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Joellen Bead returns, but Philly's three-point shooting disappears in a blowout loss to the
Celtics.
Ronald Acunya Jr. gets recognized for a great month of April and celebrates by clubbing
one more than 460 feet.
And the amazing Erling Holland takes down a goal-scoring record that has stood for nearly
30 years.
From Wondery, I'm Sarah Kazell.
And I am Matt Straub.
It's Thursday, May 4th, and this is starting five five sports stories to start your day.
We're going to get this episode started in the NBA, where on Wednesday night in Boston,
the Sixers got Joellen Bead back from his sprained knee.
That's MVP Joellen Bead.
Yes.
Yes.
But it was the Celtics taking game two in a blowout 121.87 to even up this series at one
game each.
That's really got out of hand at the end, didn't it?
These Sixers got 15 points and some big defensive plays from the MVP as MB had five blocked
shots on the night.
But the Philly offense really struggled looking nothing like it did in that exciting game
one win.
And three-point shooting, as we said at the top, was a huge part of the story.
After going 17 for 38 on threes in game one, Philly went just six of 30 on Wednesday night,
while Boston, by contrast, went 20 for 51.
That is not good math for Philadelphia.
18 points off of three pointers for the Sixers.
60 points off of three pointers for Boston.
Celtics really cracked this game open during the third quarter.
That was a quarter that included Grant Williams hitting this three to put Boston up by 26
points, 89 to 63.
Williams three.
That Williams puts one down.
Everything is falling down from three.
Coach Missoula said we need to take up to 43 right now, 14 of 34 for Boston.
Trying to choose.
Spoiler, they did blow past 43-point attempts, which I actually told you earlier.
And that Grant Williams triple was one of seven threes that Boston hit during a 35 to
16 third quarter.
As those 16 points made it the second lowest scoring quarter for the Sixers all season.
Boston, meanwhile, got 25 points from Jalen Brown.
23 from Malcolm Brogdon dominating on a night where they got basically nothing from Jason
Tatum.
Yet seven points on one for seven shooting.
That was his first single digit scoring game since November of 2021.
This series now has to Philly where it will be game three on Friday night.
Meanwhile, we've got one NBA playoff game on the schedule for tonight, Thursday.
And that is game two of the Lakers warriors showdown Golden State trying to avoid going
down two games to nothing at home.
Now, let's get to the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The New Jersey Devils and the Carolina Hurricanes opened their second round series Wednesday
night in rally where the Cains pulled off a convincing game one win five to one.
Oh, convincing indeed, Matt, the Cains forwards were a little bit hobbled coming out of their
six game first round series against the Islanders.
But on Wednesday, you can see that the extra time off clearly did them some good pouring
it on early and often against New Jersey.
Carolina scored twice in the first period about 10 minutes in and then again, five minutes
later when Seth Jarvis sent the puck over a Kirish med's glove.
Grades, then Jarvis got a stick on it.
Played it up the wall and here he comes.
Seth Jarvis scores.
What a play by Jarvis.
He reads the bank pass from Braves to Hughes.
Make matters worse for the Devils.
They only got off one shot on goal in the entire first period.
Oh, no.
And it came from 70 feet away.
So like not even really a true attempt there.
Just a completely suffocating start for the Devils.
Now they did end up scoring once in the second period, but just as they started to settle
into the game, Matt, the cane sealed it up with a fourth goal midway through the third
and the home crowd was absolutely loving it.
Tip of the cap to Carolina goalie, Frederick Anderson, he stopped 17 of 18 shots in the
win.
And in the other game on Wednesday night, the Golden Knights won game one of their series
against the Oilers in Las Vegas.
They will play game two on Saturday.
Our next stop is Major League Baseball as the player of the month awards for April were
handed out on Wednesday with third baseman Matt Chapman of the Blue Jays winning the
Honor and the American League and Braves right fielder Ronald Acuna Jr. taking home the NL
award.
And Acuna went out and backed it up on the field on Wednesday as the Braves beat the
Marlins 14-6.
Yes, Sarah Acuna has looked like his old self after a season last year where he was really
limited and still recovering from his 2021 ACL tear.
He is now hitting 355 after Wednesday night.
He has an MLB leading 14 stolen bases and he crushed a three-run homer to straightaway
center field in the fifth inning to fully bust the game open, putting the Braves up 11-4.
And he smokes this one.
He smokes it so well.
It's gone.
Way gone.
Straightaway center for Ronald Acuna Jr.
And it's 11 to 4 Atlanta.
How about 461 feet?
Yeah.
How about it?
461.
That was the sixth homer of the year for Acuna and one of six on the night for the first
place Braves who now have the best record in the National League at 21 and 10 and a five
game lead over the Mets and Marlins in the NL East.
