Hooray, it’s finally here, the inevitable third installment of the trilogy that we didn’t necessarily need! You know, like Godfather Part III, Shrek the Third, Matrix: Revolutions, and Spider-Man 3. (As opposed to Return of the King or surprisingly Toy Story 3. Don’t get me started on Toy Story 3, man! My emotions. MY EMOTIONS!)

The NBA playoffs have been about as interesting to watch as paint drying (or most Thursday Night Football games) and the Finals matchup of the Cavs and Warriors has been a near-certainty since, well, if not since Tim Duncan retired, then definitely when Kevin Durant signed with Golden State, leading fans of Oklahoma City to listen to the works of Lil B. (This is a real song. No, if I were you I would not play it at your workplace.)

(Gotta love how he rhymes “Dirk Nowitski” with “Dirk Nowitski.”)

But anyway, this matchup needs to be the greatest NBA Finals of all time in order to live up to the shitshow that the first three rounds were. Even the “good” matchups were tainted! Houston-OKC was Russell Westbrook vs. the entire Houston Rockets, whether he or Harden was winning MVP didn’t matter. Clippers-Jazz was good but didn’t Griffin get hurt? I don’t even remember at this point. The conference finals were a dud, considering the Warriors were always one or three steps ahead of the Spurs, especially after injuries mounted for San Antonio. And I’m still not sure how the Celtics took a game in Cleveland considering the other four games were “Okay, let’s keep it close, keep it under forty.” Forty. That’s as many as four tens. And that’s terrible.

Okay, that was only Games 1 and 5, but still! You’d expect more from the best record in the conference!

So yeah, you’ve got LeBron with Pepsi commercial extraordinaire Kyrie Irving (hey, I like Uncle Drew) and occasional afterthought Kevin Love against the Voltron that is the Warriors (Klay and Durant are the arms; Draymond Green and Zaza Pachulia are the legs kicking away, yes literally; Curry’s the head). Who wins? I don’t know, the real question is do we care? (I guess if you had to put a—hey where’d you get that gun to put against my head? Fine, fine, uh… Warriors in 7? Steph’s healthy, Durant is better than Harrison Barnes, Draymond Green’s probably not going to do as much stupid shit and get himself suspended, and revenge factorq.) Either way barring Game 7 going into at least quadruple overtime and/or the winning team pulling off Mortal Kombat fatalities, nobody’s going to give a rat’s ass about this series until twenty years from now or so when everyone goes “yeah I guess it was cool seeing all those stars playing for the championship.” And it would be, if only it hadn’t been pre-destined since fucking July!

Okay, Senor, calm down, deep breaths, even if there was any drama in the NBA this year it wouldn’t change how much your Knicks suck. Moving on!

NFL News:
First off, 98 days until football. That’s 14 weeks. That’s not terrible. And I don’t see a dumb listicle. So that’s downright pretty good!

NFLPA and player reps turn over Ezekiel Elliott’s phone records to the NFL regarding their investigations on whether he assaulted his girlfriend at the time. Elliott wasn’t charged by the Columbus City Attorney’s Office but is of course subject to the NFL’s conduct policy.

Jets trade former first-round pick S Calvin Pryor to the Browns in exchange for Demario Davis. Davis signed with the Browns as a free agent last year after starting every game for the Jets the three years prior.

Colts sign Christine Michael.

Falcons first-round pick Takkarist McKinley is very happy about Atlanta’s first check clearing. Way to get that direct deposit, Takk!
-Can we make a note of the last line of this article? “Now Myrtle [Collins, McKinley’s grandmother who raised him and who he made his emotional speech about on draft night]’s boy is a millionaire professional athlete. I’m sure she’s dancing, too.” Um, he talked about her that night because she passed away before she could see him become a D-I college star and get drafted in the NFL, Dan Hanzus.

Other Sports News:
White Sox announcer Ken “Hawk” Harrelson will retire at the end of the 2018 season. Or as he’d put it, “He gone!”
-Thank goodness. As far as annoying homers go he was pretty high up there on the list, and I’m guessing even a decent number of White Sox fans didn’t want to deal with him considering “Heave the Hawk” was one of the first hits on the Googles. Sorry, the first hit (apart from the news articles of course).

Mr. Met got in trouble for giving fans the finger at Citi Field last night. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that’s no way for a mascot to act and also BAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA.

What’s on tonight?

NBA Finals:
Game 1, CLE vs. GSW, 9:00 E, ABC

MLB:
NYY at TOR, 7:00 E, MLBN, SNET-1 (Canada)
BOS at BAL, 7:00 E, MLBN

tWBS will be here tomorrow for TGISF. Hopefully the theme won’t be dolls but I can promise nothing.

CHECK IT!

Image of the West 4th Street Courts courtesy of Wikipedia. I thought I had a pic in my phone but I was apparently mistaken.