Photos: Best images from Thunder's 137-128 win over Rockets
Photos: Best images from Thunder's 137-128 win over Rockets
The Oklahoma City Thunder collected a 137-128 win over the Houston Rockets on Monday. After the latter had punted the contest by ruling out several top players, it turned into the Shai Gilgeous-Alexander show.
Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 51 points on 18-of-30 shooting. He shot 5-of-9 from 3 and went 10-of-10 on free throws. It was his fourth 50-point game of the season. Jalen Williams tallied 24 points on 8-of-16 shooting.
Meanwhile, Cam Whitmore had 27 points and 11 rebounds. Reed Sheppard had the best game of his career with 25 points on 10-of-17 shooting.
Let's look at some of the best photos from the Thunder's nine-point win over the Rockets:
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San Francisco Chronicle
31 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Finals things to know: Shai nearing a milestone, and don't expect close games
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has a chance to make a whole slew of history in these NBA Finals. The Oklahoma City star is the first reigning MVP who'll play in the finals — they start Thursday night when the Thunder play host to the Indiana Pacers — since Golden State's Stephen Curry in 2016. He could become the first player to win a scoring title and an NBA title in the same season since Shaquille O'Neal did it for the Los Angeles Lakers in 1999-2000. And sometime in Game 1 or Game 2, Gilgeous-Alexander will likely hit another milestone. He comes into this series with 2,960 points this season — officially, anyway, more on that in a second — between the 82-game regular-season slate and now the postseason. With 40 more points, he will record the 25th instance of a 3,000-point season when combining the regular season and the playoffs. The most recent to do it was Luka Doncic, who had 3,005 points for Dallas last season. If the NBA Cup championship game counted statistically, which it doesn't, Gilgeous-Alexander would only need 19 more points for 3,000. He had 21 in that OKC loss to Milwaukee at Las Vegas in December, but those points don't count toward his season total. Michael Jordan had 10 seasons with at least 3,000 points, Wilt Chamberlain had five and nine other players — Bob McAdoo, Elgin Baylor, James Harden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, Rick Barry, Shaquille O'Neal and Doncic — have one. Last year, it was Oshae Brissett for Boston and AJ Lawson, Olivier-Maxence Prosper and Dwight Powell for Dallas. This year, it's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luguentz Dort for Oklahoma City, along with Bennedict Mathurin and Andrew Nembhard for Indiana. 'I played against Andrew when I was 9 years old,' Gilgeous-Alexander said. 'It's been an amazing journey. To see him having success, my own success, obviously Lu's success, Ben's success, it's special. It's hard to even wrap your head around. ... For us to make it to this stage, is a testament to our hard work, our character, people around us that helped us get here. It's been a blessing. It's been super fun.' Dort said he hopes Canadians enjoy seeing four of their own in the finals. 'Obviously we represent our teams here,' Dort said. 'But at the end of the day we represent our country as well.' And it's certain that Montreal will get a title: Dort and Mathurin are both from there. 'I think it's a great opportunity for me, Lu, the whole Montreal city,' Mathurin said. 'I think it's a great step in the right direction just to be able to go against each other. You know, Lu's a great friend of mine. I would call him brother right now, but we're enemies.' Finally, the finals, for James Johnson Indiana's James Johnson has been in the NBA for 16 seasons. He has played for 10 different franchises. He has played under 11 different coaches. He has finally made the NBA Finals. Johnson came close in 2019-20, starting the season with Miami — which wound up making the bubble finals that season. But Johnson was part of a three-team trade about a month before the pandemic hit and ended up in Minnesota. 