Tag: tennis betting

Canada denies fan favorite Japan in five sets

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Canada celebrates a point against Japan in the VNL 2024 Week 3 match in Manila, Philippines. –MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net

VNL 2024 SCHEDULE: Week 3 Manila, Philippines leg

MANILA, Philippines — Most of the Filipino crowd may have been cheering for Japan, but Canada got the last laugh in their crucial Volleyball Nations League (VNL) 2024 Week 3 match on Tuesday evening at Mall of Asia Arena.

In front of a good weekday crowd, Canada denied Japan’s fightback in five sets, 25-21, 20-25, 25-15, 20-25, 15-10, to keep its Final Eight chances on track with an improved 5-4 record in seventh place.

Thousands of Filipino fans may be on the side of the Japanese, who are playing in their third straight VNL in Manila, but Stephen Maar, who led the collective effort of the Canadians with 24 points, was dauntless.

READ: ‘Great expectations’ ahead for Japan in VNL Manila leg

“Sometimes it’s nice to be the villain so I enjoy that,” Maar said after drilling 22 kills and two aces.

Eric Loeppky had fun in his first game in the country, delivering 15 points built on 13 kills and two blocks as Canada also played in Manila for the third straight year.

“It’s the first game of the week. You never kind of know what you’re gonna expect and I think we came out really strong and they’re a good team so we battled,” Loeppky told reporters. “The fans were awesome here it’s my first time in the Philippines so I really enjoyed that but we’re really happy we came out with the win.”

“I wasn’t here last year, unfortunately. I’ve heard legendary stories all year about how amazing the fans are and I finally got to see it and they can really make some noise. So it’s awesome and it’s a fun environment and I really enjoy playing,” he added.

Arthur Swarc also scored 15 points off 12 spikes, two blocks, and an ace, Pearson Eshenko and Danny Demyanenko chipped in eight points each as Canada got its act together in the fifth set, pulling away with a 10-6 advantage en route to a big win.

Loeppky puts a premium on consistency as they battle Germany on Thursday at 11 a.m.



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“I think for us it’s consistency. Last week, we were able to get big wins but in the following game we struggled a bit. I think that’s our next goal to see how consistent can we play for the next match,” he said.

Japan slid to a 6-3 record still in No.6 despite the efforts of Yuji Nishida and Yuki Ishikawa. Ran Takahashi added 13 points before its next match against the Netherlands on Friday.

NBA Finals loss can be springboard for Mavericks

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Luka Doncic #77 of the Dallas Mavericks reacts during the fourth quarter of Game Five of the 2024 NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics at TD Garden on June 17, 2024 in Boston, Massachusetts. Elsa/Getty Images/AFP

Dallas star Luka Doncic was still absorbing the bitter blow of NBA Finals defeat, but one big lesson from the Mavericks 4-1 loss to the Boston Celtics was already clear.

“We’ve got to fight next season,” the 25-year-old Slovenian said, adding that the example of the Celtics themselves — back in the winner’s circle after falling in the finals in 2022 then missing out on the title series last year — was one to note.

“They’re a great team,” Doncic said. “They have been together for a long time, and they had to go through everything, so we’ve just got to look at them, see how they play, (they have) maturity, and they have some great players.

“We can learn from that,” Doncic said.

Doncic spearheaded an often sluggish Mavs offense throughout the series, despite playing with nagging knee and ankle injuries and a painful chest contusion.

READ: A postseason like almost none other for Doncic, even without NBA title

“It doesn’t matter if I was hurt, how much was I hurt,” said Doncic, who scored 28 points in Monday’s Game 5 defeat that saw Boston clinch a record 18th NBA title.

“I was out there. I tried to play, but I didn’t do enough.”

Having extended the series with a game-four blowout, Dallas never led on Monday, trailing by double digits throughout the second half.

But Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said just booking the title showdown with the 64-win Celtics — a year after Dallas failed to make the playoffs — was a harbinger of what this Mavs team can accomplish.

“This is just the beginning,” Kidd said. “A lot of people — excluding the people in the locker room — didn’t have us here.

READ: Doncic, Irving can’t deliver for Mavericks in NBA Finals clincher

“Yes, we lost 4-1, but I thought the group fought against the Celtics and just unfortunately just couldn’t make shots.”

As the game ended, Doncic exchanged an embrace with teammate Kyrie Irving, an NBA champion alongside LeBron James with Cleveland in 2016 who was brought in to bolster the Mavs in February of 2023.

