5-at-10: LeBron getting it done, Mayfield’s draft quote, Needing Freeman, Rushmore of surprising NFL draft busts

LeBron doing work

Postseason hockey is the best. It’s awesome in a lot of ways.

Without an abundance of upsets, we’re a fan of the NBA playoffs too.

After a painfully disappointing Game 1 butt-whooping, LeBron James did work Wednesday night as Cleveland evened the series with Indiana with a 100-97 Game 2 win.

LeBron started the game on a personal 13-0 run and outscored the Pacers by two (20-18) for the entirety of the first quarter. He finished with 46 points on 17-for-24 shooting, 12 rebounds and five assists. It was his 20th career playoff game with 40-or-more, which ties him with Jerry West for second in NBA history behind Michael Jordan, who scored 40-or-more in the playoffs a mind-numbing 38 times.

LeBron was an incredible 11-of-17 on contested shots.

But there’s always a but. In fact, there’s two after the Cavs’ win.

First, there is the thumb injury Kevin Love suffered. Without their second-best offensive player, the Cavs will need LeBron to do even more.

Then there’s that. LeBron was simply amazing, and the Cavs won by three points and the Pacers had a 3-point try in the air as time expired.

Know this: After LeBron’s mind-popping first quarter, the Pacers outscored the Cavs by 12 over the last three quarters and shot an amazing 57 percent after the first 12 minutes.

LeBron turned in an amazing performance, but the question must be asked if it takes a game like that for the Cavs to beat the Pacers by three at home, what will it take to win at Toronto or Philly, and how many astonishing performances does LeBron have in him over the next couple of month?

Braves bad break?

Oh no.

Oh bleepin’ no.

The Braves offense has been one of the best surprises in baseball. The Braves are second in the NL in runs (92), first in average (.265), first in on-base percentage (.345), second in slugging (.424) and second in OPS (.770).

And the anchor of that success has been Freddie Freeman, who has been a dude in the 3-hole. (Side note: As bad as Dansby Swanson was to start last year is how good he has been this year. Dude is second in the NFL in hitting at .358 – behind teammate Ryan Flaherty – and tied for second in WAR at 1.3.)

But Freeman, who is also in the top five in the NL in WAR at 1.1, is the rock in the lineup.

While his average has taken a dip down to .288, Freeman has a .468 on-base percentage and a crazy-good .960 OPS.

And last night, he took a fastball on the left wrist.

Oy vey.

While X-Rays were negative, there has been no announcement about whether there was a fracture for Freeman, who has been a very good hitter and a Gold Glove-level defensive player at first. In fact, the only knock on Freeman’s time with the Braves has been his ability to stay on the field.

And as it really feels like the Braves are assembling pieces in this rebuild, an extended period without their best overall player would be quite significant.



Draft countdown

We are a week from the draft. We love the draft. You know this.

(Side note: The NFL schedule is being released tonight. For the most part there may not be a sports thing that leaves us more indifferent. So it goes.)

We will have a draft contest. Know that.

We also believe that the top two picks will decide the direction of the entire draft.

With all the quarterback-hungry teams in the top five and in the discussion of trading up, the Browns have to take a QB No. 1 to get the guy they want. Of course, the Brownsiest thing to do would be taking Josh Allen first and watch the other guys and teams excel.

We still believe the Giants should go Saquon Barkley, because that would give them arguably the best and certainly the most athletic RB-WR-TE trio in the league with Barkley, Beckham and Evan Ingram.

But if they deal, who knows.

Speaking go who knows, who knows what Baker Mayfield was thinking in an SI interview. Here’s the money quote getting bandied about after Mayfield had this to say about a lunch with several Chargers bigwigs, including offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt.

“I didn’t look at their playbook as much as a I should have,” Mayfield told SI. “It could have gone a little bit better … but at the same time, I’m prioritizing which playbooks I’m going to learn. No offense to them, but I’ve got a lot on my plate.”

In one way, hey, the kid is what the kid is, and he is not the first college hotshot QB who clearly has zero interest in being a Charger. (Hi, Eli Manning.)

Still, there is the other side of that. That comment sounds 100 percent Johnny Manziel, a comparison that Mayfield has had to fight from the very start.

And if an NFL team is going to spend something as valuable as a top-five or a top-10 pick on a quarterback, none of them want to hear about how much the prospect thinks he has on the plate.

