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James Dolan is a man born to immense privilege.
And in the new podcast, Rain of Error, you're going to see his rise from aspiring musician
to the throne of one of the most beloved franchises in sports.
Rain of Error details how Dolan has become a lightning rod for criticism as he tries to
escape from the shadow of his billionaire dad.
Listen to Rain of Error on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
Thanks to one of their veteran superstars, the Dallas Stars live to play another day.
The Boston Celtics win big in Game 5 and drum up talk of a potential historic comeback.
In a women's soccer star, drags her team into first place and then talks about it on
her podcast.
From Wondery, I'm Tifos Kinske.
And I'm Anders Keltow.
It's Friday, May 26th.
And this is starting five.
Five sports stories to start your day.
Alright, we begin in the NHL playoffs where the Dallas Stars avoided a sweep on Thursday
night beating the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 in overtime at home.
Yeah, Tif, the Stars were without their veteran captain Jamie Ben who was serving a two-game
suspension for a very, very dirty cross check to the face slash jaw slash neck area of
Golden Knights Captain Mark Stone.
That happened in Game 3.
Some captain on captain crime there, Tif.
But in Ben's absence, it was another Stars veteran, 38-year-old Joe Pavelski who stepped
up and delivered the game winner in OT.
Until sprawling save, He's getting a score.
Joe Pavelski, a power play goal.
And the Stars are still alive.
After scoring four goals in a game earlier in these playoffs, Pavelski had a goose egg
so far in this series, but he's now given the Stars a tiny sliver of hope.
Also coming up big for Dallas was Jason Robertson who scored both goals and regulation.
He put up 11 total shots, that is a lot of shots, let the record show, and made a key
sliding block late in regulation.
Now Tif, I don't want to rain on Dallas's or Vegas's parade here, but I just got to
say the level of play in this series has really been nothing compared to what we saw
in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Florida, Carolina, they were both flying.
Meanwhile Vegas and Dallas, they've just looked a little bit like they're struggling
to me.
Everything's a bit disjointed.
Okay.
So not to be cynical here, but Dallas, enjoy this win.
Vegas, enjoy probably winning the series, but beware of the Florida Panthers juggernaut
that awaits you in the Stanley Cup Finals.
Them's fighting words honors.
Now this series moves back to Las Vegas for game five on Saturday where the Golden Knights
will try to book their ticket to the Stanley Cup Finals.
Okay.
Now to the NBA playoffs, the Celtics continued their own attempt to come back from a 3-0
series deficit.
And they absolutely demolished the Miami Heat 110 to 97 in game five Thursday in Boston.
Demolished is absolutely correct, Anders.
Boston started fast in this one, getting out to a 35 to 20 lead after the first quarter,
and they didn't look back from there.
And surprise, surprise.
The key here were the Celtics starters who outscored their counterparts 95-44 in this
game.
Wow.
The stadium had a well-rounded night, putting up 21 points, 11 assists, and eight rebounds.
It was a team effort for the Celtics with four players scoring 20 or more for the first
time this season, including Marcus Smart, who had 23 points and hit some huge threes,
like this one that gave Boston a 23-point lead with about 130 left in the third quarter.
Why not?
Derek White in the other J, Jalen Brown, also stepped up big in this game, accounting for
45 points combined.
The key here honors is that after three rough games, the Celtics seem like they found their
groove on offense.
They're moving the ball and, most importantly, hitting lots of threes, going 16 for 39 from
beyond the arc in this one.
So Boston is now 10 and 2 in these playoffs when they hit 12 or more threes.
And they're now 38 and 2 on the season when shooting over 40% from deep.
Meanwhile, Miami struggled to get anything going on offense.
Jimmy Butler scored just 14 points in Kyle Lowry.
Max Drews and Kevin Love gave them basically nothing.
So now we go back to Miami and we all know no team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit
to win a playoff series in the NBA.
But things will get very tense in South Beach if Boston can pull off a Game 6 win in Miami
on Saturday.
Very sweaty in South Beach indeed.
Yeah, it was a good night for the Celtics TIFF, but one bad note for them.
Malcolm Brogden left the game with right forearm soreness and did not return.
He's been dealing with a torn tendon in his elbow since Game 1 of the series.
So that's something to keep an eye on going forward.
All right, let's go now to the NFL where on Thursday we heard from Detroit Lions wide
receiver Jameson Williams for the first time since he was suspended six games for violating
the league's gambling policy.
Yeah, TIFF, quick refresher here for the handful of people out there who are not fans of the
Detroit Lions, also known as America's team.
Jameson Williams missed 11 games during his rookie season last year after tearing his
ACL in that 2022 national championship game with Alabama that he made exactly one catch
for 41 yards in the six games he did play last season.
And then a month ago in April, he was hit with the six game suspension for gambling on
sports from within a Detroit Lions facility with the team noting that he was not gambling
on NFL games.
Now on Thursday, Williams talked to the media and he said that he was caught off guard by
this suspension.
I wasn't aware of this situation, but as it happened, like I said, I took it on the
team.
I was ready to move forward as things moved on.
I got the consequences.
So that's been my whole plan moving forward from things and, you know, just looking at
the better days.
