Welcome back to “I’m Curious!”

There’s plenty to get to this week, including some on-the-ground reporting from what may be the greatest game I have ever attended, in any sport.

But before that, there’s one of the worst sporting events I have ever seen.

The Most Curious Thing This Week

It’s the boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul. 

20 minutes of my life that I will never get back.

As Netflix dips into the live event and live sports world, it started off on Friday with a weird and horrific spectacle.

For eight rounds, 58-year-old boxing legend Mike Tyson and 27-year-old YouTuber Jake Paul wandered around a boxing ring. Over 70,000 spectators watched an aging Tyson throw a few punches before quickly becoming winded. Paul beefed up for the fight and has proven he’s a competent boxer before this, but struggled to do much against Tyson either.

@netflix

#PaulTyson is LIVE on Netflix

In the end, we got a thought experiment in real life. A more-or-less average, albeit fairly athletic guy, had years to train up as a pro boxer. Paul could win in a decision by judges but couldn’t knock out a legendary boxer well into his AARP years. 

Adding an extra layer of weirdness was how pretty much everyone, including fans in the stadium and people watching online, sided with Tyson. Somehow Paul’s lowbrow persona of “online prankster meets celebrity boxing bro” was so odious to the public that they sided with convicted rapist Mike Tyson, who also has multiple allegations of sexual harassment, domestic abuse and DUIs on his record in addition to having appeared in just about every lowbrow form of entertainment you can think of.

Including an Adult Swim cartoon where he solved mysteries.

That thing ran for four seasons! The Newsroom felt like it ran forever and it only got three. Heck, before the Netflix revival, Arrested Development only had three, too!

But for so many, Tyson’s legacy as a boxer and cultural figure loomed larger. For so long, Tyson was universally regarded as “the baddest man on the planet.” Everyone from sports fans to people seeking second chances to middle-aged people hoping to cling to their youth saw Tyson as an avatar of their fragile lives.

In the other corner was the future, with all of its annoying behaviors, pointless tattoos and dumb slang.

And with Paul winning, he proved the adage made famous by Dewey on “Malcolm in the Middle”: “The future is now, old man.”

It wasn’t even just two men from the fringes of pop culture doing some stupid gimmick boxing match. It was a battle of the generations, between where America used to be and where it is heading.

Of course, this battle occurred on a constantly buffering Netflix stream with a former pro wrestling commentator sharing the broadcast booth with Rosie Perez for some reason. Jake Paul rolling in to “In the Air Tonight” driving in the backseat of a low rider. Mike Tyson slowly walking out as pyrotechnics blasted but while having the saddest look on his face, not unlike a little kid who has just been told they have to eat their veggies instead of ice cream.

As these two pariahs delivered a cheap facsimile of fighting under the same roof as the Dallas Cowboys, with all the pointless bells and whistles, I thought to myself: this is truly the most American thing I have ever seen.

My Reporting

NWSL Playoffs

The NWSL Playoffs have not been short of drama or heroics this season. Take the goal scored by Brazilian legend Marta to lift the Orlando Pride into the NWSL Championship game. She juked them in stereo!

@nwslsoccer

Watching Marta’s semifinal goal on repeat 🔁 #NWSL

Orlando will be playing in Kansas City this Saturday against the Washington Spirit, the team I have become most familiar with this season.

And that’s down to one of the best games in the history of DC sports or the NWSL—Saturday’s dramatic semifinal matchup between the Spirit and NJ / NY Gotham FC. 

This game had everything: stars, physicality, drama, and heroics, all in front of a sellout crowd. Add in an outcome that stayed in doubt until the final whistle and one of the greatest individual clutch performances you will ever see, and this had all the makings of an instant classic.

Let’s go point by point on this one.

Stars: Both of these teams have more national team players than they know what to do with. Even with injuries, the Spirit sent out four Olympians in their starting lineup (Trinity Rodman, Hal Hershfelt, and Casey Krueger for the U.S., and Leicy Santos for Colombia) and had one more they brought in off the bench (Gabby Carle for Canada.)