Because like parenthood, you may think you are busy during the pregnancy, but once it gets here, you learn you had no idea want busy really is.



This and that

– Phillip Fulmer has signed a four-year deal to be the UT AD. Here’s betting that Fulmer will have that job as long as he is healthy. Believe that.

– More NBA items of interest: The Rockets rolled the T-Wolves in Game 2 of their series Wednesday and there are two telling signs that point to this being a sweep. One, James Harden was off and Houston won by 20. And Karl-Anthony Towns was brutal, finishing with five points in Game 2. Five. He had two games all season in which he scored single digits. He has failed to crack coulee digits in either of his first two playoff games.

– More NBA items of interest: Thunder big three were 0-for-14 in the fourth quarter in Wednesday’s Game 2 loss. That series is tied 1-1. The Jazz have been the best defensive team since Jan. 1 in the league and are going to give the Thunder fits. Especially if the stat line looks similar to Game 2, when Paul George and Carmelo Anthony took 21 3s and combined for eight free-throw attempts.

– Kudos to Frank Reed for getting his 600th career win Wednesday. That’s excellent work.

– Speaking of coaches, sad news to hear that Erin Popovich, wife of Gregg, died Wednesday. She was 67. We may not agree with Pop on a lot, but our prayers are with the entire Popovic clan.

– Weeds dropped another excellent column this morning, telling us how Joe Smith has made a forever mark on our community. Well done Joe. And Weeds. (Side note: If performers and speakers and comics get to drop the mic, we will now call excellent writing like this “dropping the keyboard.” Deal? Deal.)

– Red Sox seventh team since 1920 to start 15-2 or better. Four of the previous six made the playoffs and two – the 1984 Tigers and the 1955 Dodgers – won the World Series.

– Wow, every time there is another interview by someone molested by Larry Nassar, the details are staggering and worse than anyone could expect. Here is a snippet from Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney saying that Dr. Nassar molested her every time she saw him, and that number was in the hundreds. Everyone in a position of any type of power during the Nassar nightmare needs to be fired. Either they knew and covered it up or they turned a blind eye to reports and allegations or they are so obtuse they would not know to come in out of the rain.

– Canelo Alvarez was suspended for six months for two positive drug tests. It will cancel his May 5 fight with GGG and will cost Alvarez roughly $25 million. Alvarez said he failed the drug tests because of tainted meat in a burrito, which official lands at No. 2 for the most cockamamie excuse behind the dog ate his homework.

– The Reds have fired manager Bryan Price after 666 games with the club. They couldn’t have let him have one more? That said, the club probably gave him a few dozen too many since the Reds had the worst winning percentage in the majors in those 666 games (.419) and their 3-15 start is the second worst for the franchise in the last 100 years. A lot of young kids of this day and age understandably think the Reds are a MLB afterthought. That was a year-in, year-out monster from the early 70s through the mid-1980s and won the series in 1990.

– There are reports out there from the Boston Globe that NFL primetime games will start earlier this year. Thursday and Sunday night games will kick at 8:20, a move of five and 10 minutes respectively. Monday night games on ESPN will move up 15 minutes to 8:15 p.m. starts. Smart move. Smarter move? Move all of them to 8.

– Thought this Twitter post from ESPN Stats and Info was pretty staggering: After entering the season with 500-1 odds to win the Stanley Cup, the Golden Knights are now co-favorites at 4-1 with the Predators (Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook).

Today’s question

On this day in 1770, James Cook discovered Australia. In 1775, the American Revolution started. That should be a holiday, right?

The Oklahoma City bombing happened on this day in 1995.

Maria Sharapova turns 31 today. Troy Polamalu is 37, Joe Mauer is 35 and Candace Parker is 32. (And yes, we were surprised in one way or the other about those numbers.)

Kate Hudson is 39, and James Franco is 40. Sure Knight is 53 today. Ashley Judd is 50 today. Big fan of Ms. Judd.

We are a week from the draft, and one of the players we thought was going to be an NFL stud for a generation also turns 50 today.

Happy birthday to former Alabama All-American Keith McCants, who was a top-10 pick in 1990 when the Bucs took him No. 4 overall.

Let’s do this. Rushmore of draft busts that really surprised you. I thought McCants was going to be LT-esque.

Go and remember the mailbag.