Category: News

The Big Story – Celtics Begin Title Defense: The play-in Tournament Tuesday to send four teams to the NBA’s main playoffs which starts Saturday. The Celtics begin their title defense Easter Sunday. Enjoy.

Sports 101: Just four players in NFL history have had four consecutive 100-catch, 1,000-receiving-yard seasons. Name them.

News Item – NBA Regular Season Ends: A few season notables.

Nikola Jokic became the third to average a triple double — 29.8 points, 12.8 assists and 10.3 assists.

Denver and Memphis fired their coaches two weeks before the playoffs start. Sayonara to them.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the league in scoring at 32.7 ppg and OKC won a fourth best ever 68 games.

How bad was the Southeast Division? Only 41-41 Orlando wasn’t below .500.

Coaches who once got unfairly fired in Kenny Atkinson and Doc Rivers got their measure of revenge on their nemeses. Doc by digging out of a big early hole to be the 4-seed in Milwaukee, as Philly, who fired him, finished 24-58. For Atkinson it was winning the East in Year 1 with the Cavs, while the punks who stabbed him in the back in Brooklyn (just because they could) got theirs — Kyrie Irving with the latest injury, a torn ACL, and after costing a billion draft picks to get Kevin Durant to form a supposed super team, the 36-46 Suns didn’t even make the playoffs.

Brooklyn, who let those two do that to Atkinson, went 26-56 and is farther away than ever.

After going 20-7 since falling into their lucky trade for Luka Doncic, the Lakers are a real threat to re-tie Boston for first in championships with 18.

SGA gets MVP over Jokic because he is by far the most valuable player on the team with the best record.

News Item – College Football: Who didn’t see NIL holdouts coming?

Well, it happened at Tennessee last week when starting QB Nico Iamaleava sat out spring practice amid contract talks. UT’s response was “go fly a kite” and they immediately dropped him from the program.

News Item – The Masters: Notable happenings over the weekend.

Rory Mcllroy finally held onto a lead to win and become the sixth to win golf’s grand slam. But with all those makeable missed putts on that rollercoaster of a back nine he sure didn’t make it easy for those rooting for him

Clutch putt on the 72nd hole by Justin Rose to force the playoff, then he missed basically the same putt on the same hole (18) in the playoff to lose.

Sixty-seven-year-old Bernard Langer missed the cut by one shot in his final Masters thanks to a double bogey on the dastardly 15th hole.

Scottie Scheffler buried a 62-foot putt during Thursday’s opening round.

The Numbers:

19 – MLB-leading errors the Red Sox committed in their first 15 games. Meanwhile Dave Dombrowski’s Phillies have made just three all year.

31 – first-half points scored by the jacked and pumped Doncic in his return to Dallas before finishing with 45 in L.A.’s 112-97 win.

80 – hard-to-believe age legendary baseball reporter Peter Gammons turned last week.

… Of the Week Awards

Better Late Than Never Award – NCAA Final Word: We’re 10 days past Florida’s win over Houston for the national basketball championship. But it’s worth mentioning the most amazing stat of that game is that Florida somehow managed to win despite trailing for 38 minutes and 57 seconds of its 40 minutes. Big D that forced Houston turnovers in the final two minutes was the difference. It was the first time since 1989 that a freshman didn’t play in the game.

Sports 101 Answer: The four 100-1,000 players are Antonio Brown, Marvin Harrison, Dasante Adams and newly signed Patriot Stefon Diggs.

Final Thought – Celtics Playoff Keys: Having won 22 of 27 since the All-Star break, they go in playing well, with the quest for Title No. 19 starting Sunday. Here are their keys for a solid run:

Having an inside scoring Plan B for when the 3’s aren’t falling, which inevitably will happen.

Health — Brittle Kristaps Porzingis is always just one play away and the big unknown is the knee issue dogging Jaylen Brown. Is it just an annoyance or worse?

Thus they need no disappearing games from Jayson Tatum, which has been a past playoff (and Olympics) issue for him.

Consistency from the Top 3 on the bench.

Can Mazzulla please come up with a better end of the game (quarter) scoring play beyond the isolation fall away that Tatum always misses?

Hoping for the Knicks in Round 2 and the Lakers in the Finals.

Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.