“We said we’ll fight together next season, and we’re just going to believe,” Doncic said.

The Mavs’ post-season push was buoyed at the trade deadline by the acquisitions of P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford, and guard Josh Green said Dallas has the raw materials to challenge again.

“I think we got here and everyone is hungry now and obviously we didn’t get what we wanted. We need to regroup and be back here again next year,” Green said.

Added Irving: “Failure at this stage definitely sucks. It’s a bitter feeling because you want to keep playing and you feel like your best game is coming up next.



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“But I’m grateful for the opportunity to grow with these guys in this locker room, and everybody across the organization.”

Postseason like almost none other for Doncic, even sans NBA title

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Luka Doncic #77 of the Dallas Mavericks high fives a staff member against the Boston Celtics during the third quarter of Game Five of the 2024 NBA Finals at TD Garden on June 17, 2024 in Boston, Massachusetts. Elsa/Getty Images/AFP

Luka Doncic’s first trip to the NBA Finals didn’t result in his first championship. That said, the Dallas star most definitely left his mark on these playoffs.

Doncic finished the postseason as the NBA’s leader in points (635), rebounds (208) and assists (178).

He’s only the second player in NBA history to finish the postseason as the leader in all three of those categories. It also happened last year — when Denver’s Nikola Jokic pulled off the feat.

“I’m proud of every guy that stepped on the floor, all the coaches, all the people behind (the scenes),” Doncic said. “Obviously, we didn’t win the finals, but we did have a hell of a season and I’m proud of every one of them.”

Doncic also joined another very small club, that being players to score 3,000 points in a single season. His 28 points on Monday in the season’s finale, Game 5 against the Boston Celtics, gave him 3,005 this season, including the playoffs.

READ: Doncic, Irving can’t deliver for Mavericks in NBA Finals clincher

He became the 11th player to do that. Michael Jordan had 10 such seasons, Wilt Chamberlain had five and nine other players — Bob McAdoo, Elgin Baylor, James Harden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, Rick Barry, Shaquille O’Neal and now Doncic — have each done it once.

Holiday History

Boston’s Jrue Holiday won an NBA title in 2021, then won an Olympic gold medal later that summer. He’s got a chance to do it again.

Holiday and Boston teammate Jayson Tatum will be part of USA Basketball’s squad at the Paris Games, with camp starting early next month in Las Vegas.

Holiday could be the third player to win an NBA or WNBA title, and then an Olympic or FIBA World Cup gold medal, in the same calendar year on more than one occasion. Sue Bird did it three times and Scottie Pippen did it twice.

Celtics Record

Boston’s 16-3 record in these playoffs represents the 10th-best postseason mark by a team in NBA history.

The top of that list: Golden State was 16-1 in 2017, the Los Angeles Lakers were 15-1 in 2001 and Philadelphia was 12-1 in 1983.

Also ahead of Boston’s run this season: the 1999 San Antonio Spurs, 1991 Chicago Bulls and 1989 Detroit Pistons (all 15-2), the 1971 Milwaukee Bucks and 1982 Lakers (both 12-2) and the 1950 Lakers, then in Minneapolis (11-2).

The previous best playoff record in Celtics history was 15-3, done in the 1986 postseason.

Back On Top

Move over, Lakers. Boston is back atop the NBA’s all-time list for most titles won.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ latest championship — in the bubble in 2020 — pulled the franchise into a tie with the Celtics for the most in NBA history, 17 apiece.

READ: Celtics rout Mavericks to win record 18th NBA championship

The Celtics beat the Lakers in the 1963 NBA Finals, giving Boston its sixth title to the Lakers’ five. And for the next 57 years, the Celtics remained alone atop the list of most championships.

When the 1986 season ended, Boston had 16 titles to L.A.’s nine. The championship count since is Lakers 8, Celtics 2 — good enough to give the Celtics sole possession of the No. 1 spot again.

Still Waiting

After 186 playoff games in his career, Al Horford is finally a champion — and finally off a list that he probably didn’t aspire to be part of.

No active player had appeared in more playoff games without a championship than Horford, the Celtics’ center.

Now that he’s off the list, the new leaders in playoff games played without winning their first title yet are James Harden (166), Chris Paul (149) and Russell Westbrook (122).

Nice Check

The Celtics’ players (and probably some staff) are going to get a nice check for winning the title.

Boston’s share of the NBA’s playoff pool is $12,059,435. That’s the most a team has ever won from the postseason pile of bonus money, which was a record $33,657,947 this season.

