Step aside, millennials: Gen Z is taking over the NBA playoffs

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🚨 Headlines

🏀🏒 Conference Finals: SGA (40 points) and the Thunder beat the Timberwolves, 128-126, to go up 3-1; the Hurricanes blanked the Panthers, 3-0, to avoid elimination and end a 15-game conference finals losing streak.

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🥎 Last eight standing: No. 2 Oklahoma, No. 3 Florida, No. 6 Texas, No. 7 Tennessee, No. 9 UCLA, No. 12 Texas Tech, No. 16 Oregon and Ole Miss are headed to the Women’s College World Series.

🏁 Racing roundup: Alex Palou won the Indy 500 for his fifth win in the season’s first six races; Lando Norris (McLaren) won the Monaco GP; Ross Chastain won the Coca-Cola 600 despite starting in last.

⚾️ Selection Sunday: A record 13 SEC teams made the NCAA Baseball Tournament, with Vanderbilt earning the No. 1 overall seed in the 64-team field.

🥍 Lax champs: Cornell won its fourth men’s title (and first since 1977); UNC won its fourth women’s title; the Buffalo Bandits completed the three-peat in the NLL (indoor).

🏀 Step aside, millennials: Gen Z is taking over

The NBA playoffs used to be the domain of older, savvy vets deep into their thirties, but the league has gotten younger, and the best teams seem to be aging in that direction more rapidly. Is contending for a title increasingly becoming a young man’s game?

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From Yahoo Sports’ Tom Haberstroh:

When LeBron James made his NBA debut in 2003, Anthony Edwards was merely a toddler, taking his first steps on Earth. When Kobe Bryant threw the iconic ‘oop to Shaquille O’Neal in the 2000 Western Conference finals, Tyrese Haliburton was just a few months old.

Jalen Brunson is young enough to ask his father, Rick, what it was like to play against Cleveland LeBron. Oh, and when Michael Jordan hit the clinching shot over Utah in the 1998 NBA Finals? Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wasn’t even born. Feeling old yet? Millennials certainly do.

By the numbers: With the Thunder leading the way, the average age of the four conference finalists stands at 26.5 years old. That’s the lowest on record and guarantees that the NBA will crown its first Gen Z champion this year.

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This continues a surprising trend that has seen the NBA get younger and younger in its final stages of the season. A Gen Z champion was only a matter of time, but if late 1990s roster trends held firm, we’d be about 2-3 years away from reaching that point. With these four teams, we’re way ahead of schedule.

While it’s true the league, in general, has gotten younger across the decades, the final four used to be far older than the also-rans. Nowadays, the age gap is narrowing to the point where, especially this season, there doesn’t seem to be much of one at all.

Keep reading.

📸 The world in photos

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Liverpool, England — Nearly 50 Liverpool fans were injured Monday after a 53-year-old British man drove a car into a crowd during the club’s Premier League championship parade, according to police.

🇫🇷 Paris — Rafael Nadal was honored Sunday at Roland Garros, where the “King of Clay” won a record 14 French Opens and will now forever have his footprint immortalized on center court.

🇺🇸 St. Paul, Minnesota — The Minnesota Frost have repeated as PWHL champions, clinching their second straight Walter Cup on Monday with an overtime winner against the Ottawa Charge.

🇵🇹 Lisbon — The only English club to win the Women’s Champions League is now the only one to do so twice, as Arsenal beat defending champion Barcelona, 1-0, on Saturday for their first title since 2007.

🏒 U.S. wins first world title since 1933

92 years later, the Americans are once again world hockey champions.

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Victory in Stockholm: The U.S. beat Switzerland, 1-0 (OT), on Sunday thanks to a golden goal from Sabres center Tage Thompson, giving USA Hockey its first on-ice trophy in this tournament since 1933.

What they’re saying: “We knew there was something special in this room, but the biggest thing was having Johnny Gaudreau in our room, too,” Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman said of the late NHL star who is the Americans’ all-time points leader at worlds. “This gold goes to him and the legacy that he’s paved for all USA hockey players.”

A long time coming: The 1933 title came back when only amateurs were allowed to compete. The Massachusetts Rangers (representing the U.S.) beat the Toronto National Sea Fleas (representing Canada) in the tournament’s seventh edition, and first not won by Canada.

• The Americans tasted success in the ensuing decades, including Olympic gold in 1960 (technically a world title) and 1980, plus World Cup gold in 1996. But they mostly struggled at standalone world championships.

• Canada (28 golds), Russia/Soviet Union (27), Czechia (13) and Sweden (11) have won 79 of the 88 worlds; this was the first year the U.S. reached the title game in the tournament’s modern era (since 1992).

