Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I don’t think it’s out of the question that we’ll see multiple Game 7’s in the NBA this weekend.
In today’s SI:AM:
🤕 Anthony Davis’s injury looms over Lakers’ loss
🗓️ What to know about the NFL schedule
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The Lakers couldn’t close them out
The NBA’s defending champions aren’t done yet.
With a 121–106 win over the Lakers last night, the Warriors forced a Game 6 in Los Angeles that will be played tomorrow night.
The story of the game was the offensive contribution of Draymond Green, who had 20 points on 7-of-11 shooting, along with 10 rebounds. It was Green’s second 20-point game this postseason (he had 21 in Golden State’s Game 5 win over the Kings) but just his second time putting up 20 points since Christmas 2019. The Warriors don’t need Green to score to be successful, but it’s a nice bonus when he’s able to put up points in addition to all the little things he does so well.
“I think you just expect it in a situation like this where you’re facing elimination,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said of Green’s big game. “Draymond is one of the great competitors I’ve ever been around. So you just expect him to bring it. I didn’t say anything to him. He doesn’t need any pep talks from me, that’s for sure.”
The other narrative that emerged from Game 5 was concern about Anthony Davis’s health. He was taken to the locker room in a wheelchair after taking an elbow to the head from Kevon Looney in the fourth quarter. TNT’s Chris Haynes reported that, before the wheelchair was brought out, Davis needed help walking because he was “stumbling a little bit [and] his equilibrium was off.”
However, Haynes also reported that the initial diagnosis is that Davis avoided a concussion. Lakers coach Darvin Ham said that Davis was “doing really good.”
If Davis does enter the NBA’s concussion protocol—which is still possible, even given Haynes’s report, because concussion symptoms can take time to appear—he would almost certainly miss Game 6 and possibly a potential Game 7 as well.
It goes without saying that Davis being unavailable or even limited for Game 6 and possibly Game 7 would be a dire situation for the Lakers. He’s been their most important player throughout these playoffs, scoring nearly as many points per game (21.5) as LeBron James (22.8) while leading the team in rebounding (13.5 per game) and anchoring its defense.
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The Knicks really tried to blow it
The Knicks also avoided elimination last night in a game that was going pretty smoothly for them—until it wasn’t. New York led by as many as 19 in the third quarter, but the Heat chipped away at the lead until a Jimmy Butler free throw with 2:37 left made it a two-point game.
But that’s as close as the Heat ever got. The Knicks—in very un-Knicks-like fashion—pulled out of the skid and ended the game on a 9–2 run.
The Heat are still very much in control of the series. They can advance to the conference finals with a win at home tomorrow night against a Knicks team that’ll be playing with some tired legs. Jalen Brunson and Quentin Grimes played all 48 minutes of last night’s game, becoming the first pair of Knicks players since Walt Frazier and Jerry Lucas in 1972 to play every minute of a playoff game. I hope they had a nice ice bath after the game.
The best of Sports Illustrated
Ben Queen/USA TODAY Sports
- After West Virginia decided to retain (with moderate penalties) men’s basketball coach Bob Huggins, Pat Forde writes that Huggins’s place as “the most powerful person in the state” has been made clear.
“Nobody else at the university could have gotten away with that casual public spewing of hate speech and kept their job with relatively minor repercussions. Nor could any politician, coal baron or other leader in the state.”
- Albert Breer’s mailbag lays out why NFL teams might tank this season for next year’s crop of rookie QBs.
- The NFL schedule will be released tonight. Jimmy Traina has a primer on everything you need to know.
- Defense will be the key for the Celtics to keep their season alive tonight in Philly, Rohan Nadkarni writes.
- What’s it like to caddie for an LPGA pro? Gabrielle Herzig did it and survived to tell the story.
- Emma Baccellieri lists five surprising hitters—both good and bad—so far this MLB season.
- Jon Wertheim details the next big rivalry atop women’s tennis.
- Inter dominated AC Milan in the first leg of their Champions League semifinal yesterday, Jonathan Wilson writes. But the door is still open for a thrilling comeback.
- A Colorado Rapids player has been removed from all team activities after being implicated in illegal gambling activities.
- After stunning the Celtics in Game 5, the 76ers can close out their Eastern Conference semifinal series at home, with the average ticket price for Game 6 exceeding $600.
The top five...
… things I saw yesterday:
5. The Blue Jays broadcast team’s call of Bo Bichette’s game-losing throwing error.
4. Ole Miss shortstop Mikayla Allee’s diving catch in the SEC tournament against LSU.
3. Evan Bouchard’s powerful one-timer for the Oilers as they tied the series against the Golden Knights.
2. Ronald Acuña Jr.’s 470-foot home run.
1. Quentin Grimes’s steal on Jimmy Butler after going down with a leg cramp.
SIQ
On this day in 1977, with his team mired in a 16-game losing streak, which MLB owner put on a uniform and managed his team from the dugout?
- George Steinbrenner
- Bill Veeck
- Ted Turner
- Ewing Kauffman
Yesterday’s SIQ: On May 10, 1939, Philadelphia’s Newspaper Guild raised money for charity by organizing what kind of stunt involving Phillies players?
- A player attempting to catch a ball dropped from a great height
- A player racing a horse
- A player attempting to throw a ball across the Schuylkill River
- A pitch velocity test using the University of Pennsylvania’s radar gun prototype
Ball-drop stunts were once a popular gimmick all across the country. In 1908, Senators catcher Gabby Street caught a ball dropped 555 feet from the top of the Washington Monument. In a 2014 Philadelphia Inquirer article about the City Hall stunt, SABR researcher Dennis Link said that the 1939 spectacle in Philly was one of at least four similar exhibitions that year. When a San Francisco Seals player named Joe Sprinz tried to catch a ball dropped from a blimp 800 feet in the air in August of that year, it hit his glove with such force that the mitt struck him in the head, knocking him unconscious and fracturing his jaw.