Gotham sent four Olympians of their own to start (Rose Lavelle, Tierna Davidson and Emily Sonnett for the U.S., and Ann-Katrin Berger for Germany) while bringing two more in off the bench (Jenna Nighswonger and Lynn Williams for the U.S.)

Physicality: This was a rock fight of a game. Gotham racked up six yellow cards, plus an additional red card given to defender Bruninha in extra time. The Spirit earned two more of their own, including a yellow card to forward Trinity Rodman after she and Bruninha faced off after the foul that led to Gotham’s defender being sent off.

In frustration, Rodman stared Bruninha down and gave her a mock yellow card, silently spinning away as coach Jonatán Giraldez broke it up before it could escalate further.

@attackingthird

THINGS GOT SPICY 🗣️🌶️ #soccer #soccertiktok #nwsl #playoffs #eugh #glorilla

I asked her about it postgame.

“It just don’t feel good,” Rodman said informally. “I think when you go through a whole season getting tackled like that, it builds up and you get frustrated. So honestly, that was just pure frustration with the pain that it causes when I hit the ground like that.”

Spirit forward Ashley Hatch said that a lot of it is down to the stakes.

“We’ll probably be pretty sore. But that’s just how—we’re in the semis. Everyone is gonna fight ‘til the end and so that’s what we expected and I think we came ready,” Hatch told me.

Drama and Heroics: In addition to the many scraps, both teams had their share of good chances in the scoreless first half. Gotham pressed aggressively in the first ten minutes, trying to disrupt every goal kick and closely guarding Spirit defenders even as they tried to start possessions near their own goal. 

Despite a momentum shift toward the Spirit, they could not capitalize on a few corner kicks near Gotham’s goal either.

The closest either team got to scoring came in the 35^th minute, when Gotham midfielder Rose Lavelle dished the ball to her left to forward Esther. The Spanish striker had a brief breakaway but had her effort broken up as Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury dived low to disrupt Esther’s effort to finish.

In the second half, however, Esther found the net, notching a goal for Gotham in the 56^th minute.

Fast forward to stoppage time and Gotham had been succeeding at keeping the Spirit shut out. A late free kick for the Spirit coming from outside and to the right of the 18-yard box was one of the last chances they had to avoid losing. 

Forward Makenna Morris lined up, lofted the ball into the box. It sailed over Gotham’s Emily Sonnett. Still too high for Gotham’s McCall Zerboni.

But as all the players converged to line up with the ball, it floated forward and dipped ever so slightly to meet the head of the Spirit’s Hal Hershfelt, who jumped up and pressed the ball rightward, into a corner of the net Gotham keeper Ann-Katrin Berger could not reach.

The goal knotted the game at 1-1 in its dying moments.

Before the whistle ending the 90 minutes, the Spirit were able to push forward and force one more opportunity. This time off a corner kick, Morris was at the helm again. She lofted yet another ball. And yet again, almost in a mirror image to the goal moments before, the ball lined up square with the head of Hal Hershfelt.

The rookie came within inches of a last-second goal in the previous game vs Bay FC and was just a few minutes removed from a clutch goal.

Would she repeat her earlier goal, or last week’s near-miss?

She missed. Again. By a few inches. Again.

After a 30-minute extra time where nobody could break the tie, the Spirit and Gotham headed to a penalty kick shootout. Each team alternates shooting on the same goal. One shooter vs. one goalkeeper, one shot allowed. Best of five rounds, after which it goes to “sudden death.” If one side makes it and the other misses, that’s game.

Before we meet the player who became the defining heroine of the game, let’s do some math, with the help of the wonderful data collectors at fbref and Sports Reference.

Penalty kicks are tough to save. In the NWSL this season, goalkeepers saved just eight out of the 46 attempted penalty kicks on target. That’s a 17.4% rate.

They’re fairly easy to score. In total, teams attempted 48 penalty kicks this season (2 missed the target, thus the difference.) Players scored 38 of them. That’s a 79% rate.

All three Washington Spirit players converted their penalty kicks. Based on the 79% success rate, there’s a 49% chance a team makes three penalty kicks in a row. Not a guarantee but eminently possible in a given penalty shootout.

