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OKLAHOMA CITY — At 7-foot-1, it’s difficult to go unnoticed.

But for the majority of his 23 minutes, 31 seconds in Game 1, Oklahoma City Thunder center Chet Holmgren was invisible, a non-factor in the Indiana Pacers’ stunning 111-110 victory Thursday, June 5.

Holmgren scored a playoffs-low six points on 2-for-9 shooting, including a miss on his only 3-point attempt. It was also his third-fewest minutes on the court in the playoffs. He also had just 28 touches offensively compared to 40 touches in the series clinching Game 5 of the Western Conference finals against Minnesota. He had 47 touches in Game 4 against the Timberwolves.

As Oklahoma City’s third-leading scorer behind NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and All-Star Jalen Williams, Holmgren needs to be more involved and productive offensively in Game 2 against the Pacers on Sunday, June 8 (8 p.m. ET, ABC).

“I feel like I could have slowed down, kind of finished some of those plays at the rim,” Holmgren said. “Obviously it hurts in a one-point loss. One single difference on one single play could have decided the whole game. Puts a magnifying glass on every single instance in the game.”

Of Holmgren’s seven missed shots, six were in the paint, including four that were considered layups in the shot chart.

“Above everything else, just worrying more about impacting the game in all of the facets and just try to let that take care of itself. If you just focus on that, you’re going to start putting a lot more pressure on that and you’re not going to be focused on everything else that’s important, too.”

The Thunder used a different starting lineup in Game 1, inserting guard Cason Wallace in place of center Isaiah Hartenstein. It went away from Oklahoma City’s two-big lineup featuring Holmgren and Hartenstein. Through the first three rounds of the playoffs, the pair averaged 12.6 minutes on the court together. They did not log one minute together in Game 1.

“… our responsibility is to be ready to execute no matter what the coaches ask us to do out there,” Holmgren said. “In Game 1, that was to play more single-big. Whether the coaches ask us to do that or ask the team to go small or ask the team to go double-big, we have to be ready to do that and execute it, and that’s what we have to focus on.”

Thunder coach Mark Daigneault declined to say what he planned for his starting lineup in Game 2.

“I know we started the same lineup in the playoffs, but our rotation night to night in these series has been incredibly variant,” Daigneault said. “We think that’s a strength of our team. I liked how we started the game, and I liked, really, everything we did to build a 15-point lead, and then we didn’t deliver down the stretch collectively.

“But we are always trying to learn from it. … We understand the tradeoffs with every lineup we put on the court. We’ll continue to try to make every decision we can to give ourselves the best chance to win. That’s what we did in Game 1. Didn’t turn out in our favor, but that’s what we’ll do in Game 2 and moving forward.”

Holmgren averaged 15.0 points on 49% shooting during the regular season and averaged 16.4 points on 48.9% shooting in the first three rounds of the playoffs.

To a lesser extent but still important to the Thunder’s success, they also require a more efficient game from Williams, who had 17 points on 19 shots.

Daigneault did not want to address their performances specifically. “I don’t think anybody played their best game,” he said. “Certainly, he didn’t play his best game, but I don’t think any of us did. That wasn’t our best game, flat-out, with anybody.”

But Daigneault also reminded NBA media that both players were drafted in 2022 – Holmgren No. 2 and Williams No. 12. They are 23 and 24 years old, respectively, starring on the youngest team to make the NBA Finals since 1954-55. Holmgren, who missed the 2022-23 season, has played in 114 regular-season games and just 27 playoffs games the past two seasons. Despite his role, he has limited experience and is in his first Finals.

“What I will say is like he and Dub, specifically, obviously they have carved out huge roles on our team,” Daigneault said. “They are a huge reason why we’re here. They are in an uncommon position for third-year players. … Usually delivering in the Finals is not on the curriculum for third-year players.”

But, that’s how the Thunder are built, and Holmgren and Williams have earned their roles as the two main scorers after Gilgeous-Alexander. You win – or lose – with what got a team to this point.

“They have thrust themselves into that situation, which is a credit to them,” Daigneault. “And now that they are here, they have to continue to do what they have done all the way through the playoffs, which is go out there, fully compete, learn the lessons, and apply it forward.