'Getting here now means that I was fortunate enough to be on a team of guys that only want winning," Johnson said. "I was fortunate enough to join a team of guys that just want to win — and they want to win by any means necessary.' Where are the close games? The last time Indiana's Rick Carlisle coached in the NBA Finals, every game was basically decided at the end. All six games of the Dallas-Miami series in 2011 were decided by 10 points or less. Since then, those games are rare. Out of the last 73 NBA Finals games, starting with the 2012 Heat-Thunder matchup through last season's Boston-Dallas series, the average margin of victory has been 12.4 points per game. There hasn't been an instance of more than three consecutive single-digit finals winning margins in that stretch, and 45 of the 73 games have been decided by at least 10 points. And there have been only six games in the last 12 finals decided by three points or less — while 10 have been decided by 20 points or more. Record drought between overtimes There hasn't been an overtime game in the NBA Finals since Game 1 of the 2018 series between Golden State and Cleveland. The seven-year drought and counting without a finals overtime game is the longest in NBA history. There was a six-year stretch from 1984 through 1990 without an OT finals game, but never seven — until now. The division champion quirk If Oklahoma City wins the NBA title, it will mark the 13th time in the last 14 seasons that a division champion has wound up winning the finals. The only exception in that span was Golden State in 2022. Before that, the last team to not win their division but win the NBA title was Dallas in 2011 — coached by current Indiana coach Carlisle. Playoff pool totals The Thunder and Pacers are playing for the NBA championship, the Larry O'Brien Trophy and about $5 million. Technically, $5,002,359. That's what one team will get added to its share of the league's annual playoff pool by winning the NBA Finals this season. The total pool this year, which will be divided by the 16 playoff teams, is $34,665,698. The Thunder have already secured no worse than $7,418,145 from the pool. The Pacers have secured at least $6,160,260. ___
New York Times
34 minutes ago
- New York Times
Edmonton avoids a painful repeat, and Texas stuns Texas Tech late
The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic's daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! Refuse that intentional walk today. We can quibble with quantitative analyses and details later. But watching Game 1 of both the Stanley Cup Final and the Women's College World Series championship last night left me with the best eye test result you can hope for in these situations: It feels like the two best teams are playing each other at the end. Advertisement Truly a wonderful thing. No flukes. Best-on-best, and last night's winners were decided on singular moments: We must start with a scintillating hockey game in Edmonton, where the Oilers — losers of last year's Stanley Cup Final against this same Panthers team — took a 1-0 series lead with a 4-3 overtime win. Florida was up 3-1 early in the second in this one, too. Here's the game winner from Leon Draisaitl with just 31 seconds left in the overtime period: LEON DRAISAITL IS EDMONTON'S HERO 🔥 The Oilers rally back from a 3-1 deficit to take Game 1 in OT! 🎥 @Sportsnet — The Athletic (@TheAthletic) June 5, 2025 Avoid a 3-0 deficit this year? ✅ On the diamond, we saw an intentional walk gone awry win the game for Texas. It was wild. Texas Tech, fueled by star pitcher NiJaree Canady, had a 1-0 lead in the sixth inning when the Red Raiders decided to give Reese Atwood a free bag with two runners on base. The problem was that Atwood refused the offer: After review, this pitch was obstructed by @atwood_reese bat. #HookEm | 📺: ESPN — Texas Softball (@TexasSoftball) June 5, 2025 That was essentially the game. Longhorns up 1-0 in the series. Let's keep moving: Just a few weeks ago, Loïs Boisson was mostly known for a deodorant incident. Boisson, the 22-year-old French tennis revelation, began this year's French Open ranked No. 361 in the world. She had been aching for this opportunity to play in front of French fans, one year after a brutal injury forced her to forgo a wild-card spot in the tournament. This morning, Boisson is a phenomenon. The last remaining French player in the tournament, facing world No. 2 Coco Gauff for a spot in the final. A quick introduction: Victory is a great cologne, and Boisson is much more than the victim of some petty routine. Today's match against Gauff is a must-watch. More on that later, but I recommend listening to 'The Tennis Podcast' on Boisson before she takes the court. Catch that here. Former IU players file sexual assault suit More than a dozen former Indiana men's basketball players have accused former team physician Dr. Bradford Bomba of sexual assault during his decades of work at the school. Two former Hoosiers, Haris