Author: Michael

One night after winning the league MVP award, Sixers star Joel Embiid is “on track” to return for Game 2 against the Celtics on Wednesday night, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic.
Just two days removed from missing the team’s Game 1 victory over the Celtics, Embiid is expected to return to the lineup. After winning the MVP on Tuesday night, Embiid turned to his teammates and said “I’m back.

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Game 1 of the Western Conference Semifinals between the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers had a little bit of everything, including a coach getting involved on the floor thanks to Darvin Ham.
With the Lakers leading 115-112 with under 10 seconds left, Golden State guard Jordan Poole was left open beyond the three-point line. With no Lakers defenders closing in, the Los Angeles head coach decided to distract Poole.

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Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. The best part of Joel Embiid winning the MVP was definitely his digging up this nine-year-old tweet.
In today’s SI:AM:
🔔 A deserving MVP
⚾ MLB’s embrace of prop comedy
🤔 A fun thought experiment about baseball in Mexico City
If you’re reading this on SI.com, you can sign up to get this free newsletter in your inbox each weekday at SI.com/newsletters.
James Harden needs to do it again
Joel Embiid is your 2022–23 NBA Most Valuable Player.

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Take a good look at the NBA playoffs landscape.
The West looks loaded, with the top-seeded Nuggets looking highly likely to draw either a dangerous Lakers club or the defending-champion Warriors, who have still never dropped a series before the NBA Finals in their Big Three’s lifespan.
On the flipside out East, you have the Knicks, who are prone to offensive droughts, taking on a hobbled yet experienced Miami group that just took down the title-favorite Bucks in the first round.

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Why did they wait so long to do this again?
Located just a day’s drive from one another, the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors – seven NBA titles between them since 2009 – staged their first playoff game since May 14, 1991, Tuesday night in San Francisco.
The Lakers held off a furious 14-0 run by the defending champion Warriors over the final minutes to survive, 117-112 at the Chase Center.
“Man, no lead is safe with them obviously,” said Lakers’ center Anthony Davis, who dominated the game with 30 points, 23 rebounds, five assists and four blocked shots.

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It was a brutal loss for the Warriors in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals against the Lakers on Tuesday night and no one felt the loss harder than Jordan Poole. The guard made a questionable decision in the game’s final moments, leading to NBA Twitter’s almost universal disapproval. 
With his team down three points and 10 seconds to go in the game, Poole pulled the trigger on a three-pointer from another area code and missed it. Los Angeles guard Dennis Schröder grabbed the rebound and that was all she wrote for Golden State.

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The Warriors found themselves trailing the Lakers by three points in the final seconds of Game 1 of their second-round series on Tuesday night.
One would think that would be perfect time for the great Stephen Curry to make something happen and pull his team even with a clutch three. 
But that didn’t happen. Instead, Jordan Poole attempted a very deep three-pointer that didn’t go in and the Lakers ended up winning the game, 117–112. 
That shot attempt by Poole was mind-boggling, and ripped by Charles Barkley.

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Tori Bowie, a three-time Olympic medalist and the 2017 world champion in the 100-meter dash, has died, according to her management company and World Athletics. She was 32 years old. 
No cause of death has been reported as of Wednesday morning.
“We’ve lost a client, dear friend, daughter and sister,” Icon Management tweeted Wednesday morning. “Tori was a champion…a beacon of light that shined so bright! We’re truly heartbroken and our prayers are with the family and friends.

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The Aaron Rodgers effect is supposed to make the New York Jets into a championship contender, but first it’s making them into Green Bay Packers look-alikes.
The Jets on Wednesday agreed to a one-year contract with free agent receiver Randall Cobb. And this was predictable if not expected because Cobb and Rodgers are close friends off the field and have a bond on the field.
The contract details are not yet available.

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Thomas Shea-USA TODAY Sports
Houston got drastically better now, but this move could haunt them.
Nobody made a bigger splash on night one of the 2023 NFL Draft than the Houston Texans. That goes without saying when you make two picks inside the top-five. The rebuilding team, rich with draft assets from the Deshaun Watson trade, marked a new era with DeMeco Ryans at the helm by getting one of the draft’s best quarterbacks in C.J. Stroud, then turned around to get the best pass rusher in Alabama’s Will Anderson Jr.

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