“And they have done a great job of that. You’ve seen that over the course of the playoffs. They haven’t always played their best game, but they always get themselves ready to play the next one. The last guy I’m worried about that is Chet.”

Pacers coach Rick Carlisle shared his concern: “Chet is going to be more aggressive.”

That’s definitely part of the Thunder’s plan to even the series. Holmgren needs to make his presence known.

This post appeared first on USA TODAY

One day after seeing their largest-ever one-day drop, Tesla shares recovered some losses Friday as the spat between CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump that exploded into public view Thursday took appeared to take a breather heading into the weekend.

Shares in the electronic vehicle maker gained as much as 5% amid broader market gains following a report showing the U.S. added more jobs in May than forecast.

Even with Friday’s rally, Tesla shares are still down approximately 21% in 2025 — a decline that accelerated last week following Musk’s departure from the Trump administration.

Musk, the world’s richest person and until recently Trump’s cost-cutter-in-chief, said last week he was leaving as the head of his Department of Government Efficiency project to refocus on his businesses.

Those companies — Tesla, the satellite and space-launch company SpaceX, the social media platform X and the brain tech startup Neuralink — have faced growing criticism as Musk oversaw deep cuts to the federal workforce. Tesla sales around the world have fallen sharply this year.

Trump and Musk traded escalating insults Thursday afternoon, with the president threatening on his Truth Social platform to ‘terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.’ Yet there was no sign of any follow through on the threat Friday. At the same time, a senior White House official told NBC News that Trump is “not interested” in a call with Musk.

Tesla stock closed more than 14% lower Thursday. The automaker is Musk’s only publicly traded company — and one that the president tried to boost as recently as March, drawing sharp criticism on ethical grounds for turning the White House driveway into a car showroom just as the company’s stock was plunging.

The Trump-Musk rift has dented Tesla’s stock anew after Musk slammed the GOP spending bill as ‘a disgusting abomination” in a post on X last week.

‘Bankrupting America is NOT ok!’ he wrote in another post, part of an ongoing barrage of public ridicule.

Musk began speaking out after an electric-vehicle tax credit that would help incentivize Tesla purchases was not included in the bill, which is estimated to add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over 10 years. Musk has lobbied congressional Republicans for that tax credit, NBC News reported Wednesday.

‘I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, doesn’t decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,’ Musk told ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ over the weekend.

As Trump spoke about the former DOGE chief in the Oval Office on Thursday alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Musk began firing off dozens of posts on X.

‘Whatever,’ he wrote. ‘Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill. In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this!’

Trump pushed back further on Musk’s criticism.

“Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people. He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it,” he said during the meeting with Merz. “All of a sudden he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate because that’s billions and billions of dollars, and it really is unfair.”

As Trump continued speaking, Musk posted another comment: ‘False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!’

Tech analyst Dan Ives said the EV tax credit isn’t the main factor behind Tesla’s stock slide. “The reason Tesla stock’s off the way it is — and I think overdone — is because of the view that this means that Trump is not going to play nice when it comes to regulatory” issues, he told CNBC on Thursday. The feud between the two men is “not what you want to see as a Tesla shareholder,” Ives added.

‘Where is this guy today??’ Musk added Thursday in yet another post, resharing a compilation of Trump’s past tweets including one in which Trump called the federal debt ‘a national security risk of the highest order.’

‘Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,’ Musk added on social media. ‘Such ingratitude.’

Musk is the richest person on the planet, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires index. His net worth of $368 billion is $125 billion more than that of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is ranked second. Musk spent $250 million supporting Trump’s most recent campaign.

The president quipped from the White House that he thinks Musk ‘misses the place.’

‘I think he got out there and all of a sudden he wasn’t in this beautiful Oval Office,’ Trump said. ‘He’s got nice offices too, but there’s something about this one.’

The president’s own publicly traded company, Trump Media & Technology Group, has also suffered in the market. Shares of the Truth Social parent company fell more than 8% Thursday and are down over 41% so far this year.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

The Miami Dolphins and Jalen Ramsey mutually agreed to seek a trade for the veteran cornerback a couple of weeks ahead of the 2025 NFL Draft.