Some of that gets distributed to each of the 16 playoff teams. Dallas’ share was $5,899,422.



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The bonus pool is typically split in some way among players and staff from the playoff teams.

Tag-team effort of Vucinic, Trillo leads to Meralco’s first PBA title

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MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net

Coach Luigi Trillo and active consultant Nenad Vucinic shared the podium for the first time on Sunday night, and appropriately so after Meralco overcame hardships to win a first-ever PBA championship.

For both, the Bolts’ road to Philippine Cup glory at the expense of the favored San Miguel Beermen is something that would have not been a possibility without their team buying in.

“Credit to the players because they responded. It took a lot of them to get out of that hole,” Trillo said after a nail-biting 80-78 title-clinching win at Smart Araneta Coliseum made possible by Chris Newsome’s last-second shot from the baseline.

Trillo and Vucinic, both designated by management to call the shots after long-time mentor Norman Black took a lesser role as consultant, and the Bolts were on the brink of elimination when a stunning loss to winless Converge left them at 3-5 and outside of the playoff picture.

At that time, a championship, let alone a spot in the quarterfinals, seemed like a distant possibility. But Meralco somehow persevered, and both witnessed their players lift the Jun Bernardino Perpetual Trophy.

“The players, they bought in and worked hard though it was very hard for them to understand,” said Vucinic, the Serbian-born former New Zealand national team coach.

Forgotten second placers

The triumph, which was also Meralco’s first major basketball title since the 1971 MICAA Open, was also a redemption of sorts for the coaching duo.

Trillo has been with the Bolts since 2014 as an assistant under Black, and shared the bitter feeling of losing four times in the Finals with Newsome, Cliff Hodge, Anjo Caram and Reynel Hugnatan, now a member of the coaching staff.

Before Game 5, Trillo spoke about how no one remembers being second place. Now, everyone will remember Meralco’s first.

“It wasn’t easy getting there,” he said. “They’ve been through four Finals appearances, a lot of pain. To gut it out this way, to really earn it—I’m saying about getting respect—it’s very fulfilling for us.”

Vucinic, meanwhile, had a previous short run as Meralco consultant in the 2022 Philippine Cup with Black still calling the shots before deciding to leave at the end of a seven-game semis loss to San Miguel.

But for some reason, the Bolts came calling again in 2023.

“The thing is when a new face comes in, especially a new face across the world—and this team has been under huge pressure to get the championship—we struggled I have to say because you have to implement a new system with new coaches and it’s difficult,” he said.

Now that the breakthrough title has been fulfilled, the talk now is whether Meralco can run it back for a shot at another one or multiple titles on the horizon. For the meantime, that thought will have to take a backseat.



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“The future of Meralco is a party. A huge party,” said Vucinic. “After the party, we will talk about it.” INQ

Andy Murray uncertain if he’ll play in Paris Olympics

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FILE–Britain’s Andy Murray gestures to the public after playing against Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka during their men’s singles match on day one of The French Open tennis tournament on Court Philippe-Chatrier at The Roland Garros Complex in Paris on May 26, 2024. (Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP)

Andy Murray said Sunday he was “not 100 percent sure” he will play at the Paris Olympics despite being selected just hours earlier for his fifth Games.

Murray, who has said he intends to retire later this year, was granted an International Tennis Federation (ITF) place to compete at the Games despite his lowly singles ranking of 97 because he is a former Grand Slam winner and Olympic champion.

Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski will represent Team GB in the men’s doubles and the pairing of Murray and Dan Evans has been nominated for an additional space in that competition, which will be determined by the ITF — the governing body of world tennis who run the tournament — on June 25.

The 37-year-old Murray said his participation at the Games was partly dependent on whether he was involved in the doubles, as well as singles, competition.

READ: Andy Murray named for fifth Olympics

“I am not 100 percent sure,” Murray told reporters at Queen’s Club, while dressed in a Team GB tracksuit. “It depends a little bit physically how I am doing. How the next few weeks go as well. Yeah, my plan just now is to play, but it is not straightforward.

“I’ll find out in the next 10 days or so on the doubles and what’s going to happen there. Hopefully me and Evo get the chance to play.”

Murray, who won Olympic gold at London 2012 and Rio in 2016, was one of four British male singles players selected alongside Jack Draper, Cameron Norrie and Dan Evans.

