by John Walters

Starting Five

Some 41s

LeBron James and Kyrie Irving forestalled summer vacation by playing their best game as Cavalier teammates and becoming the first such duo to each eclipse 40 points in the same NBA Finals game. Clad in shirseys, LeBron scored 41 points and was a beast on defense, finishing with a stat line of 41 points, 16 rebounds and seven assists while shooting above 50%. Irving was unstoppable in the fourth quarter, and finished with the same point total while shooting 17 of 24.

The first half, which finished in a 61-61 draw, was the best and closest played of the NBA Finals, as Klay Thompson scored 26 and LeBron 25. Then the Cavs roared out after halftime, with Kyrie making an and-one layup. Not long after the Warriors, playing without Draymond “Nut Job” Green, last seen “MV-Peeing” at an A’s game, also lost Andrew Bogut as he sprained his left knee while blocking a J.R. Smith layup. The Aussie may be lost for Games 6 and 7, which would mean a steady diet of Anderson Varejao, which, I mean, ouch.

Finally: Steph Curry was mortal again (25 points). At the risk of sounding like a Steph apologist, I think we’ll find out after the Finals what the true extent of his injuries were. But take nothing away from Kyrie & LeBron: We were waiting for them to play for this all series, and last night they showed up. This looks as if it will go seven….

https://vine.co/v/iLTHeLBFOur

Meanwhile, as The Big Lead noted this morning, this Vine sums up Kevin Love’s two seasons in Cleveland.

2. “What Are We Doing?”

I have no idea what the “funniest show on TV” is because I regularly only tune in to one comedy show, and that’s HBO’s Silicon Valley. Each week in Season 3 is funnier than the last. Sunday’s episode included two memorably funny scenes, and that’s excluding the Russ Hanneman cameo in which he carelessly bicep-bounces a once-bitten apple into a line of hotel guests waiting to check in.

The scene with Gilfoyle and Dinesh at the coffee shop is the best one yet to describe their wonderfully odd friendship dynamic, but the time capsule scene involves deposed tyrants Gavin Belson (Hooli) and “Action” Jack Barker (Pied Piper), running into one another on a runway as each prepares to board his private jet for a getaway to “J-Hole.” As the two speak warmly, their private jets in the background, you sit there wondering when it will dawn upon them to fly up together.

Finally, Barker looks at Belson and asks in a tone of comity, “What are we doing?” And then Barker asks if Belson plays chess. Gavin says yes and then Barker invites Belson, as soon as both men’s planes achieve an altitude where Wi-Fi works, to play him online. Classic.

3. Major Burns by Burns

Speaking at Stanford’s commencement on Sunday, the master of the historical documentary, Ken Burns, takes dead aim at Donald Trump (yeah, but what does Burns know about historical figures?).

I feel like this presidential election is essentially a battle between the article and the comments section.

— Laurent Dubois (@Soccerpolitics) June 14, 2016

Meanwhile,  Trump reacts to the Orlando massacre by first implying on FOX News that President Obama is an ISIS sympathizer (“[Obama] doesn’t get it, or he gets it better than anybody understands. It’s one or the other. And either one is unacceptable”) using his well-refined “I’m not saying, I’m just saying” maneuver. Later, at a presser in New Hampshire, he says that we “allowed” the shooter’s family to come here, to the U.S. (the shooter was born here; his parents are from Afghanistan) because the nation has a history of terror.

 

Trump’s family is from Germany, which, as 6 million murdered Jews would tell you if they could, has a far greater history of terror. It’s just that Germany produces white people, while Afghanistan does not.

4. Shame On You, London Mayor

Newly elected London mayor Sadiq Khan is being widely praised for recently having done a terrible thing. He’s banned all ads “likely to create body confidence issues, particularly among young people,” from London’s tube system.

That’s not a positive move. That’s censorship. And if this were America, that would be a blatant abuse of First Amendment rights.

Let’s explore the tangentials for a moment: 1) A product, a cream or a pill, that promises to help you lose weight as opposed to eating healthy and exercising is far more deleterious than any ad. 2) Beautiful women and men appear on ads everywhere; it’s called advertising, and there’s a reason these paragons of physical beauty do so; because selling is aspirational. 3) If you feel bad about your body, here’s a hard piece of advice: it’s probably not someone else’s fault. Do something about it if you care that much.

But all of those are asides. The far more dangerous aspect of that is when we abridge principles for short-term feel-good measures (ban all Muslims here, ban “body-shaming” ads, whatever the hell that term even means, there), we are abandoning liberty. You don’t make decisions based on outcomes. You make them based on principles.

(Do you have any idea how exhausting it is being so didactic every morning?)

5. So Now It’s A Movie

Two of my closest friends from SI are Steve Hymon and Tim Crothers. The first was given a bleak view of his future at the mag in his mid-twenties, then moved to California and won a Pulitzer Prize. The latter was laid off on the same day as I was in 2001.

Nine years and two books later, Crothers was speaking to a gathering of North Carolina fans (he’s a Tar Heel alum and professor now) about his biography on Roy Williams. A man approached him and said, “I have a story for you.”

A month or so later, after SI had rejected Tim’s story pitch but ESPN’s mag (headed by a former SI colleague of ours) accepted it, he was on a flight to Uganda to meet a pre-pubescent chess queen. The resulting story, in which Tim also traveled to Siberia, became a nationally acclaimed feature that became a book that has now become a Disney film of the same name, The Queen of Katwe. It stars Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o.

You may not know Tim, so allow me to attempt to describe him for you: take the best character traits of Bighead and Gilfoyle, mash them together, and that’s basically Tim. He’s hoping to be able to get a ticket to the premier, but he won’t be surprised if he doesn’t.

 

Music 101

Must Have Done Something Right

This is the band Relient K with an infectiously sunny, bubble-gum pop tune that’s perfect for this time of year. The song was released in early January of 2007 and the band is a group of friends from Canton, Ohio.

Remote Patrol

O.J.: Made In America, Part 2

ESPN 9 p.m.

Saturday night’s premiere provided bombshells such as the fact that O.J.’s first wife had originally been Al Cowlings’ girl, that O.J.’s estranged father was gay, and that Nicole returned home from her first date with the Juice with ripped jean. There was also a little football, like how O.J. would only appear on TV on the day he broke the 2,000-yard mark if all the Bills’ offensive starters could appear with him. So far, so, so good.