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The Nuggets take game two from the Lakers thanks to a monster fourth quarter from Jamal
Murray.
The Open will roll on without a 14-time champ who is suddenly talking retirement.
And a surprise leader emerges out of nowhere on day one of the PGA Championship.
From Wondery, I'm Tiff Oshinsky.
And I am Matt Straub.
It's Friday, May 19th.
And this is starting five, five sports stories to start your day.
We start things off today in the NBA playoffs where it was game two between the Lakers and
Nuggets in Denver and the Nuggets won at 108-103 to take a 2-0 series lead.
That's hard to talk about Denver without mentioning Nicole Yokech.
So let's get that out of the way first, right?
He had his fourth straight triple double and seventh of these playoffs.
And now we can turn our attention to the guy who really stole the spotlight late in
this game, Jamal Murray, with his team trailing by three heading into the fourth.
The Nuggets point guard absolutely took over scoring 23 of his 37 points in that fourth
quarter.
And then Murray just hit massive shot after massive shot.
And this three pointer put Denver up by 12 with about five minutes to go.
Yokech, back to Murray, another three pointer.
It's good.
Jamal Murray, red hot.
And Mike, you didn't see this, but Jamal Murray just looked on the head and said, bang.
Yeah, you heard that right.
Jamal Murray apparently said Mike Breen's signature called two Mike Breen after hitting
that big three.
That is how you know you're having a great night.
And Denver did not give up that lead.
But L.A. did cut it to two points late before Murray iced it with free throws.
In addition to those 37 points, he scored.
He had 10 rebounds, five assists, four steals and six three pointers.
And he is now averaging a cool 34 points per game in the two games in this series so far
after scoring 31 in game one.
The Lakers obviously expended a lot of energy trying to slow down Yokech, but Murray reminded
us again just how dangerous he is in a postseason setting.
He has averaged 17 points per game in his career in the NBA.
And that number goes up to 25 points per game in the playoffs.
Then I'll get by the way, or now eight no at home this postseason game three of the
series will be Saturday night in L.A. as the Lakers try to climb back from a two game deficit
in game two of the Eastern Conference final with the heat up one Oh over the Celtics is
tonight Friday in Boston.
And one more basketball note, make sure you check out Friday's episode of our other podcast,
the lead a look at super teams and scandals as the WNBA season tips off.
Oh boy.
All right.
Next, we are moving over to the Stanley Cup playoffs where on Thursday night it was game
one of the Eastern Conference final between the Panthers and hurricanes in Carolina and
the Panthers won it after many, many, many hours of gridlock.
Yeah, before this game, it was an absolute toss up.
Just listen to some of these facts, Matt.
Okay.
The hurricanes were in NHL best five and one at home in the playoffs.
Right.
But the Panthers were a league best six and one on the road in the playoffs, including
six straight wins.
And both teams were undefeated in the playoffs when they scored first.
The game eventually went to four over times.
It seemed like it might never end.
True.
But eventually Florida made the breakthrough.
Then it keeps the puck alive.
So Florida survives.
They get their seventh straight playoff road win and they continue to be a menace away
from home against higher seeds.
Now we'll see how both of these teams recover after a marathon Thursday night slash Friday
morning and it's a quick turnaround.
Game two of the series will be on Saturday.
Yeah.
If this game very nearly took us straight into breakfast and meanwhile game one of the
Western Conference final will be tonight Friday with the stars in Vegas taking on the golden
nights.
Next up, we have some pretty big updates from the world of tennis starting with Rafael Nadal
who officially announced on Thursday that he will not compete in the upcoming French
Open and shed some light on his career plans moving forward.
Matt yet if Nadal spoke at a press conference at his tennis academy in my orca must be nice
and first things first, the 22 time Grand Slam champ made the announcement that he will miss
the French Open and he made it clear why not going to be able to play him in Roland
Arras.
I was even working as much as possible every single day for the last four months have been
very difficult months because we were not able to find the solution to the problem that
I had in Australia.
The problem that he had in Australia was a hip injury at the time.
The timeline was expected to be six to eight weeks.
It's now four months later and Nadal said on Thursday that he is going to stop practicing
for anywhere from one and a half to four months.
That's a pretty vague timetable.
But we know that he will at least miss the French Open tournament.
He has won 14 times and he's missing it for the first time since he made his debut at the
French back in 2005.
Now Nadal also talked on Thursday about his plans after he is finally back from this
injury.
My ambition is to try to stop to give myself an opportunity to enjoy next year.
That probably going to be my last year in a professional tour.
That's my idea.
Well, there you have it.
Nadal left the door open that maybe that won't be the case, but it certainly sounds
like the 36 year old is gearing up for a big farewell tour in 2024.
