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Parity was not the theme of the NBA's Thursday night, and it all started with what was supposed to be the league's marquee game.
The Boston Celtics' trip to face the Milwaukee Bucks was supposed to be an elite matchup between the Eastern Conference's top 2 teams, with All-Star Boston guard Jrue Holiday returning to the city where he won a championship.
It ended up being a slaughter, in the Bucks' favor. It was 41-23 by the end of the first quarter and 75-38 at halftime. The Celtics were healthy, with all five starters playing, but they just had nothing. The team went 34-of-91 from the field, with not a single starter making a 3-pointer.
Holiday, the returning champion, had six points on 2-of-9 shooting.
None of this is good if you are TNT, which was nationally televising the carnage. When the score reached 100-62, the network tapped out, with host Ernie Johnson explaining the game was so out of hand they would look for another game to feature.
Unfortunately, the pickings were slim enough that TNT went back to the game, with the score having reached 111-73. The Bucks eventually won 135-102. The Celtics actually won the fourth quarter 32-24, so the night wasn't a total mess (yes it was).
So that was the first big game. How were the others?
Well, the Oklahoma City Thunder welcomed the Portland Trail Blazers and ... and beat them 139-77. The Thunder actually had a chance to break the NBA's all-time record in margin of victory after entering the fourth quarter up 116-58, but took their foot off the gas. The record still belongs to the Memphis Grizzlies, who beat the Thunder by 73 points two years ago.
"That's our record," Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said after the game, tongue completely in cheek.
Also playing were the New York Knicks and Dallas Mavericks, who innovated on the night's theme with a blowout followed by a comeback that ultimately failed. The Mavericks, who were missing Luka Doncic, led by 20 points at one point in the fourth quarter, allowed the Knicks to cut the lead down to one in the final minute and escaped with a 128-124 win thanks to 44 points from Kyrie Irving.
The Brooklyn Nets-Cleveland Cavaliers game saw the Cavs up by 20 at halftime and coast to a 111-102 win, with Donovan Mitchell scoring 45 points.
The Phoenix Suns closed the night by giving the Los Angeles Lakers the kind of loss that inspires a a social media frenzy of mockery and calls for head coach Darvin Ham's job. The score ended up being 127-109 after Bradley Beal posted a season-high 37 points.
All told, the NBA's five games on Thursday saw a combined margin of 126 points and a combined halftime margin of, again, 126 points. That's a margin of more than 25 points per game, at both halftime and the end of regulation.
Three games saw only one team take the lead for the entirety of the game. The Lakers led the Suns for a grand total of 11 seconds, while the Blazers — recipients of the night's biggest drubbing — spent a solid two minutes and 36 second tied or leading before getting shoved into a blender.
Even the college basketball ranks weren't immune, as UCLA fell to Utah 90-44.
Let's just say it was a great night to take a nap if you were a diehard basketball fan.
Daniel Weinman was crowned winner of the 2023 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event on Monday, taking home a record breaking $12.1 million in winnings. Weinman had to outlast the other 10,043 entrants to take home the prize and get his hands on his share of live poker’s largest ever prize pool – a staggering $93,399,900. As well as taking home the prize money, 35-year-old Weinman also got his hands on the WSOP Main Event bracelet. The huge bracelet contains 500 grams of 10-karat yellow gold, as well as 2,352 various precious gemstones.
Daniel Weinman won the World Series of Poker's main event world championship on Monday in Las Vegas, earning $12.1 million along the way. Playing in the tournament for a 16th year, Weinman was tops in a deep pool of 10,043 players vying for $93.39 million. His victory came after just 164 hands at the final table. "I was honestly on the fence about even coming back and playing this tournament," the 35-year-old Atlanta native told reporters afterward. Weinman's final table featured Jan-Peter Jachtmann, who landed in fourth place and took home $3 million, as well as Toby Lewis, who finished seventh and secured $1.42 million. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the main event's entry pool far outpaced the previous record of 8,773 set in 2006. "I've always kind of felt that poker was kind of going in a dying direction, but to see the numbers at the World Series this year has been incredible," Weinman said. "And to win this main event, it doesn't feel real. I mean, [there's] so much luck in a poker tournament. I thought I played very well." Steven Jones finished second, securing $6.5 million. And Adam Walton settled for third and a $4 million prize.
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