Toronto Raptors Clinch Their First NBA Title, Denying Warriors A 3-Peat
The Raptors’ Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry celebrate after Toronto wins the NBA championship, defeating the Golden State Warriors 114-110 in Oakland, Calif.
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Garrett Ellwood/NBAE/Getty Images
The Toronto Raptors have snatched their first NBA title, edging out the Golden State Warriors, 114-110, in Game 6 of the finals at the Warriors’ Oracle Arena in Oakland. Toronto completed the series 4-2.
With the score 111-110 and just seconds left in the 4th quarter, the Warriors’ Steph Curry missed a 3-pointer. Golden State then called a timeout it didn’t have and was given a technical foul. After that there was some confusion. In the end, Toronto prevailed.
It was a close-fought game from beginning to end, with the two teams trading out the lead.
A fast-paced and entertaining first half featured 14 lead changes and four ties in the last professional basketball game played in Oakland.
Raptors fans party in Toronto as their team wins the NBA championship in Oakland, Calif.
Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images
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Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images
Toronto led 33-32 after one quarter in which the Raptors scored seven 3-point shots. But the Warriors’ Klay Thompson kept the Warriors in the game scoring 10 points.
The Raptors led by three points at the half, 60-57, largely on the strength of a 21-point effort by guard Kyle Lowry. Pascal Siakam had 13 points and Serge Ibaka scored 10 for Toronto. Raptor star Kawhi Leonard had nine points, but also picked up three fouls.
The Warriors’ Thompson had 18 points, followed by Andre Iguodala with 11 points. Curry had nine points.
The Warriors led 88-86 after three quarters. Golden State saw its top scorer Thompson injure his knee late in the quarter.
The Golden State Warriors, led by Splash Brothers Curry and Thompson, have won three of the last four NBA championships. They were early odds-on favorites to three-peat their way to another title and seal their claim to being one of professional basketball’s historic dynasties.
But Toronto got in the way of all that.
Going into Game 6, the Raptors had already accomplished what few other teams could dream of: they’d beaten Golden State on the Warriors home court, the Oracle Arena, three times this year—once in the regular season and twice in this series.
The Warriors had hoped to stretch the series to Game 7 and give the court they’ve called home for 47 seasons a proper send off. Next year, Golden State will play in the new Chase Center in San Francisco. It’s only a handful of miles away, but there are many die-hard Oaklanders who think their Warriors might as well be moving to Mars.
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Raptors Face Off In Oakland Against Warriors In NBA Finals Game 6
Thursday night’s Game 6 of the NBA finals moves to Oakland, Calif. — home to defending champions the Golden State Warriors. The Toronto Raptors are looking to win their first championship.
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6 Suspects Detained In Shooting Of Former Baseball Star David Ortiz
Eddy Vladimir Feliz Garcia, the alleged getaway driver in the shooting of ex-Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, is escorted to court in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
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Roberto Guzman/AP
Authorities in the Dominican Republic say they have detained six suspects, including the alleged gunman, in the shooting of former Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz.
Four other suspects are still at large, according to the Dominican Republic’s chief prosecutor, Jean Alain Rodríguez.
The alleged assailants had been paid 400,000 Dominican pesos, or just under $8,000, to kill Ortiz, according to Police Maj. Gen. Ney Aldrin Bautista Almonte. Neither he nor Rodríguez has offered a motive for the attack on the popular ex-baseball star.
Ortiz was shot in the back at close range on Sunday while sitting at an outdoor bar in Santo Domingo, the Caribbean nation’s capital city.
The alleged gunman was identified as Rolfy Ferreyra, aka Sandy, according to authorities cited by The Associated Press.
Security camera footage outside the bar before the shooting shows two men on a motorcycle talking with other people in two different Hyundai cars. One of the men on the motorcycle has been identified as 25-year-old Eddy Vladimir Feliz Garcia, who is accused of driving the alleged gunman to the scene of the shooting.
According to court documents obtained by the AP, Feliz Garcia botched the getaway by losing control of his motorcycle. He was beaten bloody by enraged fans of Ortiz before they turned him over to the police.
In a statement, Ortiz’s wife, Tiffany, said the former star is slowly recovering in the intensive care unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was flown after surgery in the Dominican Republic.
“Yesterday and this morning, David was able to sit up as well as take some steps,” she said. “His condition is guarded and he will remain in the ICU for the coming days, but he is making good progress towards recovery.”
Spain’s Soccer League Fined For Using App To Spy On Fans In Fight To Curb Piracy
La Liga, Spain’s premier soccer league, was fined 250,000 euros on Tuesday for failing to adequately notify Android app users that it was recording what was going on near their phones. The app was developed to combat piracy, according to the league.