Gotham scored on none of their penalty kicks. None missed the target. All three were saved. 

Based on a 17.4% save rate, the odds of a keeper saving three penalty kicks in a row is 0.53%. 1 in every 190 or so sequences of three PKs in a row.

The “one” in this case is Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury.

Through goalkeeper skill, psychology, weak or telegraphed shots by Gotham players, or whatever else you want to credit it to, she saved all three penalty kicks.

Soccer is known for its “dark arts,” the rule-bending mind games players and teams can use to either move the game in their favor or rattle opponents.

Kingsbury had to be in her “dark arts” bag for this one, right? 

“I wouldn’t say I do too much of the dark arts like, you know, Emi Martinez,” she said, referring to the men’s goalkeeper for Aston Villa and the Argentinian national team known for tactics like dancing after saving penalty kicks or holding the ball afterward to waste time.

“For me, I just try to move around a little bit… I was really getting the crowd involved because I think the crowd was doing more of the dark arts than I was, just with how loud they were and having to shoot in front of our supporters’ section.”

Defender Esme Morgan was sitting alongside Kingsbury and joked that “she just uses her aura. She just stands there and it’s just like ‘oooh,’” adding a bit of a scary face for extra effect.

All in all, it took a classic of a game for two very evenly matched teams to figure out who could earn the right to head to the NWSL Championship.

The Spirit won this generational tilt, and will head on to Kansas City to play the Orlando Pride in the championship game on Saturday.

NBA

It’s not technically reporting but there’s no other place for it. I took up an offer from a visiting friend in town to go see some bad basketball.

We got a pair of tickets for Sunday’s matchup between the Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards in DC.

The struggling Wizards faded in the second-half against a Pistons team flirting with .500 as they try to drag themselves out of a years-long hole.

I doubt most of the players on either roster will even sniff an All-Star team before it’s all said and done but the teams were loaded with inefficient volume scorers. All of them turned out on Sunday as the Pistons ended up cruising to a 124-104 win on the road. 

Five players topped 20 points: Kyle Kuzma and Jordan Poole for Washington, and Cade Cunningham, Malik Beasley and Jaden Ivey for Detroit. Four of the five did it on 50% shooting or better.

The lone exception was Cade Cunningham, who fell just short on 7-15 shooting but also racked up his sixth career triple-double with 21 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists. He also added five steals for good measure.

Selfishly, I was happy because I don’t believe I have ever seen a triple-double in person.

The game was an embodiment of bad hoops: in addition to guys racking up empty points, players would follow amazing plays with boneheaded moments. Big buckets would be followed by missed plays on defense. Dazzling passes would get dropped by stone-handed teammates. Beautiful drives would be followed by bricked layups. 

And it was far more fun than any carefully-planned defensive struggle. Cheers to bad basketball, wherever you may find it.

Other Sports Takes and Things of Note

Are the Jets for real?: The Winnipeg Jets have started this NHL seasons with one of the greatest early-season runs in history. The Jets have put the “Win” in “Winnipeg,” winning 15 of their first 16 games. No other team in the NHL’s 100-plus-year history has done that.

The Jets have been building a contender, as they finished fourth in the NHL last season. They were bounced from the playoffs early, however, as the Colorado Avalanche beat them in the first round in five games.

This year, the Jets are one of just three teams to have three players with 20 points entering Monday’s slate of games (the Avalanche and New Jersey Devils are the other two.) Winger Kyle Connor, center Mark Schiefele, and winger Nikolaj Ehlers have each reached or topped the 20-point mark. All of them have done so with 9 or more goals, fueling a potent offense that is second in goals per game entering Monday.

@nhljets

Leaping through the SKYYYYY 🙌 #nhl #winnipegjets #hockey

But that momentum got stalled in recent days as the Jets flew south to Florida. The Lightning handed the Jets a 4-1 defeat in Tampa on Thursday and the Panthers followed that by blanking the Jets 5-0 down in South Florida.

Reigning Vezina Trophy winner Connor Hellebuyck had the night off on Thursday but allowed all five goals that the Panthers scored Saturday after allowing just 25 goals total in 13 previous games. 

