Pacers Force Game 7 and Mets Get Swept Again

I really thought that the Thunder were going to take care of business in Game 6 of the NBA Finals. Everything was going according to plan when Oklahoma City jumped out to a 10-2, but after those first four minutes, the Indiana Pacers dominated the game like they have not dominated before in these NBA Finals. Pascal Siakam and company led by three at the end of the first quarter and then outscored OKC by 19 in the second. At halftime I was hoping for a Thunder comeback so I could mock Tyrese Haliburton with the choke sign, but OKC never got close and Mark Daigneault pulled his starters at the start of the fourth quarter with the deficit at 30. The Pacers went on to win 108-91.

The Thunder ended up shooting 8-for-30 from beyond the arc, but most of the makes were from bench guys in the final period. I think OKC only made a single three-point shot while the game was competitive while Indiana got long-range accuracy from Obi Toppin (4-for-7) and Andrew Nimrod (3-for-5). Those guys combined for 37 points on the night and were Indiana top two scorers. That goes to show you how deep of a team the Pacers are and also what an overrated bum Haliburton is. He was probably the fifth-best player on his own team in Game 6. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Indiana would be better off having Haliburton back up T.J. McConnell and not the other way around. McConnell was at it again on Thursday night with 12 points, nine rebounds, six assists, and four steals in just 24 minutes. He is more than just a pest; he is a difference-maker.

The Thunder has to get its act together in Game 7 and win at home like it did in Game 2 and Game 5. I can’t deal with watching the Pacers win an NBA title after beating the Knicks because of the luckiest shot in league history. I’m having a hard enough time watching the Mets play worse and worse every night while blowing their five-game lead in the National League East in a week’s time.

Thursday night was another horror show in Atlanta with the Mets unable to do anything on offense after the third inning and Clay Holmes losing the strike zone in the fourth and the fifth. Holmes walked Matt Olson to begin the fourth inning and saw him score after singles by Marcell Ozuna and Ozzie Albies. In the fifth Holmes started with a walk of Ronald Acuna Jr. and later walked Olson again to load the bases before walking Drake Baldwin to force in the go-ahead run. Huascar Brazoban relieved Holmes, but he was no better. Brazoban walked Albies to give Atlanta a 3-1 lead and then allowed Olson to hit a bases-clearing double in the sixth to blow the game open. The Braves won 7-1 to sweep the Mets and hand them a sixth straight loss.

The Mets’ offense has been putrid lately with zero or one runs scored in three of the last four games, but it’s also disturbing how their pitching has fallen off since the injuries to Kodai Senga and Tylor Megill. Holmes, Griffin Canning, and Paul Blackburn have disappointed lately, and now the Mets have called up Blade Tidwell to make a spot start in the crucial series opener at Philadelphia. In Tidwell’s lone major league appearance, he allowed six runs in three and two-thirds innings at St. Louis on May 4. Zack Wheeler is on the hill for the Phillies, so they are pretty big favorites with the division lead on the line. Wheeler has been excellent as usual lately with six innings pitched and one earned run allowed in each of his last two starts.

The USMNT may be playing against inferior competition, but at least it has won two straight matches and punched a ticket to the Gold Cup quarterfinals. Chris Richards broke through in the 63rd minute last night against Saudi Arabia on a brilliant feed from Sebastian Berhalter and the Yanks won 1-0. Over at ESPN, Ryan O’Hanlon wrote an interesting story about why the USMNT is such a mess right now. It has a lot to do with many of the players having full-time soccer jobs overseas and playing in dozens of matches each year before even considering the national team.

There’s a vision of a unified American soccer model… The players add up to something greater than the sum of the parts, and everything makes sense every time they take the field.

This will never happen. How do I know this? Because it hasn’t happened anywhere else. You can’t achieve this when all of your players are spending 75% of their time doing the same job for someone else. Although the situation arose by accident, the current constraints on the international game force it into dysfunction.

O’Hanlon writes about how in the past the national team matches were the most important events for all of the players because they weren’t playing in the Champions League or other important club tournaments. Now that the US has a bunch of talent in Europe, many players have to balance their priorities, and there is not much continuity on the roster. The hope is that all of the best American players come together and form a somewhat cohesive unit at the World Cup next year.

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