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SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
On Tuesday, Spain’s premier soccer league, La Liga, was hit with a 250,000-euro fine — about $280,000 — for using its mobile phone app to spy on millions of fans as part of a ploy to catch venues showing unlicensed broadcasts of professional matches.
The country’s data protection agency said the league’s app, which was marketed as a tool to track game scores, schedules, player rankings and other news, was also systematically accessing the phone’s microphone and geolocation data to listen in on people’s surroundings during matches. When it detected users were in bars the app would record audio — much like Shazam — to determine if a game was being illegally shown at the venue.
The league only used the technology on Android phones. According to El Diario the app has been downloaded more than 10 million times.
The Spanish newspaper reported, the agency found La Liga did not adequately notify users about the surveillance components of the app and therefore violated the basic principle of transparency under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation.
La Liga countered by saying it did offer two opportunities at the time of installation to block the spy-like functions. But the watchdog said the soccer league should alert users every time the microphone is remotely activated, including adding an icon to the screen when the phone is recording.
Some other apps try to use the same features to gather information, if they’re not blocked by users.
The surreptitious functionality was met with outrage from fans when it was first discovered a couple of weeks after the EU’s data protection regulations went into effect a year ago. The rules require app makers to expressly convey to users what they are doing with the data they’re gathering. At the time, El Pais reported it became a trending topic on social media and it sent Android reviews of the app plummeting.
The soccer league responded by telling fans the snooping elements of the app were designed to combat piracy. “These fraudulent activities represent an estimated loss of 150 million euros annually for Spanish football, which translates into direct damage for clubs, operators and fans, among others,” La Liga said.
In a statement on Wednesday, La Liga said it “disagrees deeply” with the data protection agency’s decision and accused it of not making “the necessary effort to understand how the technology works.”
La Liga plans to challenge the resolution, insisting it has followed all existing regulations. League officials sought to clarify that the software protects individual users’ rights because it doesn’t record, store or listen to conversations.
“All this technology was implemented to achieve a legitimate goal,” La Liga said, adding that it has a responsibility to use all technological advances at its disposal to “fight against piracy.”
La Liga also said it will not be applying the data protection agency’s recommendations. It called the app “experimental,” because the league was already planning to turn off those functions at the end of the season, which falls on June 30.
Dani Matias contributed to this story.
The Bruins And Blues Have Just One Game To Decide Who Lifts Lord Stanley’s Cup
Boston Bruins winger Brad Marchand celebrates after his Game 6 goal on the road against the St. Louis Blues. That game, a Bruins blowout, sent the Stanley Cup Final to a rubber match Wednesday in Boston.
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Jeff Roberson/AP
In retrospect, we all probably should have seen it coming.
After a tumultuous NHL postseason, one that saw all four No. 1 seeds fall in the first round — including the defending Stanley Cup champion and a history-making regular season juggernaut — maybe it was obvious that the Stanley Cup Final would need all seven games to decide a winner. Neither the St. Louis Blues nor the Boston Bruins, the sides still standing at the end of this battle royal, were about to go down easily.
And what a slobberknocker it’s been.
Praying for a win? A young Boston Bruins fan (left) awaits the start of action in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Bruins and the St. Louis Blues in Boston, while this Blues fan grits it out during Game 6 in St. Louis.
Michael Dwyer/AP; Jeff Roberson/AP
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Michael Dwyer/AP; Jeff Roberson/AP
The Bruins entered the series as the favorite, a seasonlong member of the Eastern Conference elite with a veteran core that won the cup so recently, the feel of its cold silver alloy likely still lingers in sense memory. The Blues, on the other hand, came in as the storybook darlings — a team that was dead last in the NHL just months ago and now has a shot at seizing its first Stanley Cup in the franchise’s 52-year history.
By the way, the last time the Blues were in the final, nearly half a century ago, they were also playing the Bruins — and got posterized by that Bobby Orr goal. You know the one.
But if there was disparity in the franchises’ paths to the Stanley Cup Final, there was little to be found in their play on the ice. They traded heavy body blows, neither team managing to open more than a one-game lead, and the momentum of the series swung back and forth with them.
You’d be forgiven, for instance, for having figured the Bruins had it in the bag after their Game 3 drubbing of the Blues. And after a clutch Game 5 win gave the Blues a chance to clinch the cup on home ice, few expected them to follow it with such a breathtaking dud.
Both goalies, the Blues’ rookie netminder Jordan Binnington and the Bruins’ Tuukka Rask, rode hot hands into the final, but they too have been fairly up and down — especially Binnington, who has played like two different players at times. He has alternated stinkers — including getting benched for the first time in his young career, in Game 3 — with some moments of eye-popping dominance.
As these things are wont to go, the play has also gotten rather chippy.
