Hometown Broadcasting Sports Thursday 9/3/20
3 September 2020 Sports
Jimmy Butler hit two free throws with no time left on the clock and the Miami Heat held on for a 116-114 win over the Milwaukee Bucks Wednesday night. The victory gives Miami a 2-0 lead in their Eastern Conference semi-final series. Butler was fouled by Giannis Antetokounmpo with no time remaining, the referees said, a call that was affirmed in a review after the initial whistle. The ball was out of Butler’s hands when Antetokounmpo clearly made contact.
The Heat were up by six with 27 seconds left and frittered that away, Butler giving Milwaukee two points with a most ill-advised pass — “a terrible IQ play,” he acknowledged — back toward the Bucks’ basket that turned into a layup by Brook Lopez.
That got Milwaukee within two, and Butler made one free throw with 7.7 seconds left to get the lead back to three. Khris Middleton was fouled by Goran Dragic — a call Miami argued to no avail, because the Heat unsuccessfully used their challenge on a foul of Lopez shooting a 3 in the first quarter — with 4.3 seconds left, and the All-Star made all three free throws to tie it.
Butler wound up with the ball in the deep corner, and Antetokounmpo — the reigning Defensive Player of the Year — contested. Milwaukee couldn’t challenge the call; the Bucks used their review to overturn what would have been Antetokounmpo’s fourth foul on a charging call into Butler early in the fourth quarter.
Dragic scored 23 points, Tyler Herro added 17 off the bench and Jae Crowder had 16 for Miami. Bam Adebayo scored 15 points, Butler and Duncan Robinson each had 13 and Kelly Olynyk added 11 for Miami — which is 6-0 in this postseason.
Antetokounmpo had 29 points and 14 rebounds for the Bucks. Middleton scored 23 points for Milwaukee, which got 16 apiece from Lopez and Eric Bledsoe and 14 from George Hill. Game three is Friday.
In game seven of the first round Western Conference series Houston nipped Utah 104-102.
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Keston Hiura and Jace Peterson homered as the Milwaukee Brewers rallied to beat Detroit 8-5 on Wednesday, snapping the Tigers’ six-game winning streak. Eric Sogard’s sacrifice fly off Joe Jimenez (1-2) scored Justin Smoak with the go-ahead run in the seventh inning as the Brewers responded after falling behind 4-0. Peterson provided insurance with a pinch-hit, two-run shot in the eighth. Milwaukee matched its biggest comeback in a victory this season. The Brewers trailed 5-1 in a 6-5 triumph over the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 27. The Tigers’ control problems led to the end of their winning streak since the summer of 2016, when they reeled off eight straight victories. The Tigers issued a season-high 10 walks and also hit two batters.
Eric Yardley (2-0) Devin Williams and Josh Hader combined to pitch four innings of no-hit relief after Brewers starter Adrian Houser gave up five runs and nine hits in five innings. Hader, who hasn’t allowed a hit in 11 2/3 innings this season, earned his ninth save in 10 opportunities.
The Tigers took a 3-0 lead during a first-inning outburst that featured two infield singles and a bases-loaded, ground-rule double from Jorge Bonifacio. It was just the second extra-base hit all year for Bonifacio, who entered the night hitting .190 (4 of 21). Detroit made it 4-0 on Christin Stewart’s RBI single in the third.
Then the Brewers rallied against Detroit’s Spencer Turnbull, who allowed five walks and five runs in five innings.
After Turnbull walked Ben Gamel and Christian Yelich with one out in the third, Hiura delivered a towering drive to center for his ninth homer of the season.
The Brewers trailed 5-3 in the fifth when they loaded the bases on walks from Yelich, Smoak and Avisail Garcia. They tied the game on a two-run single from Omar Narvaez, whose broken-bat blooper barely eluded second baseman Jonathan Schoop and landed in shallow right.
The Brewers are off today before continuing a stretch of seven straight interleague contests by opening a three-game set at Cleveland on Friday.
Elsewhere in the N.L. Central on Wednesday, the Cubs beat the Pirates 8-2 and the Reds edged the Cardinals 4-3.
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Opening Day rosters this year may have some more question marks than in years past. The absence of preseason games does present a few challenges, but none the Packers think they can’t overcome.
“We’re still, like many teams in our league probably, just trying to figure out who’s going to be in what spot,” said quarterback Aaron Rodgers. “It’s going to be an interesting first week.”
“I think we’re pretty close to where we’d like to be,” said head coach Matt LaFleur. “Certainly, I think you maybe have not gotten as many reps at each play that you’d like to, but I think for the most part as far as our install is concerned, really in all three phases, I feel pretty confident with where we’re at.”
The Packers are already getting adjusted to a regular season practice schedule this week even before final roster cuts come this weekend. Coach LaFleur said the team will probably be in full pads for Thursday’s practice which is normal for the regular season.
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Tom Seaver, whose long, back-bending, knee-scraping strides toward the plate and aura of confidence and determination made him one of the best pitchers in the history of baseball, the greatest Met of all time and earned him the names “Tom Terrific” and “The Franchise,” has died. He was 75.
Seaver pitched in the Major Leagues for 20 seasons, winning 311 games and recording a 2.86 ERA. A 12-time All-Star (10 times from 1967-77), he struck out 3,640 batters, which currently ranks sixth all-time but was third, behind only Nolan Ryan and Steve Carlton, at the time of his retirement in 1986. Seaver led the National League in strikeouts five times from 1970-76, and he and Christy Mathewson are the only pitchers to record 300 wins, 3,000 strikeouts and an ERA below 3.00. Seaver’s 16 Opening Day starts is a Major League record.
Though he successfully pitched for other teams — the Reds, White Sox and Red Sox — Seaver is most closely associated with the Mets and is universally regarded as their greatest player. Seaver led the Mets to their miracle 1969 championship, won 20 or more games for them four times, won three National League Cy Young Awards, three NL ERA titles and the 1967 NL Rookie of the Year Award, all while with the Mets. His uniform No. 41 was retired in 1988, the first such honor given to a Mets player.
Seaver holds the record for most consecutive strikeouts by a pitcher, having struck out the final 10 batters in a win over the Padres in 1970. For a time he shared the record for most strikeouts in a nine-inning game, 19, with Carlton. He finished in the top three in Cy Young voting six times.
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