This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Here’s Charles Curtis.
You want to know what the theme of the 2023 NBA playoffs is?
Groins.
Specifically, groins getting hit. At times, deliberately smacked. At others, not quite on purpose but it’s led to an ejection.
Joel Embiid? He nailed Nic Claxton with a very deliberate kick to that region and somehow wasn’t ejected. Embiid’s Sixers teammate James Harden? He put a hand out in a seemingly typical play that nailed Royce O’Neale and WAS ejected.
LeBron James — who was the recipient of perhaps the most notorious low blow in playoffs history from Draymond Green — got a groin punch from Dillon Brooks that resulted in an ejection.
This is all in the first round! So, NBA players: Take note. Keep all hands, feet, whatever away from opposing groins. Even if, like Harden, you’re making a move to get some room from a defender … keep it above the belt.
Because NBA officials are watching!
Quick Hits: NFL draft week begins! … Josh Hart sings … Almost goalie fight … and more.
— Happy NFL draft week! Here are six NFL vets with sons in the 2023 draft.
— Enjoy Josh Hart singing Don’t Stop Believin’.
— We were robbed of a goalie fight involving Linus Ullmark and Matthew Tkachuck, who is not a goaltender.
— Congrats to Simone Biles and Jonathan Owens, who got married!