The Big Story: By the time you read this we’ll know if Houston won its first ever basketball title or if it’s three times this century for Florida. UH got there overcoming a 14-point deficit with 8:17 left to stun Duke 70-67, while Florida’s 41-27 second-half blitz erased an 8-point halftime deficit to beat Auburn 79-73. On the women’s side after eight hard-to-believe years of UConn not winning, the title is finally back again after crushing South Carolina 72-59 to win their 11th title overall behind 41 from Azzi (Elmer) Fudd (24) and Paige Bueckers (17).

Sports 101: In Nikola Jokic’s latest astonishing feat, he posted the third ever 60-point game triple double (61-10-10) game in a two-OT loss to the T-Wolves. Name the other two 60-point triple-d guys.

News Item – Red Sox Week: (1) They won five straight after starting 1-3. (2) Rookie Kristian Campbell entered the week hitting .355 with four doubles, two homers, six RBI. 3) Garrett Crochet was not quite in the groove, but he did go eight while grinding out a needed 6-2 win over Baltimore. 4) The Raffy Devers hysteria after his 0-for-19 start ended when he went 10 for 19 with four doubles and a homer in the winning streak.

News Item – Celtics Update: Having won nine of 10 the C’s are heading to the playoffs on a roll.

It should be noted, though, that the teams beaten in their first ever 6-0 road trip during the streak were a combined 78 games under .500. So not exactly overwhelming competition. But it still defies logic that at 32-7 they’re better on the road than they are on the parquet at 26-13. Derrick White buried number 267 vs. Memphis to become Celtics record holder for most ever three-point shots made in one season.

A Little History – 60 Wins: If the C’s win two of their last four, they’ll be the first Celtics team with back-to-back 60-win seasons since the second Big 3 did it in 2007-08 and 2008-09. Before that it was the Bird-led group doing it three times between 1983-84 and 1985-86, as Larry’s group was in the midst of doing it six times in seven seasons. Prior to that the Havlicek-Cowens C’s did it twice (’72-’73 and ’74-’75). The Russell-era team won 60 just three times despite winning 11 titles in 13 years.

The Numbers:

69.9 – best this century team FG percentage shot by Milwaukee when they went 51 for 74 in a 133-123 win over Phoenix.

70 – consecutive games scoring over 20 by OKC’s Shai Gilgeous–Alexander to break Michael Jordan’s all-time NBA record.

895 – career goals by Alexander Ovechkin after passing Wayne Gretzky’s unsurpassable 894 to be the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer.

… Of the Week Awards

Thumbs Up – Red Sox Owner John Henry: For finally acting like the big market owner he is by spending big on free agent Alex Bregman and by locking up Crochet and Campbell with six- and eight-year deals last week.

Thumbs Down – Bonehead Move of the Week – Jayson Tatum: For not having the discipline to keep it zipped before getting a technical foul at the worst possible time after a 15-point lead had slipped to 9 with 2:55 left to give the Kevin Durant-less Suns a free point and the ball on Friday.

Random Thoughts:

With both on hand, Friday was Where Are They Now? Night at TD Garden. The “They” are those not admitting now they were behind the push a few years back for the Celtics to trade Jaylen Brown for Bradley Beal. Brown dominated him and others by scoring 31 points to Beal’s measly one point on Friday. For the year it’s Beal 17 per to Brown’s 22.6 while also contributing much more on the boards and on D. Reminds all of what Bill Parcells famously said: “if you listen to people in the cheap seats, sooner or later you’ll wind up there with them.” Bullet dodged.

Sports 101 Answer: The other 60 triple double guys are Luka Doncic (2022) and James Harden (2018).

Final Thought – Parcells Headed to Patriots Hall of Fame: You can be magnanimous and say, thank you. Or you can be combative and say, what took so long?

Either way, thanks to Pats owner Bob Kraft for putting their personal history behind them to set in motion the induction of Bill Parcells into the Patriots Hall of Fame this summer.

Yes, there was him igniting the border war nonsense. But that was actually a good thing, as it made the Jets-Pats rivalry even better. But in resurrecting a moribund fan base after the disastrous Victor Kiam era you can make a case his four-year tenure, which concluded with a Super Bowl trip, makes him the fifth most important Patriot behind Billy Sullivan, Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and Drew Bledsoe. So well deserved, Tuna, and good job, Bob, for making it happen.

Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.