Ramsey remains on Miami’s roster nearly two months later, but it appears the two parties are still planning to split before the 2025 season.

NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports Ramsey is not planning to attend the Dolphins’ mandatory minicamp this week as the two parties ‘continue to work towards a trade.’

Miami’s minicamp will run from June 10-12. If Ramsey does not attend, he will be subject to a fine for each day he misses. According to Spotrac, a player fine will be a maximum of $17,462 for the first day absent, $34,925 for the second day and $52,381 for missing a third day.

The NFL’s new CBA only allows fines to be forgiven on rookie deals, so it doesn’t appear Miami will be able to waive any fines assessed to Ramsey.

Ramsey has four years remaining on his contract with the Dolphins, as the three-year, $72.3 million extension he signed with the team on eve of the 2024 NFL season still hasn’t kicked in yet. He is set to have a cap hit of just under $16.7 million this season while taking home $25.1 million in cash, per Spotrac.com.

The Dolphins will be able to split any dead-cap hit – guaranteed money already paid to a player no longer on the team – associated with trading or releasing Ramsey over two seasons because the NFL’s June 1 deadline has passed. Making it palatable for Miami to trade Ramsey, as it would take manageable dead-cap hits of roughly $10.75 million in 2025 and $18.5 million in 2026 while creating $5.9 million in space for the upcoming season.

Releasing Ramsey would be more penal. The Dolphins would take on just under a $31 million dead-cap hit this season – which would cost them $14.3 million in present-day cap space – while still absorbing a dead-cap blow of $18.5 million next season.

It isn’t clear whether the Dolphins are willing to release Ramsey if they can’t find a willing trade partner.

This post appeared first on USA TODAY

The NBA Finals pick up again Sunday, June 8, after a two-day layoff which has given fans the opportunity to dissect and debate Tyrese Haliburton’s game-winning shot from every angle.

On the heels of the Indiana Pacers’ shocking 111-110 comeback victory in Game 1, the Oklahoma City Thunder play host again in Game 2 (8 p.m. ET, ABC).

Thunder coach Mark Daigenault has said he won’t reveal his plan for the starting lineup after changing his postseason strategy for Game 1, going with extra guard Cason Wallace and one big man in Chet Holmgren, leaving center Isaiah Hartenstein to come off the bench.

Holmgren had a disappointing NBA Finals debut, scoring just six points, but Indiana coach Rick Carlisle has warned he expects the third-year forward/center to be more aggressive this time around.

USA TODAY Sports’ experts make their NBA Finals Game 2 picks for the Indiana Pacers vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder:

NBA Finals Game 2 predictions

Scooby Axson: Pacers 124, Thunder 117
Jordan Mendoza: Thunder 104, Pacers 92
Lorenzo Reyes: Thunder 111, Pacers 102
Heather Tucker: Thunder 117, Pacers 110
James Williams: Thunder 115, Pacers 95
Jeff Zillgitt: Thunder 120, Pacers 109

This post appeared first on USA TODAY

Tyrese Haliburton has triggered discussion and renewed a debate.

The discussion: Does the Indiana Pacers star deserve to be ranked among the most clutch shooters in NBA playoffs history?

The debate: Does “clutch’’ play even exist?

Well, one problem, according to a 2019 research paper entitled, ‘Clutch performance in sport and exercise: a systematic review,” is the following: ‘Multiple, conflicting definitions of clutch performance were identified in the literature, which consequently led to the adoption of two distinct approaches to examining clutch performance …”

So, for the purposes of this story, let’s stick with the conventional definition: making big shots with the game on the line.

“When we looked at the data, we couldn’t find real evidence of clutch players,’’ Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke who disclosed his findings in 2010, told USA TODAY Sports. “But we found lots of evidence that people believed that clutch exists.’’

That evidence is mounting thanks to Haliburton.

“One of the most clutch players we’ve seen in the postseason ever,’’ declared ESPN’s Steven A. Smith after Haliburton made the game-winning shot with 0.3 seconds in Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder.

