Charlotte and Golden State are both squarely on the playoff bubble in their respective conferences. What if their fate at the end of the season comes down to one game?
We’ll all be looking back at Saturday night, when the Hornets got more than a little help from the officials to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Golden State led by two points with 13.3 seconds to go when there was a jump ball at center court. Gordon Hayward got possession on the floor and was able to call timeout before Draymond Green got his hands on the ball in hopes of forcing another jump. It was a borderline call — on replay, the ball looked like it bounced out of Hayward’s grasp for a moment, and Green was heated.
Should Green have gotten his composure back to avoid a technical foul? Yes. Should the officials have given him some leeway after that technical to finish blowing off steam? Also yes. But instead, Green got two techs, resulting in his ejection from the game, and that gave Charlotte the chance to tie the game with two free throws, which Terry Rozier drained.
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It also meant that the Hornets retained possession, allowing Rozier to dribble to the corner and hit a buzzer-beater.
Charlotte is now seventh in the East, Golden State eighth in the West. There’s a lot of season left, so maybe the basketball gods have time to even things out.
Then again, maybe the basketball gods are punishing Golden State for wearing OAKLAND jerseys after abandoning the East Bay for San Francisco.
Florida Atlantic catcher Caleb Pendleton pulled a Fernando Tatis… Senior.
The Owls needed those runs, because they wound up holding on for a 20-15 victory over Central Florida.
What more can Pendleton do? Well, according to his bio, a backflip.
Pendleton hit his homers off two different pitchers, which is good reminder that Davey Johnson somehow left Chan Ho Park in the game to allow Tatis’ second slam in 1999.
Michelle Wie West appropriately called out Rudy Giuliani for being a pig and talking about her underwear.
Here’s what she had to say:
There’s more details in ESPN’s story about it. Not much more needs to be said, just another tick on Giuliani’s bingo card of being a complete scumbag.
Need to get to the front of the pack on the Daytona road course in the second overtime? No problem, just head for the dirt.
That was how Ty Gibbs, in his first NASCAR Xfinity Series start, made his move on Saturday, eventually overtaking Jeb Burton and holding off Austin Cindric to join Dale Earnhardt Sr., Joe Ruttman, Ricky Rudd, Terry Labonte, and Kurt Busch as the only drivers to win in their debut in the second-tier series.
Gibbs is the 18-year-old grandson of Super Bowl-winning coach and legendary NASCAR team owner Joe Gibbs, whose stable includes the No. 54 that Ty drove to victory lane.
There was another NFL connection in the race as it was the first race for Alvin Kamara’s juice bar — The Big Squeezy — sponsoring the No. 6 of Ryan Vargas. The car looked great, but mechanical issues led to a 37th-place finish.
The Golden Knights-Avalanche game at Lake Tahoe finally resumed after an 8:08 first intermission. It ended 3-2 for Colorado, coming to a conclusion at 1:49 a.m. Eastern on NBCSN, probably not what anyone at the league or network office had in mind when they set this up.
Then again, maybe the hockey gods are punishing the Avalanche for wearing Nordiques jerseys after abandoning Quebec for Denver. Of course, if that were the case, wouldn’t the Avalanche have lost? The hockey gods also didn’t punish the Hurricanes for their Whalers getup on Friday night.
The hockey gods are asleep at the wheel. Get on the basketball gods’ level, hockey gods.
The Penguins celebrated Sidney Crosby’s 1,000th career game by all copying his pregame skate-tying ritual, which is such a perfectly fitting kinda-sorta quirk for one of the most vanilla superstars in sports history.
Crosby enjoying a sensible chuckle over it is truly delightful. He’s never pretended to be interesting, after all, just a guy who’s really, really, really good at hockey.
And he still is. Crosby had two assists against the Islanders, including setting up Kris Letang’s game-winning goal for the Penguins.
Meanwhile, in Canada, Elliotte Friedman wore a turtleneck on Hockey Night in Canada on a dare.
Then Auston Matthews went out and put two goals and two assists on the Canadiens as the Maple Leafs rolled to a 5-3 win and moved to 14-3-2 on the season, continuing to run away with the North Division.
Surely nothing can stop Toronto, a runaway freight train of a team with no discernible weaknesses!
Also, Connor McDavid, the best hockey player in the world, had a hat trick and two assists for Edmonton, which is second in the North Division and bludgeoned Calgary in the latest installment of the Battle of Alberta, 7-1.
McDavid leads the league with 37 points and his 12 goals trail only Matthews’ tally of 18. Again, he’s the best hockey player in the world.
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