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Good morning! Don’t go down 3-0 today.
While You Were Sleeping: Woof, finals series
For the second straight night, a top seed in a major professional sport won a tight game to go up 3-0 in its championship series. Also, those 0-fer teams — the Dallas Mavericks and Edmonton Oilers — employ each series’ biggest star: Luka Dončić and Connor McDavid.
Sure, most of us expected the Boston Celtics and Florida Panthers to win these series. But does it have to be like this?
- A small solace: Last night’s Panthers win was quite entertaining. An early 4-1 lead for the Panthers dwindled to 4-3 in the final minutes of the game. Edmonton had multiple golden chances to tie it in the last three minutes. Sergei Bobrovsky and the Panthers defense clamped when it mattered most.
Only one team, the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, has overcome a 3-0 deficit in the Stanley Cup Final to win. Eighty-two years later, our Game 4 is tomorrow night. This could be the NHL’s first title sweep since 1998 — and the first time both the NBA and NHL end with sweeps since 1995.
Let’s go across the Atlantic:
Pitch Perfect: No pressure, England
There is nothing quite like the Euros tournament, which pits the national teams of soccer’s premier continent against each other every four years. The World Cup, but local. Or imagine the best SEC football games in a season, mashed into just one month of play.
With this and Copa America coming up — plus a compelling women’s Olympic tournament shortly after that — there hasn’t been a better summer to be a soccer fan in recent memory (or to become one).
To help me prep for the Euros, which kicks off today, I went to expert Phil Hay of The Athletic FC fame for a rapid-fire Q&A session:
Which team has the most on the line?
Phil: England. By far. It’s won no major trophy since 1966 still, and all the noises indicate that this will be Gareth Southgate’s last hurrah as manager if they don’t win it. Nothing less than that is good enough.
This tournament breeds stars. Who’s the breakout player?
Phil: If you follow football closely then you’ll know Florian Wirtz (Bundesliga’s 21-year-old player of the year says it all), but this might be the moment when the midfielder’s talent properly seeps into the consciousness of the wider world.
Who’s winning?
Phil: It’s England or France. I’m going with France. And not because I’m Scottish. I just think they’ll have a slight edge when it comes to getting it done.
Make sure to subscribe to The Athletic FC for this Euros run. We’ll also have tons of content in our Euro 2024 hub. Bookmark it.
News to Know
Rory tied for U.S. Open lead
Rory McIlroy and Patrick Cantlay both shot five-under 65s to claim first place after Day 1 of the U.S. Open yesterday. Historically, though, the first round at Pinehurst No. 2 has been a bit of fool’s gold — as Justin Ray noted last night in his excellent notebook, the course has been extremely unfair after the opening round. Gulp. If you need an underdog to root for, pick Jackson Suber, the last man into this field who somehow finds himself in the top 10.
The downstream effects of Lawrence’s deal
Yesterday, the Jaguars and Trevor Lawrence agreed to a five-year contract extension worth $275 million, with $142 million guaranteed. His $55 million average annual value ties him with Joe Burrow for the highest among QBs, though Burrow got $4 million more in guaranteed money. Lawrence probably deserves that, but is he a top-five QB in the NFL? I say no. And how does this affect someone like Dak Prescott, currently locked in a friendly cold war with the Cowboys over his looming massive extension? I think Prescott just got richer, whether that’s in Dallas or elsewhere.
More news
Record Books: Get ready for GOAT arguments
We said yesterday we’d have time to crown the Celtics. We might as well start now. The 2024 Boston Celtics, up 3-0 on the Dallas Mavericks entering tonight’s game, can officially become one of the best teams in NBA history with a win tonight.
Levels here:
- If the Celtics win, they’ll finish this postseason 16-2. Even accounting for opponent injuries, which eased Boston’s road a bit, we can reasonably say this is one of the best playoff runs of the four-round era — technically behind only the 2016-17 Warriors (16-1) and the 2000-01 Lakers (15-1) since 1984. Lofty company.
- A title will be No. 18 for the Celtics, nudging them past the rival Lakers for the most in NBA history. Those fan bases can argue among themselves, but Boston has a case in this best-team-ever debate — if we’re going by pure numbers.
I will be shocked if Dallas wins tonight, especially since coach Jason Kidd said he’s making no lineup changes. Unless that same crew gets it done, it’ll be time to debate where 2024 Boston lands on all-time top-20 lists.
Watch This Game
Euros: Germany vs. Scotland
3 p.m. ET on Fox
The Germans are big favorites here, but you never know what can happen on this kind of international stage. The atmosphere alone should be worth a watch.
College baseball: Florida State vs. Tennessee
7 p.m. ET on ESPN
This is the best matchup on Day 1 of the men’s College World Series, where the Volunteers are the No. 1 seed — which has been a curse. No top seed has won the national title since Miami in 1999.
NBA: Celtics at Mavericks
8:30 p.m. ET on ABC
If Boston wins, it’s history. If Dallas prevails, it’ll face an uphill battle to more history. Give it a peek.
Get tickets to games like these here.
Pulse Picks
The Euros final isn’t for another month, but it’s well worth your time to read Adam Crafton’s story on the venue that will host the tournament final: the Olympiastadion in Berlin, whose complicated history begins with Adolf Hitler.
There is still plenty of intrigue on the club soccer side, too. We have a new metric debuting this morning: The Athletic 500, our rating of every available transfer deal on the market. We’ll be using it often in these pages. Take a look.
Nicole Auerbach pulled back the curtain on the collegiate powerhouse that is expected to fuel the U.S. women’s Olympic swim team.
I loved Tim Kawakami’s story about his phone calls with Jerry West, which, as he wrote, could be “like tapping into the NBA secret mainframe.”
Jeff Berry was once a top MLB agent. So why did he walk away? Evan Drellich reports a super interesting story about baseball’s future.
Tony Gwynn, Rod Carew and … Luis Arraez? Dennis Lin published a must-read story on baseball’s throwback star.
Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Andrew Schlect’s video of all six Luka Dončić fouls Wednesday. I still can’t believe he fouled out in a game like that.
Most-read on the website yesterday: Jim Bowden’s roundup of trade targets for all 30 MLB teams as the deadline approaches. See who your team could snag — or trade away.
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(Photo: Dave Sandford / NHLI via Getty Images)