It was the fourth time Haliburton has made the game-winning shot or the game-tying shot with less than 1.3 seconds left in regulation or overtime in this year’s playoffs.  While Duke’s Ariely is no more convinced of the existence of clutch play, his position is hardly unanimous.

“Earlier studies, particularly those focusing on statistical consistency, often concluded that players do not significantly improve during high-pressure moments …’’ Vangelis Sarlis of International Hellenic University in Greece told USA TODAY Sports. “Our work suggests that while not all players elevate their performance in clutch situations, a distinct subset consistently exhibits traits — like high true shooting percentage, low turnovers, and impactful defensive plays — that do materially influence game outcomes.

“Haliburton appears to exemplify many of these traits.’’

Coach K’s role in clutch play research

Fifty-five years ago, Jerry West made a 60-foot shot after the buzzer to force overtime in Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks.

Mr. Clutch, they called him.

In 2023, the NBA began giving out the Jerry West Trophy to the league’s top clutch player as measured by the league’s statistical formula – possessions in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime when the score is within five points – and voted on by 100 media members.

None of which Ariely would find persuasive.

More than a decade ago at Duke, Ariely has said, he set out to study clutch play and enlisted the help of the school’s legendary and now retired basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski.

Krzyzewski helped assemble a group of pro coaches to identify clutch NBA players, according to Ariely, who worked with Rachel Barkan, a professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. The study involved comparing clutch players and non-clutch players in low-stress moments and high-stress moments. (Ariely has written that ‘high stress is when the outcome of a game is hanging by a thread.”)

 “We found that the non-clutch players scored more or less the same in the low-stress and high-stress moments, whereas there was actually a substantial improvement for clutch players during the last five minutes of the games,’’ Ariely wrote in an essay for the Huffington Post. “… As it turned out, the clutch players did not improve their skill; they just tried many more times.

“Their field goal percentage did not increase in the last five minutes (meaning that their shots were no more accurate); neither was it the case that non-clutch players got worse.’’

In discussing the findings, Ariely cites research of the “hot hand,’’ the streaky shooting performance fueled by consecutive baskets.

“Research basically showed that people’s belief in hot hand is very strong, but the data for it is very weak,’’ he said. “And the same is true for clutch play.’’

‘Contributions under pressure’

Lorena Martin, an assistant professor of clinical data sciences and operations at Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, worked for the Lakers during the 2016-2017 season. Her role: director of sports performance analytics.

That season, Martin said, they researched the games’ final two minutes to determine the player best equipped to take the final shot.

A believer in clutch play, Martin said of debunkers, “A lot of individuals who are very good in the math and statistics have not played sports. If you look at it mathematically, then you think, ‘Oh, it’s just random.’ But if you play sports, you know that there is an inertia, there is momentum.’’

As an example of compelling research, Martin cites ‘A Data Science and Sports Analytics Approach to Decode Clutch Dynamics in the Last Minutes of NBA Games,’’ the study co-authored by Sarlis at International Hellenic University.

In that study, Sarlis said, he and his research team focused exclusively on the absolute impact players have during clutch scenarios instead of comparing performance in clutch vs. non-clutch moments. By analyzing 20 seasons of NBA data and applying advanced machine learning techniques, according to Sarlis, they developed the Estimation of Clutch Competency (EoCC) metric.

“A novel formula that captures both offensive and defensive contributions under pressure,’’ Sarlis said.

“In terms of application to Tyrese Haliburton, while our dataset formally ends before his breakout years, his current performances — especially his composure, shot selection, and assist-to-turnover ratios in final minutes — align with several key indicators we found to be strongly correlated with winning outcomes in clutch moments,’’ Sarlis added, “If evaluated using our EoCC framework, Haliburton would likely score highly, given his ability to create efficient scoring opportunities and minimize costly errors under pressure.’’

Expanding the measure of clutch play

Measuring clutch performances strictly by game-winning shots is flawed, according to researcher Franklin Mixon Jr., a professor of economics at Columbus State University in Georgia.

“This approach is subject to confirmation bias as fans will remember these game-winning baskets but tend to forget late-game turnovers and missed shots (free throws) by who they consider to be clutch players,’’ Mixon wrote in an email to USA TODAY Sports.