The Bruins’ 42-year-old captain, Zdeno Chara, reportedly broke his jaw when he took a point-blank shot to the mouth in Game 4, only to make it back out on the ice three days later for Game 5, new protective face mask and all. Later that game, deep into the third period, the Blues scored the game-winning goal moments after a controversial noncall by the referees — which the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in a magnificent bit of trolling, was only too happy to allude to in its headline: “What a trip!“
In fact, that little phrase is a pretty fitting summary of a postseason that has had as many twists as the tape on a hockey stick — and an up-and-down final that has just about lived up to the chaos that came before it. What a long, strange trip it’s been.
Now time to bring it all home.
Trump Will Play Ball With MLB On Cuban Players If League Helps With Venezuela
Alexis Rivero of Cuba’s Los Leñeros de Las Tunas pitches during a Caribbean Series match against Venezuela’s Cardenales de Lara in Panama City on Feb. 6. Major League Baseball had made a deal with Cuba’s baseball federation to allow Cuban athletes to play in the U.S. without defecting, only to see the Trump administration subsequently block the rule.
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Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty Images
President Trump has resumed talks with Major League Baseball owners after his administration blocked a historic agreement that would have allowed Cuban baseball players to join MLB teams without having to defect.
But the White House made clear that in exchange for revisiting that decision, it wants MLB, like other groups with ties to the island, to urge Cuba to reduce its long-standing cooperation with Venezuela’s socialist government.
Trump met Monday with MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred to discuss the league’s concerns that Cuban ballplayers risk their lives hiring human smugglers to get them to the United States to play. The White House told NPR on Tuesday that it was willing to continue to talk with MLB about the issue, but administration officials also sought MLB’s assistance with the crisis in Venezuela.
“The administration will continue to hold the Cuban regime accountable for its direct role in the trafficking of its citizens from the island,” a White House official told NPR. “The administration looks forward to finding productive ways to work with MLB to help the people of Venezuela, a country that has a rich history with MLB but has been destabilized by Cuba’s interference.”
The Trump administration blames Cuba for propping up Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and demanded that Cuban security forces leave Venezuela.
MLB had reached an agreement in December with the Cuban Baseball Federation that would have allowed Cuban baseball players to sign contracts directly with professional U.S. baseball clubs.
Four months later, the Treasury Department told MLB that it was reversing an Obama-era decision that would have allowed payments to the Cuban Baseball Federation, accusing the Cuban government of using baseball players as “pawns.” The Trump administration argued the agreement was prohibited because payments can’t be made to the Cuban government owing to long-standing U.S. sanctions.
The fact that Trump later accepted a high-profile meeting with the baseball commissioner appeared to be an easing of the stance and raised hopes of a reversal.
“The president taking a meeting with the commissioner of MLB to discuss a topic that the administration recently made a ruling shows that the president is open to seriously considering changing the administration ruling that was recently made,” said Fernando Cutz, a former acting senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council in the Trump administration. “That shows the president is willing to at least consider overruling whoever made that ultimate decision underneath him.”
The agreement is intended to give Cuban baseball players a chance to play baseball in the United States without having to make the dangerous journey overseas or contract with dangerous smuggling operations.
Some Cuban baseball players report being harassed by smugglers for years after making the journey.
Earlier this spring, MLB hired a lobbying firm with close ties to the Trump administration for help finding a solution.
John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said the meeting is particularly significant from the Cuban perspective. It marks a “meaningful change from 60 days ago” when the Trump administration was in lockstep with some of the Cuban government’s harshest critics, such as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who vowed to fight the plan.
But Kavulich and other experts said Cuba would not turn on its longtime ally Venezuela for the MLB deal — and the expectation could make the challenge even greater.
“They’ve added elements to the resolution process, and the elements they’ve added are incredibly difficult for MLB or governments to resolve in the short to medium term,” Kavulich said. “Anytime that an issue gets linked to what is happening to Venezuela or how Cuba is connected to Venezuela, turn off the lights, and read a good book.”
Benjamin Gedan, who was responsible for Venezuela policy on the National Security Council during the Obama administration, said it is unclear whether Obama’s strategy of rapprochement with Cuba would have led Havana to distance itself from Venezuela, but he questioned how isolating Cuba and its ballplayers would do that either.
“By attacking the MLB for its Cuba engagement, the Trump administration further alienates Havana, which could be a far more helpful player on Venezuela than baseball executives,” Gedan said.
Ric Herrero, executive director of the Cuba Study Group, said any effort to address human smuggling in the region is a positive one, but he questioned what the administration is “actually going to do here other than make pronouncements” to end human trafficking.
“It seems if they’re serious [about] wanting to end the trafficking of Cuban baseball players, it seems that canceling a relationship between Major League Baseball and Federación Cubana de Béisbol isn’t the way to go about it.”