Mujezinovic and Charlie Miller, filed suit in October against the university and head trainer Tim Garl, alleging both had knowledge of Bomba's actions and the school 'acted with deliberate indifference' toward his behavior. Two other players joined the suit in April, and yesterday an attorney told The Athletic at least 10 more players plan to come forward. Bomba died in May, and some players have said legendary Hoosiers coach Bob Knight was aware of Bomba's alleged impropriety. More details in our full report. Advertisement Manfred regrets ESPN opt-out The messy breakup between MLB and ESPN has moved past the anger stage and into nostalgia, as commissioner Rob Manfred said yesterday he regrets the move. Sources told The Athletic's Evan Drellich and Andrew Marchand that the league is in negotiations with multiple networks over the rights ESPN once had, and the packages are nowhere near the value of ESPN's offering. Manfred hopes to have a rights deal finalized soon. See his full comments. More news 📫 Love The Pulse? Check out our other newsletters. 📺 French Open: Women's Semifinals 9 a.m. ET on TNT/Max If you're able, throw this on this morning. First up is top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka against Iga Świątek for a spot in the final. Boisson-Coco Gauff follows. Both should be great. 📺 WCWS: Texas vs. Texas Tech, Game 2 8 p.m. ET on ESPN Texas can win its first title here. Easy call to watch. 📺 NBA: Pacers at Thunder 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC Finally, after nearly a week of waiting, the finals are here. We've talked about it plenty. I expect this game to be fast — Indiana's pace-driven offense against Oklahoma City's swarming defense that gorges on fast-break points. As Zach Harper said yesterday, the basketball itself will be good. Get tickets to games like these here. For all of the angles in this NBA Finals, I think it comes down to one guy: Tyrese Haliburton. Shakeia Taylor has a great story today on the league's new premier antagonist, a player who loves his haters. Former Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin was against 'shrink dudes.' Then he worked with one. Max Muncy is mashing for the Dodgers again. His redemption arc is nearly complete. Fun story: Jeff Hoffman doesn't play for the Phillies anymore, but he'll always have a piece of Philly. No, literally. Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Our story on the Steelers writing a letter to fans angry about players showing up to a Donald Trump rally. Read it here. Advertisement Most-read on the website yesterday: Andrew Marchand's column on how ESPN messed up its announcer trio for the NBA Finals. Ticketing links in this article are provided by partners of The Athletic. Restrictions may apply. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.
New York Times
34 minutes ago
- New York Times
Thousands of Club World Cup tickets unsold, Brailsford steps back, Ronaldo's Portugal winner
The Athletic FC ⚽ is The Athletic's daily football (or soccer, if you prefer) newsletter. Sign up to receive it directly to your inbox. Hello! It's almost Club World Cup time. Don't all rush at once. ✂️ More CWC ticket price cuts 🚶 Brailsford steps aside at Man Utd 💰 £55m bid for Bryan Mbeumo 🏎️ Leeds Utd race Red Bull F1 The Athletic's Felipe Cardenas has an interview today with Mattias Grafstrom. I don't imagine the name will immediately ring a bell, but it's worth remembering. Grafstrom, a Swede, is FIFA's secretary general, with more than a little power. He was once chief of staff for its president, Gianni Infantino. Advertisement He's also the man who redesigned FIFA's Club World Cup (CWC), creating the 32-team tournament which starts in the United States next week. It was interesting to see him tell Felipe that the CWC was 'not a commercial venture as such'. From the outside looking in, it doesn't seem to be anything else. DAZN, for instance, paid $1billion for broadcast rights (which no other outlet wanted at that price — but let's not get bogged down in that). The 2025 winners will earn $125m, a Champions League-esque fee for considerably less effort. Grafstrom says FIFA is trying to grow the sport but, fundamentally, it's taken big money for some of the teams involved to give the competition their full attention. Unfortunately for FIFA, the paying public aren't rushing to buy into it. Adam Crafton reports that the opening match, between Inter Miami and Egyptian team Al Ahly in Miami on June 14, is struggling to sell out. The game, likely to feature Lionel Messi (above), is