Mixon is co-author of a 2013 study – “Homo certus in professional basketball? Empirical evidence from the 2011 NBA Playoffs’’ – he says supports the notion that “clutch performance’ is generally a myth.

The study compared players’ average productivity per quarter for the first three quarters of their playoffs games to their fourth-quarter performances in those games. “We found that productivity during the first three quarters generally exceeded that during the fourth quarter of these games,’’ Mixon said.

With the same variables from the study, Mixon ran Haliburton’s numbers from Game 1 of the NBA Finals. That included field-goal attempts per minute, field goals made per minute, field-goal percentage and points scored per minute. He also factored in defensive rebounds and assists.

“Haliburton’s late-game productivity was slightly lower during Game 1 compared to what he did during the first 3 quarters,’’ Mixon wrote. “Again, however, the differences aren’t significant. Based on our approach, his performance was typical of NBA players.”

This post appeared first on USA TODAY

OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault was just 10 years old at the time of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

Just two players on the Thunder’s roster had been born at that time – Alex Caruso had just turned 1, and Kenrich Williams was 4 months old.

But they all have knowledge of the crime and tragedy because every Thunder employee – from the business side to basketball operations, from first-round draft pick to a player on a two-way G League contract – visits and tours the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum.

“I was on that tour within a month of working here,” said Daigneault, who was hired as the franchise’s G League coach in 2014. “There’s literally no one that’s ever put a logo on their chest that has not been through there because it’s just such a big part of the story of the city and the kindness, the compassion that the city has and this community has not only for the team but for one another.”

April 19 marked the 30th anniversary of the bombing, and the memorial and museum has conducted several events honoring victims and their families and sharing history. There is no question the bombing shaped the city and region, contributing to its resolve, strength and sense of community.

The memorial and museum are one mile north of the team’s arena in downtown Oklahoma City, and about 500,000 people visit the sacred ground annually.

The memorial is marked by solemnity and a reminder of evil. On a recent morning, visitors walked through the outdoor portion of the memorial. At one end, the 9:01 Gate “represents the innocence before the attack” – the bombing happened at 9:02 – and the 9:03 Gate “symbolizes the moment healing began.”

The 168 chairs represent each of the people killed in the bombing, the survivor wall – a remnant from the explosion – and the survivor tree, “a living symbol of resilience,” are part of the outdoor memorial.

Kari Watkins is the president and CEO of the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum and has had a significant role in creating a space that honors and teaches through a variety of storytelling methods, including interactive exhibits.

Watkins, one of USA TODAY’s 2025 Women of the Year, was the memorial and museum’s first employee. She said Thunder executive vice president and general manager Sam Presti reached out to her.

“I met with him, talked to him and took him through (the memorial and museum), and we’ve become good friends,” Watkins told USA TODAY Sports. “He is more than a GM to me. He is a friend.”

Presti is on the memorial and museum’s executive committee.

“We have this term called the Oklahoma Standard,” Watkins said. “It was a term that (Tom) Brokaw coined the first night of his broadcast in 1995 talking about how Oklahomans were a little different. They were cowboy tough, they were resilient, they were strong, and they had set the standard he had never seen before. …

“I’ll never forget one board meeting, I don’t know, 10 years ago, eight years ago, Sam said, ‘You guys take this for granted. You think everybody takes care of their neighbors.’ Everybody steps up, and it says so much about the people of the city. They just go and do things. They serve others, they help others. And there’s a kindness level here, and we’ve worked on that harder because of Sam’s influence.”

On Friday, June 6, Watkins led NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and Thunder owner Clay Bennett on a tour.

“I was telling the commissioner the reason I think it’s so important is because we are starting to see the same dehumanization and hear the same anti-government rhetoric, and we’re hearing all those same noises we heard in 1995, and we’ve got to stop it,” Watkins said. “We’ve got to figure how to sit down and listen.”

Caruso, the Thunder’s key reserve guard, started his professional basketball career with the Thunder’s G League team in 2016. That’s when he visited the memorial and museum for the first time.

“The cool thing about the organization is no matter how big, small, what your role is on the team, you make a trip out there just to learn about the history of it and how it did impact the community and understand why the relationship is so tight between this team and organization and the community,” Caruso said.