To five to say, listening to more of his interview, it sounded like Williams genuinely
had no idea that he could not gamble on other sports from within a Lions facility, which
to be fair, it is kind of a strange rule, very specific rule, but credit to Williams
for accepting his punishment and keeping a positive attitude about the future.
I have to say, I'm very excited to finally someday see more of this guy play football.
Speaking of the Lions future to Tiff, it's weird to say this, but the Lions are becoming
a popular pick to win the NFC North next season.
You know, Aaron Rodgers has left the Packers.
The Bears are going through a rebuild and the Vikings are uncertain about Dalvin Cook's
future.
Tiff, this could be our year.
And by our, I, of course, mean all of us because did I mention that the Lions are America's
team?
Actually, fun fact here, honors, the Dallas Cowboys were given the nickname America's
team by a producer from NFL Films, but only after the Pittsburgh Steelers turned down
the offer.
Hmm.
We're going to see if that one gets by the factory.
Okay, sticking with the theme of NFL players speaking publicly after a controversy, Devontay
Adams spoke to the press on Thursday a little more than a week after he appeared to sling
some mud at his team, the Las Vegas Raiders, in an article in the Ringer.
Yeah, honors.
I would say his comments on Thursday were a combo of downplaying and doubling down in
a nice way.
Okay.
In that Ringer story, you mentioned Adams said he didn't see, quote, eye to eye with general
manager Dave Ziegler and head coach Josh McDaniel's when it came to the direction of the team.
That was seen as a reference to the Raiders parting ways with quarterback Derek Carr, one
of Adams's best friends and his college QB at Fresno State.
On Thursday, Adams took a different tone but didn't exactly backtrack on his previous comments.
You can grab something and run with it if you want, just, you know, to get clicks and
that's what people often do with me.
But at the end of the day, I'm a raider and I'm excited to be here.
I love my head coach and I love the general manager here and everybody.
I really value the relationship that I have with him.
So, you know, that's about all that needs to be safe for that.
And his credit, Josh McDaniel's, didn't seem to mind Adams's previous comments and he reframed
them as a matter of Devontae Adams trying to make the Raiders better as an organization.
The thing I'd say about a player like Devontae is they have an opinion and a voice because
they've earned it and I respect the hell out of anything that they would say or suggest
or anything like that during the course of the process of trying to improve our team.
You'll see soon enough if the Raiders have improved after parting ways with Carr and bringing
in Jimmy Garoppolo to take over a starting QB.
The Garoppolo, Devontae, Josh Jacobs, Coron offense is a great combo on paper and the retool
defense with first round draft pick Tyree Wilson joining Max Crosby and Chandler Jones
should definitely be fun to watch.
But the Raiders are not looking like Super Bowl champs there in Vegas as the odds of them
winning are currently plus 6600.
Plus 6600 as in not likely.
Speaking of Jimmy G. Vegas's new starting quarterback is currently not participating
in OTAs as he recovers from foot surgery which he had back in March.
His return date is still unknown but McDaniel said he could be out until at least training
camp.
All right, we're going to wrap things up in women's soccer where the top team in the
NWSL right now is a team that very few people expected to be there and it's thanks in large
part to one player.
Yeah, to have last season Gotham FC was, let me check my notes here, very bad.
They finished Dead Last in the League by a healthy margin.
Well, in January of this year they made a trade with Kansas City Current to bring in
veteran forward Lynn Williams in a deal that many people felt was a real steal for Gotham.
Now, I'm not going to say that Williams is the entire reason that Gotham FC has completely
turned itself around this year and I'm not going to say she's the reason that they're
sitting pretty with a 5-1-2 record.
But so far she scored five goals in eight games including this game winner against OL
Rain just this past weekend.
U.S. in a space.
Most of the bar today lost at the Williams.
Lynn Williams in a box scoring on her birthday.
Happy birthday Lynn.
Two nothing, Gotham.
Five goals in eight games, one of them a birthday goal and just for reference here,
if last season no one on Gotham had more than three goals all season.
Well, on Thursday Williams talked about the team's early season success on the very fun
podcast that she hosts called Stacks.
The announcer asked if I was surprised that we were winning and I was like absolutely
not.
I think a lot of other people were surprised but we're not.
I think people just in their mind have like last year's Gotham and I'm like no.
I love both the confidence and the defiance there.
If Williams is strong play so far this season is also making her look like a likely member
of the U.S. women's team for the Summer's World Cup, especially with key attacking players
Mallory Swanson and Kat Mcario out with injuries.
Now, I don't know what U.S. soccer's policy is when it comes to players podcasting during
World Cup but you know maybe we could be looking at some real-time insights from Lynn Williams
on that Snacks podcast.
I love it.
Give us all the snacks.
Words to live by.
And speaking of the Women's World Cup that's now less than two months away.
Games kick off on July 20th.
Alright, that's it for us this week.
Starting five is produced by Ian Hurley, production assistants and mixing by Daniel Gonzalez and
Adrian Tavia.
Back checking in production by Charlotte Edmonds.
Our host army Tefotiansky, Matt Stroup, John Gonzalez, Sarah Kazell and every once in a
while, executive producer, Anders Kelzo.
The show is executive produced by Dave Eason, Marshall Louie and Jen Sargent for Wondery.
From Wondery, I'm Tefotiansky.
And going to get some snacks?
I'm Anders Kelzo.
Let's see you next week.
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I'm the director of the studio.
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