And in some very different French Open injury news, Nick Curios will miss the tournament
because according to his agent, there was an armed robbery at his house on May 1st and
the 28 year old sustained a foot laceration during the chaos surrounding the incident.
It was previously thought that Curios was missing the French Open because he's been
recovering from knee surgery.
The tournament gets underway a week from Sunday.
All right, let's move over to golf where the PGA Championship got underway on Thursday
at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, New York.
And after they suspended play of the first round due to darkness on Thursday evening,
we had a surprise name at the top of the leaderboard.
Yeah, Matt.
It's not the favorite.
John Romme.
Nor is it lived-effector Bryson DeChambeau who was leading for most of the day.
Not at all.
It was 34 year old rookie, Eric Cole.
I'm sorry, who?
Exactly.
Well, Cole's round was cut short after 14 holes because of the play suspension, but he
finished the day five under just ahead of DeChambeau.
In just his second major championship, Cole searched to the top thanks to his short game,
which included three straight birdies.
Here's his birdie putt on four that put him in the lead.
And now that look for Cole to take the lead outright.
Eric, I think he is a terrific ball striker.
Yes, he is.
Now, if you're wondering who exactly Eric Cole is, which you asked previously, his parents,
Bobby Cole and Laura Baugh were both professional golfers, and he has had a really challenging
road to get to this point.
When Cole was in his 20s, he suffered a back injury that had him contemplating giving up
professional golf.
I think he did it because he's won 57 tournaments on the minor league golf tour.
Just last month, he won the Palm Beach County Open, a minor league event and won $8,000.
Just for a comparison, the winner of the PGA Championship will win $2.7 million.
And he caddied for Sam Saunders, Arnold Palmer's grandson, for a few months to make some extra
cash.
So how does it feel to see his name at the top of the PGA Championship leaderboard?
Here's what he said Thursday night.
It's nice.
I like it a lot.
That's the spot I like to see my name at.
And I just got to keep focus on what I've been doing.
And, you know, I'm, I got 180 yards for my shot on number six.
So I'm just going to focus on getting ready to hit that shot for tomorrow morning.
Cole may be focusing on his next shot when he resumes play today, Friday, but will all
be focusing on how he does the rest of his tournament.
One last thing to note, Matt, Cole earned his tour card a year ago, but one person he wasn't
able to share that news with was his brother who died unexpectedly last May at just 28
years old.
I can only imagine how much more meaningful it would be for him if he can hold on to the
lead and win the PGA Championship.
Wow.
Quite a story emerging with Eric Cole and rounding out the top three of the leaderboard
is Bryson DeChambeau at four under, as you mentioned, and three golfers tied at three
under, including Scotty Schuffler, Corey Connors and Dustin Johnson.
Meanwhile, John Romm struggled in his first round finishing six over, which leaves him
tied for 117th.
We are closing out the day and the week in Major League Baseball, where the recently
red-hot Dodgers lost big against the Cardinals 16-8 on Thursday night, but along the way,
one of their stars hit a major career milestone.
Yet, if that star for L.A. was Freddy Freeman, the milestone you mentioned was career home
run number 300, and the way he achieved it was by hitting a grand slam.
On all one, Freeman lifts it in the air to center field.
No bars going back, he's at the track, he's at the wall, and 300 is a grand slam.
Freddy Freeman joins the 300 home run club in grand style.
The game completely got out of hand for L.A. from there, so we're not really going to
focus on that, but what a way to get it done for the 33-year-old.
Freeman also hit a triple, and one of baseball's best and most consistent hitters is having
another strong season in his second year in L.A. Freeman is hitting 3-13 so far, and if
that holds, it would be the seventh time in the last eight years that he's hit 300 or
better.
And as for the Dodgers, despite some notable losses this offseason, including their shortstop
trade-turner, this team has continued to churn out wins.
In fact, they have the most wins of any team in the NL, they're 28 and 17, and even though
as I said, things got out of hand late and they're lost to the Cardinals Thursday, the
Dodgers have been especially hot lately.
Prior to Thursday, they had won 15 out of their last 18 games.
So yes, Tiff, as fans of two different NL teams that aren't the Dodgers, I regret to
inform both of us that they are, despite Thursday's loss.
Still a juggernaut.
Hey, then that's just won the series against the best team in baseball, the race, so give
it time.
Give it time.
Well, that is it for today.
Thanks for listening this week.
Starting five is produced by Ian Hurley, production assistants and mixing by Daniel Gonzalez and
Adrian Tapia, fact-checking in production by Charlotte Edmonds.
Our host are Matt Stroup, John Gonzalez, me, Tiff Oshinsky and Sarah Kazell.
Our executive producer is Anders Keltow.
The show is executive produced by Dave Easton, Marshall Louie and Jen Sargent for Wondery.
From Wondery, I'm Tiff Oshinsky.
And I am Matt Stroup.
Have a great weekend everyone.
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