It was a landmark day for Draper, the incoming British number one, as just hours later the 22-year-old won his maiden ATP tour title, beating former Wimbledon runner-up Matteo Berrettini 3-6, 7-6 (7/5), 6-4 in the final of the Stuttgart Open.

Team GB was also notified on Thursday that 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu would be in the mix for an ITF place, but she turned down the chance because of the multiple changes in surface over the coming weeks and after only recently returning from a lengthy injury lay-off.

Katie Boulter — who beat Raducanu in the semi-finals of the Nottingham Open on Sunday — was the sole female player included in the British team.



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Celtics aim to regroup after Mavericks avoid sweep

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Boston Celtics players sit on the bench during the final moments of their loss to the Dallas Mavericks in Game 4 of the NBA finals, Friday, June 14, 2024, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

NBA Finals 2024 Boston Celtics vs Dallas Mavericks

Poised for an NBA coronation in Dallas, the Boston Celtics instead suffered the most lopsided Finals loss in franchise history, but with a 3-1 series lead Jaylen Brown says there’s no need to panic.

“These are the moments that can make you or break you,” Brown said after the Mavericks demolished the Celtics 122-84 in game four of the best-of-seven championship series.

“We have to reassemble,” Brown said. “We have to look at it and learn from it, and then we’ve got to embrace it and attack it.

“It’s going to be hard to do what we’re trying to do. We didn’t expect anything to be easy, but it’s no reason to lose our head.”

Boston forward Jayson Tatum said the key to moving past the big defeat was “not to harp on it too much”.

“We’re not making any excuses,” Tatum said. “We need to be better, and we will.”

READ: NBA Finals: Celtics back home with chance to clinch record 18th title

Certainly, the Celtics still have the upper hand heading into game five on Monday, where they’ll try to clinch a record-setting 18th NBA crown.

After all, no team has come back from 0-3 down to win an NBA playoff series.

But a Celtics squad schooled by coach Joe Mazzulla on the hunting tactics of killer whales looked more like the hapless seal pups on the beach as Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving and the rest of the Mavs roared to a 38-point game-four win.

It was the third-largest margin of victory in Finals history, and the worst pounding the 17-time champion Celtics had ever taken in the title series — surpassing their 137-104 loss to the Lakers in game three in 1984.

Kyrie Irving Dallas Mavericks beat Boston Celtics Game 4 NBA Finals

Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving, center, drives to the basket against the Boston Celtics during the first half in Game 4 of the NBA basketball finals, Friday, June 14, 2024, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

The Celtics won that series in seven games, and they still have three chances to close out the Mavs.

But from talk of a sweep the question now is could they become the first team to blow a 3-0 series lead.

Dallas, meanwhile, know the magnitude of the task they face.

“History is going to be made either way,” said Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving, who won a title alongside LeBron James in Cleveland in 2016. “We’d like to be on the right side of it.

READ: Celtics knocked down hard in Game 4, but go home with chance to clinch

“We waited until game four to ultimately play our best game,” Irving added. “Took long enough for all of us to get the party together and to play for each other the way we did (Friday).

“But it’s definitely a possibility that we can replicate it.”

Irving will have to perform better than he did in games one and two in Boston, where Celtics fans still bitter over his 2019 exit after a two-year tenure with the team, hounded him relentlessly.

“When we go to Boston, there’s going to be a bunch of them yelling a whole bunch of crazy stuff still, but I think we’ve been able to grow and face kind of this adversity head on.”

Mavs star Luka Doncic will also have to maintain the intensity he displayed in game four, when he scored 29 points with five rebounds and five assists while sitting out all of the fourth quarter to answer critics who questioned his maturity and effort.



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“I think he made a few people eat their words — in a healthy way,” Irving said.

Jayson Tatum reflects how being a dad changed his life, career

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FILE – Fans reach out to Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum (0) as he leaves the court holding his son, Deuce, after the Celtics defeated the Los Angeles Clippers in a double overtime NBA basketball game, Feb. 13, 2020, in Boston. Tatum spent part of his Father’s Day, Sunday, June 16, 2024, thinking about how his son made him a better person — and probably a better basketball player, too. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

BOSTON — Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum spent part of his Father’s Day thinking about how his son made him a better person — and probably a better basketball player, too.

Speaking at practice the day before Game 5 of the NBA Finals, Tatum acknowledged that he was “a little selfish” when he learned, as a teenager still in college with hopes of basketball stardom, that he would be a father.

“I’d be the first to say I wasn’t super-thrilled to find out I was going to be a dad, and quickly realized that it was the best thing that ever could have happened to me. There’s nothing better than being a dad,” Tatum said Sunday. “I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.”