Said Watkins: “What the perpetrators sought to do in 1995 was to divide our city. And if you’re here, you see a city that’s united. And so those were the lessons we learned, and we just want to keep, we’re passing them on to thousands of school kids a year.

“But when you wear the words Oklahoma City on your jersey, you are an ambassador for your city. And so when they come through, they learn the story. Most of them don’t know it. They weren’t alive. And unless they’ve Googled it or seen it somewhere, they don’t know the story.”

They now know the story, woven into the heart and soul of the city.

Follow NBA reporter Jeff Zillgitt on social media @JeffZillgitt

This post appeared first on USA TODAY
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One of the leading opponents of President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ declared not even the commander in chief will be able to deter him from speaking out against what he sees as a bill that falls short of Republicans’ goal of cutting government waste.

‘It’ll completely backfire on him,’ Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital of any attempts by Trump to sway him on the current legislation.

Johnson has become a prominent voice of opposition against the House GOP’s offering to the budget reconciliation process. Senate Republicans finally began the tedious process of parsing through the bill this week.

Lawmakers in the upper chamber, Johnson included, are determined to make changes to the bill, with most wanting to make reductions to Medicaid and food stamps more palatable. Trump has made it clear his bill must pass but has acknowledged the Senate will need to make a few changes.

Trump’s directive has been to deliver a bill that can survive the razor-thin majorities in both chambers.  

Johnson, however, wants to see spending returned to pre-pandemic levels, cuts that are trillions of dollars deeper than what House Republicans could stomach. And he is ready to vote against the bill unless he sees the changes he wants.

And he believes that a pressure campaign from the president against him and other like-minded fiscal hawks will fail.

He said a better approach would be to work with lawmakers and fiscal hawks like him to gain a better understanding of the reality of the country’s fiscal situation, a reality that ‘is grim,’ he said.

Johnson has been up front about his disdain for the bill but has so far avoided public retribution from Trump. In fact, the two have spoken twice this week, once on Monday and later during a Senate Finance Committee meeting at the White House Tuesday.

The lawmaker has told Trump he’s in Trump’s corner and that he wants ‘to see you succeed,’ but he has been steadfast in his position that the bill does not go far enough to tackle the national debt.

And the debt continues to climb, nearing $37 trillion and counting, according to Fox News’ National Debt Tracker.

The House’s offering set a goal of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade, which lawmakers in the lower chamber have pitched as a positive step forward to righting the country’s fiscal ship, an offering Johnson panned as falling drastically short of the GOP’s promises to cut deep into government spending.

‘What’s so disappointing about what happened in the House is it was all rhetoric. It’s all slogans,’ Johnson said. ‘They picked a number. Literally, they picked a number out of the air.’

Johnson views this attempt at the budget reconciliation process as a rare opportunity to ‘do the hard things’ when it comes to spending cuts, but others in the GOP have been more hesitant to cut as deep.

Johnson said a main reason Republicans have so far fallen short of meeting the moment for the most part is that lawmakers don’t understand just how much the federal government shovels out the door year in and year out.

The lawmaker recalled a moment roughly three years ago during a debate over another year-end omnibus spending bill, when each of the dozen appropriations bills is crammed into one, bloated package that is universally reviled and almost always passes.

He asked his colleagues if they really knew just how much the government spends, and no one ‘volunteered to answer.’

‘Nobody knew. I mean, think of that. The largest financier in the world. We’re supposedly, in theory, the 535 members of the board of directors, and nobody knew,’ he said. ‘Why would they? We never talked about it.’

Johnson has been busy trying to better educate his colleagues, putting together his own charts and graphs that cut out the ‘noise,’ like the latest nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office report that found the legislation would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over a decade. The GOP has universally panned that projection.

‘We can’t accept this as a new normal,’ Johnson said. ‘We can’t accept — you can take pot shots of CBO, but you can’t deny that reality. [It] might be off a little bit, but that is the trajectory, and that’s undeniable.’
 

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

The 2025 Stanley Cup Final is changing venues this week with a 1-1 tie in the best-of-seven series.

