Mamba Mentors as they pass on what they’ve learned from Kobe’s Mamba Mentality.”

This is going to be a week devoted entirely towards allowing those Bryant had the largest impact on to speak about why he’s so special to them. An opportunity for many of these athletes to finally get to do what they might have not gotten a chance to do initially: Honor and say goodbye to Kobe Bryant.

There is a Reddit thread that has gone viral asking people to share their best harmless pranks. While we can only hope that mean spirited jokes on people are a thing of the past, bullying is still a thing and should not be tolerated. That being said, as long as there is great confidence the victim of the hijinks will find the humor, all bets are off.

I am personally not a big fan of pranks. Mainly because I fall for them. Every. Single. Time.

For example, at a restaurant I had worked at for seven years, the manager asked me if I could go to the pub next door and see if we could borrow a rice peeler. Hook, line and sinker. I did get my revenge months later when a fellow server had the idea to approach the manager with some unusual requests from the customers.

It started off with things like “Table 7 wants to know if we have a Spanish/English dictionary.” Slightly strange? Yes. Possible? Also, yes. Of course, selling the sincerity of the inquiry was key. It was followed up with another prank. I said: “Hey man, I know this sounds weird, but there is no chance we have spare fireworks kicking around in the office, do we?”

Pretty strange, especially following the Spanish/English dictionary request? Yup. Was it the first time he had heard this type of request? Indeed. Sincerity of the delivery from the server? Check. The delivery was everything. We had the manager going for hours. He was extremely confused, saying “What is with all these weird requests? What is going on with today?”

It was not until some rookie blew the whole thing by asking if there was a spare trumpet kicking around. But it was a fun prank in the restaurant world.

Photo by Siviwe Kapteyn on

But there were over 15 thousand comments with different gags on this Reddit of pranks all around the world. From co-worker pranks to tricking your best friend, here are some of the highlights I caught:

level 1MarcusChapmanHere5.9k points·1 day ago

Hire a local actor to “run into” you and your friend while you are somewhere and “recognize you” as someone famous. Have them start speaking gibberish and you answer back in gibberish before taking a selfie with them. Then have them just leave extremely excited. When your friend ask what that was all about just say something in gibberish and when they say “What?” just say “Oh sorry.” and say “It was nothing.” and keep the charade going until your dying day.

PReasy3199.5k points·1 day ago·edited 1 day ago

I plugged a wireless mouse into a coworker’s computer. My cubicle was 40 ft away but from my desk I could see his monitor, so I slooooowly moved the cursor to the right while he was trying to use it. Then slooooowly to the left. I clicked on random things. I stopped and started randomly. I stopped every time he tried to show anybody else, even though they were all in on the prank. At one point while he was working on some papers and not looking at his screen, I opened the Start menu and shut his computer down. I kept it going for a week before he was at the point of losing his mind and I finally told him.

level 1originalidentity398 points·1 day ago

Steal their garden gnome and go on a trip. Take pictures of the gnome the whole time you’re traveling. Return the gnome with the photos sitting next him. Never admit to it.

level 1lobstrain112 points·1 day ago

One I like to do is to fill a heavy glass cup with water or some other precious liquid that the victim wouldn’t want to spill, then ask them if they’d like to see a magic trick. Have them place their hand flat on a table, palm facing down. Balance the cup on their hand and let go. Ask them if they feel anything. When they say no, act surprised and confused. Remove the glass and repeat the process with the other hand. When that also “fails”, have them stack their hands one on top of the other (palms down, very important) in a way where you can balance the glass on the top hand. The balancing might be tricky, just keep trying until it’s still enough for you to let go. Ask them again if now they feel anything. When they say no, shrug your shoulders and walk away, leaving the glass on their hands.

It is hard to top the Cousin Micki wax Jimmy Kimmel gag. If you have not seen this, you need to watch it straight through until at least 3:40.

Happy good natured pranking. Just don’t be that guy who calls up your friend who is trying to make it in show business and pretend to be Capital Records saying that you want to offer them a record deal. Yeah, I am talking about you, Matt Kapp. For most of you who don’t know, he was the bassist… IN THE SAME BAND I WAS IN THAT HE WAS PRETENDING TO SIGN!!!! People don’t forget, Matt. People don’t forget.

Zoe Kravitz didn’t get a ton of screentime in the first teaser for The Batman, the latest gritty reboot of the Caped Crusader, in which she plays the first Catwoman of color since Eartha Kitt on the ’60s TV show. (Though she fared better than Colin Farrell’s Penguin and Paul Dano’s The Riddler, both blink-and-miss and shrouded in shadows.) But even a few, incredibly dim images of her as Selina Kyle was enough to get people excited for more. Indeed, after the actress posted the teaser on her Instagram, she got a ton of high-profile congrats, including from her two dads.

Those, of course, would be her biological father, musician Lenny Kravtiz, and Jason Momoa, who married her mother, Lisa Bonet, in 2017, and is therefore her stepdad. Zoe’s father kept it short and sweet, writing, “I love you.” Momoa went a touch longer, saying, “love you i cant wait. so proud of you.”

It’s all very heartwarming, but it’s more than that: Now that Zoe is a member of the DCEU, that means she’s colleagues with her stepdad, who’s the franchise’s resident live-action Aquaman. Depending on how this iteration depicts Catwoman — is she a sympathetic villain and love interest à la Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns? A reformable loner à la Anne Hathaway in The Dark Knight Rises? Or is she a straight-up baddie à la Kitt? Or will she have some different relationship with Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne? — maybe the two relatives will get to kick some butt together somewhere down the line.

August 23 is the birthday of the late Kobe Bryant. The former Lakers star tragically died in a helicopter accident in January and while time presses on, much of the basketball world is still attempting to come to terms with Bryant’s death. An icon of the sport and an inspiration for many, Bryant was seen as a hero around the basketball world.

Many of those same athletes and organizations that revered Bryant took to Twitter to show their love for the player they loved. Across all of them, it was the same message. He was an inspiration to them and someone they wish they could get the chance to speak to once again.

Pau Gasol also offered a remembrance of his longtime friend and teammate, who he won two titles with in L.A.

Bryant was not just an inspiration to a legion of NBA stars, but he was among the most prominent and vocal supporters of the women’s game and the WNBA. On Sunday, many WNBA players were seen getting off their bus before their games in the WNBA Bubble at IMG Academy wearing Bryant’s jersey in tribute.

Jewell Lloyd, long a fan of Bryant, was also very close to him and saw him as a mentor. She tweeted a video showing her adoration for Bryant on Twitter.

This followed up a story done by The Undefeated that Lloyd also retweeted two days before where she spoke about the messages Bryant instilled in her.

There were of course many NBA players showing their adoration of Bryant through Twitter as well. You were able to see how far across the world Bryant touched from Nicolas Batum in France to Zach Lavine in Washington, and so many points in between.

Bryant was obviously respected by his peers throughout his playing days. One of his Western Conference adversaries, Dirk Nowitzki, showed his respect through a tweet of his own.

It’s clear that Bryant’s impact is still being felt across the NBA. His ability as not only a basketball player but as a person left an impact on many. An impact that is not going to fade anytime soon.