READ: NBA Finals: Celtics take season’s worth of lessons in Game 5

Now 26 and in his seventh season, Tatum is a five-time All-Star who has led Boston to the Eastern Conference finals five times and to the NBA Finals twice. The Celtics lead the Dallas Mavericks 3-1 in the best-of-seven series; after missing their first chance to clinch a title on Friday, they have a second shot at an unprecedented 18th championship banner on Monday night.

Tatum had just turned 19 and was in his only year at Duke when he learned his girlfriend at the time was pregnant.

“I wasn’t ecstatic,” Tatum said Sunday. “I was a little selfish at that point because I knew that I was about to go chase my dream and be in the NBA. I felt like that was going to affect what people thought of me, affect where I went in the draft.”

READ: Celtics will win NBA title if Tatum, Brown focus on details, not emotions

Tatum was picked No. 3 overall by the Celtics, and Jayson Tatum Jr. – familiar around the Celtics as “Deuce” – was born in December of his father’s rookie season. Having a son helped the NBA star manage the expectations of his new wealth and fame, and the temptations that came along with them, too.

“It taught me a sense of responsibility,” Tatum said. “Nobody can help you or prepare you for what it’s like to be 19 and have millions of dollars.

“And I think — not that I think, I know — that having Deuce at that age grounded me. Because whatever decision I wanted to make, I had to make sure that he was taken care of. I couldn’t just up and go or do everything that some of my peers were doing because I had to go home and put him to bed. Or for Father’s Day weekend I was going out of town, or I had to skip out on this trip with my friends because it was my weekend with him.

“Not that it’s a sacrifice. I willingly would choose those things. But it has taught me a sense of responsibility — as well as just making the right decisions, knowing that there’s a 6-year-old ‘mini me’ essentially watching everything that I do and knowing that I have to be the best version of myself. I have to make the right decisions, because he’s always watching.”



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Rookie leaving impression as Mavs try to stay alive

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Dallas Mavericks center Dereck Lively II (2) scores against the Boston Celtics during Game 4 of the NBA basketball finals, Friday, June 14, 2024, in Dallas. (Stacy Revere/Pool Photo via AP)

Dereck Lively II drained the first 3-pointer of his career, forced a missed layup at the other end and ping-ponged back down the court to slam home an alley-oop pass.

The Dallas Mavericks didn’t trail again in Game 4 of the NBA Finals against Boston following that first-quarter sequence from their 7-foot-1 rookie center.

And while a series loss to the Celtics with the title on the line still seems inevitable, the 20-year-old from Duke has left an impression on the global basketball stage.

Never mind the unmistakable imprint from Lively on a franchise that tanked to try to preserve the first-round draft pick that landed him — but wasn’t really expecting this much this soon.

“I think people forget he’s a rookie,” superstar Luka Doncic said after the 122-84 blowout in Game 4 that kept Boston from sweeping. “He’s a rookie doing this stuff. He’s been amazing the whole season. Just watching him grow was unbelievable.”

READ: NBA Finals: Irving ends skid vs Celtics, now Mavs try to win in Boston

Next up for Lively is trying to make a little more noise in Boston. The chance comes in Game 5 on Monday night.

In the two Dallas losses at TD Garden, he had a combined four points on four shots with 12 rebounds.

Lively grabbed at least that many rebounds in each game in Dallas, scoring 11 points both times to join Magic Johnson (1980) as the only rookies with consecutive double-doubles in the NBA Finals.

He won’t be the focal point for the jeers from the opposing crowd — fellow Duke alum Kyrie Irving is the foil for Boston fans after spurning their team in free agency five years ago and fueling the rage with his antics on the parquet floor since then.

Lively feels the need to prepare for it nonetheless.

“It’s going to be loud and nasty,” Lively said. “You do your best not to focus on the crowd. There’s going to be a lot of people talking to you. It’s part of the game. Part of the job.”

READ: NBA Finals: Mavericks crush Celtics to avoid sweep

When the Mavericks added another pick-and-roller and rim protector before the trade deadline in Daniel Gafford, it figured to be for depth behind Lively.

But Lively was in and out of the lineup because of injuries in the second half of the season, and the Mavs went 18-2 in a 20-game stretch with Gafford as the starter.

Gafford has started every playoff game, but the pendulum has swung back to Lively as the primary contributor at center. His earliest entry into a game in the finals, with 9:30 left in the first quarter in Game 4, came not long before the corner 3 that sent the crowd into a frenzy.

