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Good morning! I hope you make the real playoffs today.
While You Were Sleeping: The Heat are the Play-In team
For a while there, it looked like Miami was going to do it all over again. To be clear, they could still pull off another bait-and-switch — becoming a juggernaut only once the postseason begins — but it will be difficult.
Regardless, the Heat are reliably the team doing the most to make the NBA Play-In Tournament entertaining and memorable. Consider last night:
- Miami raced out to a big first-half lead before surrendering to, ahem, Nic Batum and the Philadelphia 76ers in a 105-104 thriller. Batum scored 20 points — a season high — and hit six threes. Full-strength Philly advances to play the Knicks in the first round of the playoffs. That will be extremely fun.
- Last year’s Heat team also lost their first Play-In game, but rebounded by beating the Bulls in the elimination game … and then embarked on one of the most shocking NBA Finals runs ever. They’re who the Play-In was made for, apparently.
- Tomorrow night, Miami — who might be missing Jimmy Butler — gets the Bulls again with another No. 8 seed on the line. Chicago looked great in last night’s 131-116 win over the Hawks. I fully expect a Miami win to make the top-seeded Celtics extremely nervous.
We bid adieu to those Hawks, who have some serious questions ahead this offseason. The most important one: Is Trae Young on the trade block?
Serious Matters: The impact of Porter’s historic lifetime ban
Yesterday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver banned former Raptors forward Jontay Porter for life, the first lifetime punishment for gambling issued by the league since the Pistons’ Jack Molinas got the boot in 1954.
Two takeaways here:
- Every time we’ve seen a modern gambling scandal, I can’t get over how dumb it seems. The NBA accuses Porter of winning $22,000 by placing his own bets. This man made around $5 million in salary over his five-year career. He also allegedly informed another sports bettor he was hurt and would miss a game, which triggered the bettor to allegedly make an $80,000 parlay bet that hinged on Porter, a little-known Raptors backup. I feel confident that any one of us could’ve flagged that bet. As Mike Vorkunov highlighted last week, these monitors are extremely well-trained.
- The lifetime punishment is warranted, and if we’re keeping it a buck, the NBA got lucky here. Shuffling between the Raptors and their G-League affiliate, Porter had little impact on the day-to-day business of basketball. Had this involved a bigger star, this would’ve been a massive, massive scar for the NBA (just remember how tense things felt for the MLB during the gambling scandal involving Ohtani’s money). Instead, Silver gets to show he’s tough on gambling issues without affecting the bottom line in any way. Win-win for him.
A previous winner of this stupid award: former Alabama baseball coach Brad Bohannon.
News to Know
Clark’s unique day
New Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark endured an extremely awkward moment with a local columnist during yesterday’s introductory press conference. Watch it here. On the bright side, she’s close to inking an eight-figure deal with Nike (which includes a signature shoe).
Zion out
Tuesday night was a true microcosm of Zion Williamson’s NBA career. For 95 percent of the Pelicans’ Play-In game against the Lakers, he willed a New Orleans comeback with 40 points and looked unstoppable against one of the league’s better defenses. He got hurt with three minutes left, the Pels lost and now Williamson won’t play in the final Play-In game against Sacramento tomorrow. William Guillory wrote a poignant column on the whole affair.
More news
Trophies, Mate: A no-good day for the EPL
We got some brilliant soccer this week in the second leg of the Champions League quarterfinals. A massive loser: the Premier League.
Make sure to catch more insights in our new men’s soccer newsletter, The Athletic FC, which will hit your inboxes a little later this morning. We get semifinal first legs in two weeks:
Watch This Game
MLB: Diamondbacks at Giants
9:45 p.m. ET on FS1
Both of these teams should be better than they currently are (below .500) in one of baseball’s best divisions. At least they’re not the Rockies?
NHL: Blackhawks at Kings
10:30 p.m. ET on ESPN+
The NHL playoffs start Saturday, and the Kings are the only team still with seeding on the line. Say goodbye to the regular season with this one.
Pulse Picks
Rudy Gobert knows what everyone is thinking: Yeah, the NBA Defensive Player of the Year mainstay is great, but wait until the playoffs. He’s been training with that thought in the back of his head for the last four years, actually, as Jon Krawczynski wrote today. Saturday, everything comes to light.
Take a look at next year’s WNBA Draft board, which we already have compiled. That will be the Paige Bueckers draft.
Chris Paul isn’t retiring, he says. But is there any future with the Warriors?
Related: Sam Amick wrote a great column from courtside at Warriors-Kings, which felt like much more than a Play-In game.
Virginia has not had a pro sports franchise since the Virginia Squires played in the ABA. That team, though short-lived, had a huge impact on today’s version of basketball.
Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Rory McIlroy’s fierce denial of a rumor he’s heading to LIV.
Most-read on the website yesterday: Dane Brugler’s full seven-round NFL mock draft, of course.
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