Between the lines: Team USA showed off its depth in Stockholm, boasting a young but talented roster that shared just two players with the team that took home silver in the 4 Nations Face-Off (Swayman and Blue Jackets’ defenseman Zach Werenski).

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Looking ahead: Next year’s Winter Olympics will feature NHL players for the first time since 2014. And unlike worlds, the 2026 Games are during an NHL break, meaning all top players will be available. Can the Americans run it back in a true best-on-best tournament? We’ll find out in eight months.

⚾️ Ohtani throws live BP, inches closer to return

Shohei Ohtani faced live batters this weekend for the first time since 2023 as he works his way back from reconstructive elbow surgery.

From Yahoo Sports’ Jake Mintz:

At 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Shohei Ohtani climbed a big league hill for the first time in 614 days. Officially, it was just a live batting practice session, a low-stakes environment for a recovering pitcher to ease back into competition. But because it was Ohtani, the session morphed into a can’t-miss event.

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As the three-time MVP readied to throw, a gaggle of his teammates assembled together behind a protective net set up near home plate. Dozens more Dodger players, coaches and team employees watched from the dirt track in foul territory down the third-base line.

Across the diamond, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza and a handful of his players followed along from the home dugout. Media members, television cameras and photographers dotted the otherwise empty stands, jostling for the best possible view of the show. Only with Ohtani does the mundane feel so momentous.

Scouting report: Ohtani threw 22 pitches across five at-bats and called upon his entire arsenal: fastball, sinker, cutter, sweeper, splitter. The velocity clocked in at 94-95 mph, although it reached as high as 97, according to pitching coach Mark Prior. “The stuff is there,” Prior ensured.

Meanwhile, on offense… Hours after his live BP session, Ohtani swapped his glove for a bat and cranked the second pitch of the evening 411 feet for his 18th home run. The next day, he cranked the first pitch of the night 378 feet for his MLB-leading 19th.

📺 Watchlist: Tuesday, May 27

🏀 Knicks at Pacers, Game 4 (8pm ET, TNT)

New York gave Indiana a taste of its own medicine on Sunday with a 20-point comeback win behind a fourth-quarter explosion from Karl-Anthony Towns. Can the Knicks tie up the series tonight before heading back home?

🏒 Stars at Oilers, Game 4 (8pm, ESPN)

Edmonton has been on a roll since dropping Game 1, winning Games 2 and 3 by a combined score of 9-1, including Sunday’s 6-1 thrashing.

🎾 French Open, First Round (5am, TNT)

No. 2 Coco Gauff (7:10am), No. 3 Jessica Pegula (7:50am) and No. 6 Novak Djokovic (8:20am) headline the final day of the first round at Roland Garros.

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Plus:

• ⚾️ MLB: Braves at Phillies (6:45pm, TBS) … Ronald Acuña Jr. has homered twice in three games since returning from a torn ACL.

• ⛳️ NCAA Men’s Golf: Team Match Play (Golf) … Quarterfinals (1pm) followed by semifinals (6pm).

Today’s full slate.

🏀 NBA trivia

All-NBA Selections: SGA, Jokić, Giannis, Tatum, Mitchell (First) | Edwards, James, Curry, Brunson, Mobley (Second) | Towns, Harden, Cunningham, Haliburton, Jalen Williams (Third).

LeBron James earned his 21st All-NBA selection this season, six more than any other player in NBA history.

Question: Which three players are tied for second, at 15 selections each?

Hint: One guard, two bigs.

Answer at the bottom.

📸 The best sports photo ever turns 60

When Muhammad Ali knocked down Sonny Liston on May 25, 1965, photographer Neil Leifer captured what many consider to be the greatest sports photo ever taken.

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What he’s saying: “What happened that night was I got very lucky, and I didn’t miss,” Leifer, now 82, told the New York Times on the 60th anniversary of his iconic shot, taken 1 minute and 44 seconds into the infamous title bout held in a tiny youth-center hockey rink.

• Location: Lewiston, Maine

• Equipment: Rolleiflex camera

Behind the lens: Two distinct features of this photo are the (1) clean frame and (2) hazy background. Here’s Leifer on both:

1. Clean frame: “There was no commercialism. The mat was plain off-white canvas. There was nothing on the trunks. Nothing on the gloves. The background would be different today, with all sorts of crap: commercials for light beer, a hotel.”

2. Hazy background: “In those days, the crowd was going to be 90% men, and a lot of them were smoking cigarettes or cigars. The strobe lights filter through the smoke and you get a little bit of a blue haze, as opposed to a jet black, and it made the picture look a little more dramatic.”

🎥 Watch: Full fight (YouTube)

Trivia answer: Kobe Bryant, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tim Duncan

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