That’s a big difference from last year’s series between the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers when the Panthers won the first three games and the Oilers won the next three before Florida clinched the championship with a Game 7 victory.

Last year had no overtime games but this year, both games have gone past regulation. The Oilers won Game 1 at home on a Leon Draisaitl overtime goal. But the Panthers took away Edmonton’s home-ice advantage by winning Game 2 on a Brad Marchand goal in the second overtime.

Here are some trends from the first two games and how they might affect the series heading into Game 3:

Sam Bennett will earn a big contract

The Panthers’ pending unrestricted free agent entered the final with a league-best 10 goals. He has added to that with three goals in two games. Bennett has scored 12 playoff goals on the road, setting an NHL record. Toronto’s Mitch Marner is the top UFA, but Bennett’s playoff prowess will have suitors lined up.

He’s highly effective around the net and has a habit of bumping goalies. His Game 1 goal as he fell into Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner survived a coach’s challenge because officials ruled he was tripped, but he was called for goaltender interference on a similar play in Game 2. Is he being watched more closely by on-ice officials?

‘I was pushed and then I think the goalie kicked out my heel, which made me fall,’ he said. ‘I didn’t agree with that (call), but I’ll move on.’

Will Bill Zito finally win general manager of the year?

He’s a finalist for the fourth consecutive season but has yet to win. He changed up the Panthers’ depth players last summer after winning the Stanley Cup, but his biggest moves were before the trade deadline.

He added defenseman Seth Jones, who played more than 30 minutes in each of the first two games of the final and had a goal and an assist in Game 2.

Marchand, the former Boston Bruins star, has been critical to the Panthers’ success. He scored on two breakaways in Game 2, including the winner.

‘I think our whole bench stood up when he had that breakaway,’ Bennett said. ‘It was just a huge play at a huge time. He’s been incredible for us this whole playoffs, scoring massive goals at massive times.’

The voting is already done for the GM award, so we’ll see if it’s finally his turn.

Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl working their magic

Draisaitl has three goals in the first two games and McDavid has five assists. They connected on the Game 1 overtime winner and the Game 2 setup was even more impressive. McDavid stickhandled past Selke Trophy winner Aleksander Barkov and No. 1 defenseman Aaron Ekblad before feeding Draisaitl.

The Panthers will continue to need to figure out how to limit those two, especially when coach Kris Knoblauch puts them on the same line later in games. Florida has the last line change in Games 3 and 4 and can get the matchups it wants.

Oilers need to play better in the second period

The Oilers have been outscored 3-1 in the second period and outshot 31-16. Florida turned around its Game 2 fortunes with its performance in the second period, when there’s a longer distance to get to the bench for a line change.

‘Our passes weren’t sharp. We gave away a lot of pucks,’ Knoblauch said. ‘If you can’t make that first pass, you’re stuck in the defensive zone. … If you just get it out to the neutral zone, you can’t change.’

The Oilers, however, have outscored the Panthers 2-0 in the third period, tying both games and forcing overtime.

Goalies are playing better than their numbers

Skinner and the Panthers’ Sergei Bobrovsky each have given up eight goals, albeit in elongated games. Though some goals against haven’t been great, such as Evander Kane’s in Game 2, Bobrovsky made a big pad save on Draisaitl before Corey Perry tied the game. Skinner stopped several breakaways before Marchand’s winner.

‘There were some good saves made at both ends, high-end saves,’ Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. ‘There’s some world-class shooters here.’

This story has been updated with new information.

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There’s no doubt anymore about the best 3-year-old colt in horse racing. 

It’s Sovereignty. And it’s definitive. 

But is it fair to ask what might have been?

Sovereignty, the Kentucky Derby winner who skipped the Preakness, was an authoritative winner of Saturday’s Belmont, sweeping past favorite Journalism in the stretch to win, just like he did at Churchill Downs. 

That makes Sovereignty the rare horse who won the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes but was denied the chance to be horse racing’s 14th Triple Crown winner because he never contested the Preakness. 

Don’t blame the horse. And don’t even blame trainer Bill Mott. If anything, praise him. It’s possible the conservative management of Sovereignty, giving him five weeks between races rather than pushing him to run in the Preakness just two weeks after the Derby, might have been the reason he navigated the 1 ¼ miles in 2:00.69, just a shade off the track record at Saratoga. 