While Hellebuyck may regain his elite form soon, the Jets may need to regroup defensively to make sure their historically hot start doesn’t fizzle out. 

Dallas wins the Paige Bueckers sweepstakes: “Thank you Lord!”

Dallas Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale summed up the team’s feeling after learning the Wings secured the first overall pick in next year’s WNBA Draft.

Barring any major changes, that means Ogunbowale will be sharing the backcourt with University of Connecticut standout Paige Bueckers.

The UConn star has dazzled on the court as far back as high school and was mentioned in the same breath as Iowa star Caitlin Clark in their first two years in college. Bueckers was in the same high school class as Clark, but has stayed behind an extra year after missing half of the 2021-22 season with multiple knee injuries, then tearing her ACL in the same knee and missing the 2022-23 season. 

While that injury quieted some of the buzz around her and Clark took the spotlight, Bueckers has both the stats and skillset to prove she’s still also a generational talent.

In her two full seasons, she’s scored at least 20 points per game and has exceptional passing skills as a point guard. While she has less of a reputation as a sharpshooter than Clark has, she shot at least 41% from 3-point range in both of her full seasons. And considering she also averaged at least 2.2 steals per game in those years too, it’s fair to say she may be a stronger defender than last year’s first overall pick.

@womenhooping1

Paige Bueckers 29pts highlights | #2 UConn Huskies vs #14 North Carolina, Women's College Basketball | Support me through Patreon to kee... See more

In theory, Bueckers could use another year if she decides she doesn’t want to play in Dallas or really wants to stay at UConn. But considering Ogunbowale averaged more than 22 points per game last season, Dallas may have one of the best backcourts in the WNBA if Bueckers enters the draft after this college basketball season. 

Live by the QB, Die by the QB: This week more than any time this season proved NFL teams live and die by quarterback play. The Chiefs entered Sunday 9-0 despite the struggles of star QB Patrick Mahomes. But the NFL’s last undefeated team fell Sunday to the Bills, as Buffalo’s star QB Josh Allen outdueled Mahomes, completing 27 of 40 pass attempts with 262 passing yards and two total touchdowns.

Mahomes is barely on pace for 4,000 yards this season, a mark he has eclipsed in every one of the six full seasons he has played so far in his career. He has thrown for 15 touchdowns but leads the league with 11 interceptions, already just three picks shy of tying his career high.

Meanwhile, further down in the AFC playoff hunt, another team is seeing their luck pick up thanks to some recent QB improvement.

In Denver, the Broncos are riding high into week 12, holding the 7^th and final seed in the AFC on the back of improved play from rookie quarterback Bo Nix.

Nix threw for just one touchdown in his first four career games and completed just over 60% of his passes while throwing four interceptions.

Since then, he’s thrown for 13 touchdowns and completed just under 69% of his passes in the last seven games, with just two interceptions.

Nix put up his best stat line yet in Sunday’s 38-6 blowout of the Falcons, completing 28 of 33 passes with 307 yards and four passing touchdowns.

@perkyrodgers

What Bo Nix And The Broncos Just Did To The Falcons Should Be Considered A *CRIME* ‼️ #bonix #broncos #falcons #nflfootball #nflplayoffs #... See more

So many NFL teams will go as far as their quarterbacks can take them. The Broncos are certainly hoping they can ride Bo Nix to the playoffs. And the Chiefs are left to hope that Patrick Mahomes can regain the form that helped him lead the team to three Super Bowls and six straight AFC Championship games.

Something Good I Ate

There was so much this week, so just a little fun one. In the press box at Saturday’s game, they served cookies with the logos of the two teams printed on them.

I ate them both, but not before snapping a picture with one of each. I ended up using it as a scoreboard to represent the 1-1 tie that represented the final score. Thanks to the magic of iPhone editing, I also added checks and x’s reflecting each team’s performance in the penalty shootout.

The cookies themselves were quite good, a bit crunchy at first, then chewy as you worked through them. Pretty sweet, but not overwhelmingly so. They did their job, both as cookies and as representatives of the game score.