nowhere near capacity, so ticket prices are being cut. Is a late rush coming? Or is the model created by Grafstom failing to land? FIFA is running a dynamic pricing model for the 2025 CWC. In essence, the cost of tickets is dictated by demand: the more popular a fixture, the more it costs to attend. Real Madrid games, for instance, are holding up. None of their fixtures are cheaper than $132. Boca Juniors look like drawing crowds too. But sources spoken to by Adam said Miami were looking at an attendance of lower than 20,000 — 45,000 beneath capacity — for the first fixture. FIFA denied this but would not specify a figure itself. Tickets for that game are available for a lowest price of $55, far below the $230 being charged in January and $349 when the CWC draw was made before the turn of the year. There's a suspicion that plenty of CWC matches will play out in front of swathes of empty seats, an image FIFA wants to avoid. Advertisement Infantino has said previously he wasn't 'worried at all' about ticket sales, because the FIFA boss is a can-do sort. The world governing body insists fans from over 130 countries have purchased seats to date. Grafstrom told Felipe that the CWC should help football expand further in the States. It makes all the right noises, FIFA, but how much is it telling itself what it wants to hear? Sir Dave Brailsford is widely known as Mr Marginal Gains. In the days when he ran Team Sky, before trouble enveloped them, the cycling outfit were the Tour de France's tour de force. The 61-year-old is a key figure at INEOS, Manchester United's minority shareholder, so it stood to reason that when INEOS took a stake in United in 2023, Brailsford would bring his competitive mind to Old Trafford. He did — but yesterday it emerged that he's stepping back again. In INEOS' 18 months, United haven't made marginal gains. They haven't made large gains either. Brailsford has been in the thick of everything that's gone on — a period of on-field regression and deep financial cuts — and his return to the role of INEOS' director of sport can be taken as an admission that his input hasn't worked. At all. In another shuffle, Jason Wilcox is being promoted by United from technical director to director of football. It's a fresh rearrangement of the deckchairs, but Wilcox has a part to play. Not so Brailsford, who won't be roundly missed. You know it's the off season when professional footballers are participating in an on-field drag race with a Formula One car. That was the scene at Elland Road, where three members of Leeds United's squad tried (and predictably failed) to outpace Red Bull's RB7 model. Footnote: it didn't collide with any of them. Advertisement The purpose of the stunt? No idea, beyond a bit of fun, and the ground staff must have been thrilled. But in a serious sense, it's an example of how intertwined Red Bull is becoming with Leeds, its first equity investment in the English game. The purchase of club shares by Red Bull last year was going to be scrutinised, because of its contentious ownership history elsewhere in the world. But far from keeping its head down in Leeds, the energy drink giant — a minority partner — has its branding on the club's kit and its 2011 F1 car on their pitch. There's no missing the collaboration. Leeds' chairman, Paraag Marathe, said at the outset that a majority sale to Red Bull was not on the table. Perhaps that holds true. But I'm constantly fascinated to see if and how its interest evolves, in a league it is yet to crack. (Selected games, times ET/UK) UEFA Nations League semi-final: Spain vs France, 3pm/8pm — Fox Sports, Fubo/Amazon Prime. CONMEBOL World Cup qualifiers: Ecuador vs Brazil, 7pm/12am — Fanatiz PPV/Premier Sports; Paraguay vs Uruguay, 7pm/12pm — Fanatiz PPV (U.S. only); Chile vs Argentina, 9pm/2am — Fanatiz PPV (U.S. only). Virtually nobody on England's side of the Irish Sea would have registered the quiet, five-figure trade between Liverpool and Ringmahon Rangers in 2015. It moved a teenage Caoimhin Kelleher from Ireland to Anfield, long before the goalkeeper's name meant anything to the wider world. Ringmahon's secretary, Sean Fitzgerald, had the presence of mind to sweeten the deal with a 20 per cent sell-on clause. A decade on, and as a knock-on effect of Kelleher's £12.5m transfer from Liverpool to Brentford on Tuesday, it's about to pay out in the grassroots club's favour. The precise amount is yet to be calculated — but Fitzgerald isn't far wrong when he says the windfall should protect Ringmahon for 100 years. Safe hands all round.