And it could be why Sovereignty remains fresh and poised for a campaign to target the Travers Stakes, the Breeders’ Cup Classic and perhaps the Dubai World Cup next spring, where he could run in front of owners who rule that country. 

But at the same time, it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. Sovereignty deserved a chance to be a Triple Crown winner because he’s just that good of a racehorse, and he’ll never have that opportunity again. It’s going to forever remain an all-time horse racing “what if?” 

“If we wouldn’t have won today, we would have taken a lot of criticism,” Mott said immediately after the race on Fox Sports. “But it turned out good. A lot of times we make the wrong decision, but today it worked out well.”

Of course, the other factor here is that the Belmont was run this year at 1 ¼ miles at Saratoga rather than Belmont Park’s traditional 1 ½-mile configuration because the track is undergoing renovations. Even if Sovereignty had won all three Triple Crown races, it would have had an asterisk because of circumstances beyond his control. So maybe by choosing to skip the Preakness, Mott saved the entire sports world from a fruitless debate.

But what’s clear is that this crop of 3-year-olds is very good: Sovereignty, Journalism and Baeza were 1-2-3 in Louisville and 1-2-3 in New York, with Journalism taking advantage in the Preakness to get a classic victory on his résumé. 

That consistency is indicative of some very good racehorses that have the potential to continue their rivalry the rest of the year. But for now, there’s no doubt about the best of them. 

Sovereignty reigns supreme. 

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A disappointing weekend for boxer Keyshawn Davis allegedly turned violent Saturday night outside of the ring.

Boxer Nahir Albright told reporters that Davis headbutted him and left a large bump over his right eye.

He said the incident took place when Davis and his younger brother, Keon, confronted Albright after Albright beat the oldest of the Davis brothers, Kelvin, by majority decision at the Scope Arena in Norfolk, Virginia.

The weekend already had soured for Davis, who on Friday weighed in 4.3 pounds more than the maximum for his WBO lightweight world title defense scheduled for Saturday. That led to the cancellation of the bout against Edwin De Los Santos and the WBO title was stripped from him.

Then came the alleged incident described by Albright.

“I was in my locker room and celebrated my victory with my team,’’ he told reporters in a videotaped interview. “…Keyshawn and his little brother (Keon) came in and they started looking at me and was like, they saying something about his older brother. They was mad and he grabbed me, pushed me back.

“I’m grabbing his head. He moved his head towards my head.’’

Then came the headbutt, according to Albright.

“So yeah, that’s what happened,’’ he said, the incident was not sparked by any exchange of words. “…Their locker room is right next door to mine, so I guess they heard us happy and all that kind of stuff, and they came in and started trouble.’’

Of the confrontation, Albright told ESPN, “Now we’ve got to settle that’’ and said he wants to fight Keyshawn Davis in the ring.

Davis beat Albright by unanimous decision in 2023 but the result was turned to a no contest after Davis tested positive for marijuana – a banned substance in Texas, where the fight was held.

But late Saturday, the talk centered on controversy outside of the ring. For Davis, instead of being featured in the main event in his hometown of Norfolk, it all went awry.

Davis, 26, showed up Saturday at the Scope Arena with his son of less than a year and cheered on his two brothers.

Keon, 23, won his fight via a second-round TKO. But Kelvin, 28, got pummeled by Albright, who won the 10-round bout by majority decision.

During the altercation, Albright said, his coaches eventually interceded.

“My coaches grabbed (Keyshawn Davis) and then I think security came in and grabbed him,’’ Albright said.

Later, Albright said, Davis charged after Albright’s older brother. “It just got crazy,’’ he added.

But Albright said he thinks Kelvin Davis, the brother he beat in the ring Saturday night, was trying to break things up.

“It’s a little unfortunate, but nothing could take away the feeling of being a champion tonight,’’ he said, referring to the vacant Silver US WBC Jr. Welterweight title he won. “I ain’t going to let nothing ruin my night.’’

ESPN reported that the Davis brothers did not comment.

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