by John Walters

Starting Five

1. The Amazing Adventures of Cavaliers and Klay

Game 7 was terrific, but Game 6 between Golden State and OKC was the game for the ages. Defending champs, on the road, down 9 to begin the fourth quarter, and still trailing by seven with under six minutes to go, and they pulled it out. Klay Thompson‘s playoff career-high 41-point game, in which he stroked a playoff-record 11 threes, was a heroic effort.

I don’t know why OKC stopped playing Steven Adams in the final six minutes last night. No, he doesn’t shoot threes, but he gave the Dubs fits all series.

In Games 6 and 7, Golden State shot 38 of 82 (46%) from beyond the arc. In those same two games, OCK shot 10 of 50 (20%). The only team this postseason to hit more threes than Golden State per game? Cleveland. Gonna be a massive NBA Finals.

2. Manbaby

I think Jon Stewart nailed it here on Trump (thank you, Jacob). But worse, he nailed it on the America that is voting for him. Trump is playing this election exactly like Richard Hatch did the first season of Survivor. Be the bombastic asshole that folks cannot stop watching, then reign it in near the end to give your character some pathos and perhaps win over those who were fighting their inner, “But he’s an asshole, I can’t vote for him” voice.

Also, Stewart is also right that while it’s not the public’s fault for being hoodwinked by this P.T. Barnum of politics, it is completely the media’s for failing to repeatedly question Trump. Simply questioning his claims, insults, etc., is not enough. You have to keep questioning him (on the vets, on the Wall, on John Miller) until he provides a satisfactory answer, which he has yet to do.

For example: “Mr. Trump, if John Miller truly exists, how come it is two weeks since that story has broken and no John Miller has surfaced? How come there is no birth certificate? Where are his personnel records?” And you don’t let up until he finally admits that it was him, and then you leave it to the voters to decide whether this is, as Trump once said of the USFL, “Small potatoes.”

3. Harambe

I’m sure thousands or even millions of moms watched the video of the boy in the gorilla compound and thought, That poor boy. I thought, That poor gorilla. You’re stuck in an enclosure your entire life, someone invades it, you are a primate doing what primates do (part of which is being an herbivore, not a carnivore) and so then someone shoots you dead for it.

Was the boy at risk? Certainly. I’m not upset with the Cincinnati Zoo, and I thought its director, Thane Maynard, handled himself like a champ at yesterday’s press conference (here’s a terrific profile of Maynard from three years ago in Cincinnati Magazine) When someone asked him whose fault it was, he said, “I’m not in the finger-pointing business. That’s what pundits and politicians do.”

Well, as a pundit, let me: the boy’s parent or parents cost that silverback gorilla his life. I wonder if they even care. And now I wonder if they’ll sue. The reporters who kept trying to make Maynard feel guilty, I wish I could’ve been there to smack them down. It’s a zoo. You have to give people visual access to the animals. And you have children there, so you can’t make all the walls 5-feet high. Adults are supposed to know better than to climb in an animal cage; and children who don’t yet know better should have a parent holding their hand or watching them. Damn.

Also, all the people who were screaming during this episode probably cost the gorilla its life. I get that it’s a bizarre scene. But if people weren’t either screaming or rushing to videotape this, if people had an iota of common sense, especially about how to act in nature, maybe the gorilla doesn’t get agitated, maybe a zoo keeper can enter the compound without any loss of life. (I’m really not a fan of people, especially dumb Americans, if you haven’t figured that out already).

4. Whither Jason?

There’s a major sports media shakeup taking place, and one place I’d normally to go to read about it is The Big Lead. But it seems as if TBL has been scooped, which is odd considering the scoop pertains to its founder and editor-in-chief, Jason Mcintyre. Awful Announcing reported last week that JM is to appear on a Hot Take Fest, Speak For Yourself, with Colin Cowherd and Jason Whitlock for Fox Sports 1 beginning June 13. That’s a fortnight away but I still haven’t read a peep about it from TBL (or did I miss it?).

 

Wilbon: Reporter –> columnist –> TV guy –> master of All the Takes.
That’s the career progression writers dream about (but won’t admit)

— Jason McIntyre (@jasonrmcintyre) May 24, 2016

Anyway, happy for Jason. A little surprised FS1 didn’t offer it to Clay “I’m Not Your Bromani” Travis, but who knows, maybe he turned them down. Either way, I assume JM will have to pull a Vincent Chase and move to L.A. and I hope if he does that he realizes it’s in his best interests, and the site’s, to hand over the reins of his site to one of his staffers who isn’t quite as compromised by being on TV (and working so publicly for FS1) every night at 6 p.m.. We’ll see.

5. Mystery

This is tragic but it also sounds like the exposition of an NCIS episode: Jack Jakubek, a recent graduate of Cortland State U. in New York and a star swimmer on the team, dies during a lifeguard tryout on Cape Cod. Not in the ocean. But in a lake, Pilgrim Lake, in the town of Orleans.

He went missing shortly before 9 a.m. and his body was found in the water 24 minutes later. No explanation yet as to what caused him to expire.

Reserves

9:10:76 (which is also the date of my 10th birthday)

An enthusiastic CONGRATULATIONS to Friend of MH Emma Coburn, who set the American record in the steeplechase on Saturday at the Prefontaine Meet in Eugene. Emma broke the existing record that is held by one her closest, if not her closest, friend, Jenny Simpson. And no one could be happier for her than Jenny.

Was Dave Drunk?

Here’s Dave with ESPN’s Matt Barrie, whom I like (as if that matters), before the Indy 500 on Sunday morning. Anyway, Matt did well here (my legs would have been shaking).

Related: I still don’t know who won the Indy 500. I guess I should check.

Music 101 

Let’s Live For Today

This tune by the American band The Grass Roots, which reached No. 6 in the spring of 1967, is Peak Sixties. Imagine hearing this song on the radio as an 18 year-old who just got his draft notice, trying to decide whether or not to head up and cross the border. Note: the band did not write the song; an English group callee The Rokes had written and recorded it a year earlier with less success.

Remote Patrol

Deskset

NetFlix

Katherine Hepburn. Spencer Tracy. A company based on NBC, set in 1957, that is thinking of eliminating its distaff research department in favor of a super computer (roughly 40 years before “Google” was on anyone’s lips). But what chance does a super computer designed by an MIT grad have against our Kate?

That cutie patootie on the far left is Dina Merrill. She was supposed to be the next Grace Kelly, but it never quite happened (I still don’t see how she avoided being in a Hitchcock film). Her mother was the heiress to the Post cereals fortune and her dad, I kid you not, was E.F. Hutton. Merrill is still alive today.