— Boston 116, Miami 99
Celtics stay alive, outscoring Miami 66-43 in second half.
Tatum scored 33 points, had 11 rebounds, 7 assists.
Miami made only 8-32 shots on the arc.
Heat was 30-49-3 against the spread in the regular season this year, tied for worst in the NBA, but they’re 12-5 ATS so far in the playoffs.
Miami-Boston series is the 151st NBA playoff series where a team led 3-0; no team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win the series. That is zero for 150.
— Florida Panthers are 11-4 in this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs; Wednesday’s game will be the first time they’ve been favored in a playoff game this season.
— NFL did a smart thing this week; they passed a rule where a team can have a #3 emergency QB at their games, as long as that QB is on the team’s 53-man roster. This eliminates the possibility of two QB’s getting hurt and a team being stuck without a QB, which happened to the 49ers in the playoffs last year.
— Tom Brady is now a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders; he also owns a small part of the WNBA team in Las Vegas. Could he unretire and play for the Raiders?
There is an NFL rule that says all 32 teams would have to sign off on a player suiting up for a team that they have a financial interest in. Chances are one (or more) teams in the AFC West wouldn’t want Brady playing QB for the Raiders.
— Touchdowns scored on a team’s opening drive last year
8— Eagles, Vikings
6— Bengals, Browns, Seattle, Titans
5— Falcons, Bills, Lions, Chargers, 49ers
1— Ravens, Packers, Jets
— 2025 NFL Draft will happen in Green Bay; hopefully it won’t be snowing in Wisconsin then.
— Last winter we tracked college basketball referee John Higgins, how he would often work six games a week at age 54. Higgins has now apparently retired from officiating and will become Coordinator of Officials fir six conferences out west.
Higgins worked in nine Final Fours, two national title games; he worked in 95 games this past season.
— Hall of Fame tip-off college hoop tournament at Mohegan Sun in November:
Mississippi State vs Washington State
Rhode Island vs Northwestern
— Cubs 7, Mets 2— Cubs are 17-8 when Yan Gomes starts, 4-18 when he doesn’t.
— Arizona 4, Phillies 3— Diamondbacks won nine of their last 11 games.
— Cardinals 8, Reds 5— Goldschmidt hit two homers; St Louis scored seven runs in the first four innings.
— Dodgers 8, Braves 1— Rookie P Miller tossed five innings, got his first MLB win.
— Rockies 5, Miami 4— Colorado catcher Elias Díaz is hitting .345 this season.
— White Sox 4, Cleveland 2– Guardians are 8-14 in their last 22 games.
— Blue Jays 20, Tampa Bay 1— Rays are 6-8 in their last 14 games, after a 29-7 start. Toronto had 27 hits in this games.
— New York 6, Baltimore 5 (10)— Orioles led 4-0 in fourth inning.
— Angels 4, Red Sox 0— Boston lost its last three games, scoring one run.
— Rangers 6, Pirates 1– Nathan Eovaldi has thrown 41 IP in his last five starts, with two complete games.
— Giants 4, Twins 3— Minnesota led 3-0 in 6th inning; Giants’ first two runs scored on bases loaded walks. Michael Conforto hit the game-winning home run for SF.