Had the score been closer, Lively probably would have had a second consecutive 30-minute game. At one point in the second half, he already had all 12 of his rebounds while Boston’s entire team had 16.

“A lot of this playoff season, playoff series, has just been finding out who we are, finding how much can we get hit and then throw one back,” Lively said. “It’s definitely been an enjoyable time to just see my teammates and myself just grow and adapt with one another with what’s going on on the floor.”

Fans might have been asking what was going on when Doncic passed to Lively behind the 3-point line in the corner — and Lively shot it. The scene unfolded seven months to the day since Lively’s most recent shot from behind the arc, one of just two in the regular season.

His fellow Mavs shrugged it off after the game.

“He can shoot,” coach Jason Kidd. “But as a 20-year-old, he’s grown up in the AAU circuit where in high school, he could shoot, he could handle. He’d tell you he played point guard.”

Irving probably wouldn’t dispute it.

“I mean, if you’re familiar with D-Live’s game, you know in high school he was shooting those 3s,” Irving said. “It’s crazy. I was watching highlights not too long ago.”

The first priority for Lively in the offseason might be free throws. Oklahoma City fouled him on purpose a few times in the second-round series. He shot 50.6% from the line in the regular season but has improved to 59% (36 of 61) in the playoffs.

As for those 3s, Lively was seen shooting them during portions of practice open to reporters during the playoffs, and Kidd has called them the next step in his development.

Such talk bodes well for Lively’s development in the areas where the Mavs will depend on him the most — around the basket.

“I wouldn’t have expected myself to be in this spot whenever I looked at the draft a year ago,” said Lively, who was taken 12th overall. “The draft is a week away. Last year, a week away from the draft, my heart was pumping because I didn’t know what was going to happen. And now I’m playing in the NBA Finals.”



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And leaving an impression — again.

Chris Newsome repays Meralco ‘faith’ with title-clinching shot

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Meralco Bolts’ Chris Newsome celebrates after leading his team to the PBA Philippine Cup championship.-MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines—Meralco couldn’t have hoped for any other player than Chris Newsome to hold the ball in the endgame of Game 6 of the PBA Philippine Cup Finals.

Newsome showed why after he nailed the game-clinching shot to deliver the Bolts’ first-ever PBA title on Sunday night.

“New has been in that situation a lot of times,” said Meralco coach Luigi Trillo, who won his second title as a PBA coach after claiming his first with Alaska in 2013, after the Bolts’ 80-78 escape in Game 6.

READ: Finals MVP Chris Newsome leads Meralco breakthrough PBA title win

“We have faith in him, he’s a special player in taking that fadeaway.”

Newsome’s clutch corner jumper came after June Mar Fajardo’s rare triple knotted the count at 78 with 3.3 seconds remaining.

Fajardo, who posted 21 points and 12 rebounds, tried to answer back but misfired on his 3-point try as time expired.

Newsome, who was hailed Finals MVP, finished with 15 points, five rebounds and four assists.

“You have to give it to San Miguel. We were up with some seconds left and they had no quit. I’m just very proud of New because he’s done that a lot of times.”



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Andy Murray named for fifth Olympics

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Britain’s Andy Murray gestures to the public after playing against Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka during their men’s singles match on day one of The French Open tennis tournament on Court Philippe-Chatrier at The Roland Garros Complex in Paris on May 26, 2024. (Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP)

Andy Murray was on Sunday named as one of the four British singles players for the Paris Olympics, which will be his fifth Summer Games.

Murray, who has said he intends to retire later this year, was granted an ITF place to compete at the French Open at Roland Garros despite his lowly singles ranking of 97 due to being a former Grand Slam winner and Olympic gold medalist.

Team GB was also notified on Thursday that 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu would be in the mix for an ITF place, but she turned down the chance due to the multiple changes in surface over the coming weeks and after only recently returning from a lengthy injury lay-off.

READ: ‘Proud’ Andy Murray’s French Open career ended in first round

Murray, who won Olympic gold at London 2012 and Rio in 2016, is one of four male singles players selected alongside Jack Draper, Cameron Norrie and Dan Evans, with Katie Boulter the sole female participant for Britain.

Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski will represent Team GB in the men’s doubles and the pairing of Murray and Evans have been nominated for an additional space in that competition, which will be determined by the ITF – the governing body of world tennis who run the tournament – on June 25.



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