The only bad news on the night for Acuna is that he actually faced Marlins catcher Jacob
Stollings who came into pitch a meaningless night inning and was throwing a number of
pitches in the mid 40s, 40 something miles per hour on multiple occasions.
Then suddenly he froze the player of the month with an 85 mile an hour heater down the
middle for strike three.
Embarrassing moment.
The player of the month award has actually been rescinded as a result of that at bat.
And on a more actually alarming note, Braves right-hander Kyle Wright, a 21 game winner
last year, left the game with right shoulder soreness after dealing with a sore shoulder
this spring.
And he has reportedly headed for the injured list.
Really ended this segment on a down note, which was not my intention, but so it goes
Sarah.
Wow.
Always the downer on this show, man.
You should really work on that.
One additional note from the Miami side of this thing, Miami second baseman Luis Arayas
went one for three on the night as his batting average now sits at, get this, 432 on the
season, 432 on the year.
What is the best in baseball ahead of?
Well, the players of the month, Matt Chapman and Ronald Dacunya Jr.
One more note we want to get in from Wednesday's show.
Hey, Otani struck out a career high 13 St. Louis Cardinals in an Angels win, picking
up career strikeout number 500 along the way.
All right.
Now let's head to the NFL to check in on someone we definitely have not talked about
with any frequency on this show in recent weeks.
That would be Aaron Rodgers.
Sarah, it turns out he is playing for the Jets now and we learned on Wednesday that
he has another familiar face now joining him in New York.
I was really starting to wonder what's up with Aaron Rodgers.
I haven't heard about him recently.
So thank you for that update, Matt.
That familiar face that he is getting in New York, it's his buddy wide receiver Randall
Cobb who reportedly is signing a one year deal with the Jets.
He and Rogers played a total of 10 seasons together in Green Bay and produced 1000 yard
season together for Cobb back in 2014.
Now this is now the fourth X packer to sign with the Jets this off season.
Are we noticing a trend here?
And Cobb is the second wide receiver from Rogers reported wish list to make the jump
to New York back in March ESPN's Diana Rucini reported that Rogers named Randall Cobb, Alan
Lazard, Mercedes Lewis and Odell Beckham Jr.
Among the free agents, he would like the Jets to pursue.
He's now got Cobb and Lazard all playing under former Packers OC Nathaniel Hackett.
So things are going pretty well for Aaron Rodgers, wouldn't you say?
Yeah, great.
He landed with the team he wanted to.
Two of his favorite targets are following him there.
And clearly he's not feeling too much pressure to acclimate to his new environment.
Here he is on the Pat McAfee show earlier this week.
I knew with a new team that I'm going to have to be here a little bit more just to get to
know the guys.
He starts to step into the leadership role that is going to be open for my seamless transition
there as a quarterback.
But I'm still going to take some time and give back out west at some point.
But I'll definitely be here for probably more than half of the remaining days.
But I really want to be here.
Promising stuff there from the new quarterback.
Look, to be fair, Matt, you can't make it to every off season workout when your top priority
is to get to every playoff game in New York this spring as he has so far.
So obviously you got to pick and choose there.
But in all seriousness, I wonder if you're the new quarterback in town and you're kind
of running the show now with the Jets, do you think he should be there more of the time,
Matt?
What do you think?
So I'm going to assume that those half of the days he's missing are for previously scheduled
darkness retreats.
It's a long grind of a season.
You got to get that reflection time in.
So no issues here for me at all.
That's what you got to do.
Okay, we're wrapping things up today in the Premier League where Man City rolled to a
three-nil win over West Ham on Wednesday.
But the bigger story was Erling Holland and some goal-scoring history.
So we're shifting off the greenish, rolling up here for Erling Holland.
The hottest shot in the history of the Premier League.
As you heard there, his 35th goal set a single season Premier League record, breaking the
mark that was jointly held by Andy Cole of Newcastle United and Alan Shearer of Blackburn
Rovers back in the 1990s.
Sarah, some additional perspective here.
Cole and Shearer hit the 34 goal plateau, playing a 42-game season.
Nowadays, of course, it's a 38-game season and Holland set the record in game number 31
for him as he missed two games this season.
Amazing stuff.
And he still has five matches left to try to pile a little bit more onto that record setting
total.
Do I hear 40?
Sarah, can I get a 40?
It's a nice round number for the 22-year-old to strive for.
Yeah, yeah, it certainly is.
And as for Man City, they are at the top of the table in the Premier League with a shot
to win the Champions League as well.
The first leg of their semi-final matchup against Ray Al Madrid is this coming Tuesday.
And on that note, Matt, we are gone like Premier League scoring records from the 90s.
From Wondery, I'm Sarah Kazelle.
And I am Matt Straub.
Thanks for listening.
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