Steve Nash Beamed Into Conference Finals
Because no one reads the newspaper, and SportsCenter's anchors are too perky for this early in the morning, Deadspin combs the best of the broadsheets and the blogosphere to bring you everything you need to know to start your day.
• Phoenix sweeps San Antonio, and Nash, after taking an elbow to the face, plays the fourth looking like something on a slab in Area 51.
• Rajon Rondo puts together maybe the finest playoff game of recent vintage — a 29-point, 18-rebound, 13-assist triple-double that was equal parts Cousy and Russell, with a little Havlicek thrown in for good measure — and the Celtics pull even with the Cavs at two games apiece. Please watch this:
• Joe Posnanski does that Joe Posnanski thing with Dallas Braden's perfect game:
A screwball, as you probably know, is a pitch thrown that breaks the opposite way of a curveball. So, when a lefty throws it, it breaks AWAY from a right-handed hitter. That pitch Braden throws that breaks away from righties is now widely viewed by pitching experts as a change-up and not a screwball — not that it really matters what it's called. It is always interesting how pitches change names. There was, according to Rob Neyer, a pitch in the late 1800s called a fadeaway that some people think became the "screwball" and others think became the circle-change-up. Nobody knows for sure. Either way it seems that Dallas Braden in 2010 throws the ol' fadeaway.
• In the Canucks' Game 5 victory over the Blackhawks, Sami Salo takes a puck to the nuts, and within moments his ruptured testicle gets itself a Facebook page. (Turns out the testicle isn't ruptured. You may uncross your legs now.)
• "Say goodbye to No. 1, Tiger," some 8-year-old kid yelled at Tiger on Saturday. "Kiss it goodbye." Whereupon he was Tasered.
Screengrab courtesy reader Macon
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Good morning. It's Monday. RIP, Lena.
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