(Sunday at 9am ET on TNT) After a few hours of glorious sunshine on Saturday, Mother Nature pounded Baltusrol Golf Club with rain, forcing suspension of the third round of the PGA Championship after just 37 of 86 golfers had finished all 18 holes, and setting the stage for a hectic Sunday – assuming the weather cooperates.
Kevin Kisner and Padraig Harrington had the best rounds of the day, with each shooting a 5-under 65. Kisner was just -2 on the day after 14, but got hot, making birdie on the next three holes, allowing himself to climb all the way from 48th to a tie for 6th at -5. Harrington climbed even further, coming from 61st to a tie for 10th at... Read More
The rains fell, the clouds parted and the grounds crew squeegeed, leaving soft fairways and forgiving greens in their wake, setting the stage for a high-scoring day of golf. When it was over, Robert Streb had shot a 7-under 63 to pull into a tie atop the leaderboard with Round 1 leader Jimmie Walker at -9.
Streb, who has just one tour victory on his resume, shot four birdies on both the front and back nine, stumbling only on the 16th hole with a bogey. Walker, who had come into the day with a 1-stroke lead over Emiliano Grillo, kept his cool with a solid -4 on the day to keep a share of the lead. Grillo,... Read More
Jimmie “Dyn-o-mite!” Walker finished strong with birdies on four of the last six holes to wind up at a 5-under 65 on the day and put himself atop the leaderboard following the opening round of the 2016 PGA Championship. It’s obviously very early in the proceedings, but if Walker to eventually close the deal on Sunday, it would mean that all four majors this year were by guys who’d never before won a major.
Henrik Stenson, fresh off his victory at The Open, recovered from an up-and-down start to shoot 3-under on the back 9 and finish at 67, 2 strokes off the lead and tied for 5th. Among other notables, defending champ Jason Day hit... Read More
Earlier this year there was a remake of Point Break, the 1991 Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze classic about an FBI agent infiltrating a gang of bank robbers who also happen to be extreme athletes (or perhaps they’re extreme athletes who happen to be bank robbers). The original was an inventive (if slightly cheesy) splice of an old-fashioned bank-caper flick and the national obsession with the Southern California lifestyle of sun and surfing and reckless boys-will-be-boys behavior.
Alas, the 2015 remake tanked, presumably because of its awful reviews, but TNT’s new series Animal Kingdom, premiering June 14 with back-to-back episodes, serves as both a kind of mulligan on the basic idea (SoCal surfers who rob banks) and an announcement of TNT’s entry into the premium-drama business so long dominated by the... Read More
Hawks at Knicks (8pm ET Thursday, TNT) The Atlanta Hawks finished the 2015 regular season as the #1 seed in the East, having won a franchise record 60 games. The recipe for their success included some lights-out shooting, a career year or two, solid defense and the weakest schedule in the NBA. They should again be a playoff team, thanks largely to being in the East, and the fact that they bring back the same team as last year, with the exception of swingman DeMarre Carroll. The Hawks are coming off an Opening Night 106-94 loss to the Detroit Pistons, in which they were out-rebounded 59-40 and only got to the free throw line 15 times.
Year One of the Phil Jackson Era at Madison Square Garden saw the... Read More
There are worse ways to kick off an NBA season than showcasing four of the league’s eight most watchable teams, but fortunately, we needn’t worry about them.
Cavaliers at Bulls (8pm ET Tuesday, TNT) The evening begins with LeBron James & LeBron-naires beginning their Eastern Conference title defense in the Windy City, where they’ll face Derrick Rose, one of the league’s most snake-bitten and tone-deaf superstars, and the Bulls.
The Cavaliers’ title quest last season was derailed when Kevin Love suffered a dislocated shoulder in the first round of the playoffs, and then point guard Kyrie Irving went down with a fractured kneecap in Game 1 of the Finals. Love has spent the summer paddle boarding and hiking in Park City, Utah, and has been playing... Read More
If you love the 1960s, gangsters, and quick-talking New York City cop dramas, TNT’s new series Public Morals is everything you need in your life. Creator Edward Burns focuses on the blurred line between gangsters and cops and their moral choices – or lack thereof.
Not only did Burns (The Brothers McMullen, Saving Private Ryan) create the show, he also stars in, directs, executive produces and writes for it, too. After Saving Private Ryan, Burns was urged by movie titan Steven Spielberg (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jaws) to work on movie scripts modeled after Burns’ father’s life as a NYPD officer in the 60’s. While he says he didn’t pull from those scripts for Public Morals, he definitely used his research to shape the new series.
With the explosive power of executive producer Michael Bay (Transformers, Armageddon) and the star power of lead actor Eric Dane (Grey’s Anatomy), The Last Ship has been an exciting, suspenseful hit for TNT. In case you’ve been spending your Sunday nights in Vinci, CA this summer, don’t worry: you can still catch up in time for the September 6 season finale. All of season 2 is available On Demand, but if you don’t have time to cram in all 11 episodes, here’s a quick recap.
After spending all of season 1 developing a vaccine for the virus that wiped out 80% of humanity, season 2 found the crew of the USS Nathan James, which had avoided exposure to the virus by being in the Arctic at the... Read More
Are LeBron James and Kevin Love really buds or not? Can’t they get it together and beat the King’s former team? Let’s keep it 100: it shouldn’t be that hard. Yet the Cavs lost in Miami the last time these two squads met.
Maybe there’s a little intrigue there but not as much as there is with the two Golden State games this week on Sling TV.
The Warriors travel to L.A. to face the Clippers on Tuesday, and while Golden State sports the best record in the league, L.A. has been on a roll recently, winning eight of its last 10 as of this writing.
Oh, but that might sound a little too hopeful because guess what? The Warriors have won nine in a row. Fancy that.
LeBron and the Cavaliers travel to Miami once again but that isn’t even close to being the best game this week on Sling TV. (Unless all you care about is LeBron.)
The best game of the week is a preview of what could be the NBA Finals: Atlanta verus Golden State. Both teams have balanced, high-scoring attacks and both look to convert 3s on the break instead of layups, so this promises to be an explosive matchup.
The Hawks beat the Warriors, 126-114, in Atlanta the only other time they met this season. And this game will be the last chance to see them battle unless they face each other in the finals. (Which seems quite likely.)
Monday, March 16
Cleveland at Miami, 8pm EST (ESPN) Just before tipoff,... Read More
I have read a lot of great books, some of them more than once. But the only book I have read, cover to cover, four times, is the true-crime classic Helter Skelter, about the Charles Manson case. I found it on my parents' bookshelf when I was in high school, read it, read it again, and have gone back to it again and again. That old tattered original copy remains on my bookshelf and I am quite sure that I will read it two or three more times before it’s all over. There is just something so compelling about strange stories, along with the process of unraveling them.
Helter Skelter sparked a lifelong love of true crime stories, right up through last summer’s Serial craze, which is why I... Read More
With seven NBA games on Sling TV this week, how will you ever decide which one to watch? That’s a trick question. You don’t have to choose. You can watch all of them, and all of them means you’ll get to see OKC three times on the road against Phoenix, Portland, and the Lakers; and Portland twice at home against the Spurs and the Thunder. And a lot of other great action, too.
Here are a few more NBA questions to ponder this week.
Wednesday, Feb. 25 LA Clippers at Houston, 8pm EST (ESPN)
The Rockets jettisoned Isaiah Canaan and Alexey Shved and added guards Pablo Prigioni and the high-flying K.J. McDaniels (below) at the trade deadline. Will the bolstered bench be enough to overcome the Clippers?... Read More
