NFL releases 2024 schedule; Celtics advance again; college football top 25 coach rankings

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THE BOSTON CELTICS AND DALLAS MAVERICKS

When the alarms went off this morning, the Celts It is Independents had a little more pep in their step. That’s because they both scored big wins in the NBA playoffs on Wednesday night, and Boston advanced to its third consecutive Eastern Conference Finals.

Jayson Tatum was fantastic in the Celtics’ 113-98 victory over the Knights in Game 5, but it was the ageless veteran who really gave Boston its shine. About two weeks before his 38th birthday, Al Horford He did a little bit of everything to perform a historic performance.

• Horford is now the oldest player in NBA history to score at least 20 points, 10 rebounds, at least five 3-pointers and at least five assists in a playoff game.
• Horford paced the Celtics from beyond the arc, knocking down six of his 13 3-point attempts.
• On the defensive end, Horford was a big reason Dario Garland was 4 of 17 from the field.

After punching their ticket to the conference finals, the Celtics had to put their feet up and watch the Independents get in on Thunder gym and return home with a 104-92 victory in a crucial Game 5. The Mavs now lead the series 3-2 and can eliminate OKC in Dallas in Game 6.

It should be no surprise that Luka Doncic was the driving force behind the Mavericks’ success. Doncic recorded his second consecutive triple-double with 31 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds. He also reduced his turnovers from seven in Game 4 to just three on Wednesday night.

It wasn’t always the Mavericks’ prettiest game, but their defense completely stifled the Thunder. Dallas put together a suffocating effort for the win.

• Outside of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (30 points), no other Thunder player scored more than 13 points.
• OKC shot 25.0% from three-point range and Chet Holmgren it was just 1 of 5 from deep.
• The Mavericks grabbed 37 defensive rebounds compared to the Thunder’s 25.

On Saturday night, Dallas will try to advance to its second conference finals appearance in the last three seasons.

Honorable mentions

Not-so-honorable mentions

NFL releases its full schedule for 2024

The NFL knows how to dominate the sports calendar, and schedule release day is a prime example. For most other leagues, releasing the schedule for a season that is months away consists of a press release and a few social media posts, but it has reached the status of a full-fledged holiday in the NFL.

All 32 teams released their full 2024 schedules on Wednesday night, and you can check out all the matchups here. It’s always interesting to see which teams are featured more in prime time than others, and which Texans will feature prominently this season after getting exactly zero primetime games last year.

NFL Vice President of Broadcast Planning Mike North sat down with our own Jonathan Jones and said the league won’t hide CJ Stroud and Texans under a bushel this fall.

• North: “So six nationally televised team games last year, as you mentioned, were scored to zero… It’s a shame that this was the first time a lot of people saw C.J. Stroud play quarterback, so I hope that No. I have the same problem this year.”

As soon as the schedules were released, fans started running through their calendars to circle the dates of the biggest clashes, but they are not the only ones. Some players were doing the same thing, and Will Brinson of CBS Sports Russell Wilson trip to Denver among your greatest revenge games.

• Brinson: “Russ was cut by the Broncos this offseason and eventually signed with the thieves on a very cheap one year contract. He has all the bad blood in the world for being publicly embarrassed, even though the Broncos still pay him about $85 million not to play for their team.”

Of course, teams can’t just release a schedule chart and go about their day. NFL social media teams work diligently to release the most creative schedule release videos possible, and you can see all 32 videos from this year here.

Here’s more on the 2024 NFL schedule release.

CFB Coach Rankings: Riley Retains Top 10

Talk season has officially begun in college football, and CBS Sports joined the chat with our annual Power Four (formerly Power Five) coaching rankings. The top 25 were released yesterday and not everyone agreed with the final product.

There wasn’t much drama at the top. Smart Kirby fell into first place after the retirement of Nick Sabanand he could have ended up there even if Saban was still in Alabama. That’s what two national titles and a 42-2 record over the last three seasons will do for you.

In addition to Smart, there were some tough decisions for our panel of college football experts. Perhaps no coach was more difficult to place than Lincoln Rileywho compiled a strong resume but went 8-5 with Caleb Williams as quarterback last season.

Tom Fornelli understands why Riley fell in the rankings, but there aren’t many coaches with four conference titles and three playoff appearances in college football.

• Fornelli: “This is one of the biggest surprises to me. I understand why Riley fell after USC went 8-5 last season and failed to build a strong enough team around Caleb Williams, but this is still the same Riley that won four conference titles and made the playoffs four times.”

Here are some of the most fascinating ascenders and descenders in this year’s top 25:

• Ryan Day at Ohio State lost to Michigan for the third consecutive season in 2023 and moved up six positions.
• Steve Sarkisian shot nearly three dozen points after taking Texas for the College Football Playoff.
• Josh Heupel almost dropped out of the top 25 after a nine-win season in Tennessee.

Cale Makar keeps Avs alive with two goals in Game 5

Trailing 3-1 in the series, the AvalancheThe season was on life support heading into Game 5 against the StarsIt is Cale Makar used CPR to keep his team alive. Makar scored two goals in the 5-3 away win to take the series back to Colorado.

The most impressive part of this Avs victory is that they had to come from behind twice in front of a hostile crowd. Just over half of the second period, Miro Heiskanen gave the Stars a 2-1 lead, but Colorado didn’t blink.

Makar scored two goals in the final 23 minutes of the game, including what proved to be the game winner just 4:28 into the third period. Through five seasons, Makar has already established himself as an elite playoff player.

• Makar now has 79 playoff points, ranking 26th all-time among defensemen.
• This puts Makar above Alex Pietrangelo, John Carlson It is Brent Burns.
• His 21 postseason goals are tied for 21st among defensemen and place Makar above the Hall of Fame Serge Savard.

That’s not too bad for a 25 year old, considering I was still living in my parents’ attic at that age.

The Avalanche are now 6-0 in Game 5 after falling behind 3-1 in a series, which is good. The bad news for Colorado is that the team has never won a series from that deficit.

What will we watch on Thursday

PGA Championship12pm on ESPN
Game 6: Rangers at Hurricanes7pm on TNT
Freedom in fever7pm on Prime Video
Game 6: Nuggets at Timberwolves8:30pm on ESPN
Game 5: Oilers on Canucks10pm on TNT