Good Morning, Stumpers!

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, what a day to have a day. We’re juggling a few things for you today. The Pacers are now one win away from the NBA Finals behind a historic triple-double from Tyrese Haliburton. The Oilers also find themselves one win away from the Finals and what seems to be a rematch with a familiar foe! Today we look ahead to a Game 5 showdown between the Thunder and the Timberwolves! Big day!

Today’s Rundown

What’s in today’s edition?

• 🟡 Pacers One Win Away From NBA Finals

• 🏒 Oilers Stay Hot in Game 4

• 🏀 Condon set to stay with Defending Champs Florida!

• 🏀 Paige Goes Off in Return to CT! ROY Incoming???

On This Day

On This Day…

💪 Bonds Passes the Babe

Whether you support Barry Bonds and his career or not, the guy hit bombs. In fact, he hit 762 of them.

On this day in 2006, MLB all-time home run leader Barry Bonds hit his 716th home run, passing the mark that Babe Ruth hit in his career. The only man standing between him and the top of the list? Hank Aaron.

Today’s Trivia

🧠 Test your sports knowledge…

Yesterday’s Trivia Answer: C. Vanderbilt University! The Commodores have made it to 19-straight NCAA Baseball Tournaments and took the overall number one seed in this years edition.

Before We Dive In…

👀 Yesterday’s Must See’s

• ⚾️ WALK OFF GRAND SLAM! Christian Yelich!

• 🎾 A good a point as you’ll ever see! WOW!

• 🏀 Unreal stat line form this guy!

🔍️ Stump Spotlight

Just one day later…

🟡 Pacers One Win Away From NBA Finals

It’s far from over, each team still needs to win one more game to get there, but before the season if you said it would be a Thunder-Pacers NBA Finals, I would said, “ok bud”. AGAIN…lot of ball left, but the Pacers are now up 3-1.

This series has just been churning out great games, and yesterday we got another one. The script stayed the same for the most part. Close(ish) in the first, Indiana pulls ahead mid second but then the Knicks bring it back by halftime, and then in the second half the team with less turnovers pulled ahead, and last night that was the Pacers.

The head of the snake is Tyrese Haliburton, and yesterday he had an absurd stat line. He ended with 32 points, 15 assists, 12 rebounds, 4 steals, and 0 turnovers. The points, rebounds, and assists are great. But what’ll be the talk of the town today is that last part, the 0 turnovers. Haliburton is ball dominant on this team, and he is one throwing passes ahead of the pack all game long, the fact that didn’t have a single turnover is absurd.

Looking at this box score again, the Knicks side doesn’t look bad at all. Brunson had 31, KAT had 24, OG had 22, and Mikal had 17. That may be what the box score says but for some reason the game looked nothing like that. It seemed like every possession for New York was pulling teeth, and then the defensive side of the ball was an abomination. The fouls were out of control, which put the Pacers on the free throw line with 7 minutes left in the fourth! Something that isn’t a recipe for success in the playoffs.

Outside of Hali, Siakam had 30, Benedict Mathurin finally showed up with 20 points in 12 minutes off the bench, and Nesmith had 16 as well. That’s the thing about this team, anybody can come in and do damage. They had 10 different guys each come in and play at least 10 minutes, they all got a bucket as well.

This postseason that has been what works, teams that can go 10 deep and can attack you from different angles. That’s what the Thunder do and that’s what the Pacers do as well!

If they each can do that for 48 more minutes, they will have a date with destiny in a few days time. Hard to imagine Ant Man and Brunson go down easy.

Pacers def. Knicks, 130-121 (IND leads series 3-1)

The Hot Stove

🏒 Oilers Within 1 Game of Stanley Cup Final Return

After the Game 1 collapse, the Oilers have been on a rampage in this series! They got another win over the Dallas Stars last night and bring the series to a 3-1 lead

We’ve gone over it already, but the odd Game 1 collapse may have been the best thing that could’ve happened to Edmonton. Since the conclusion of that game, the Oilers have outscored Dallas 13-2. For those of you who may not watch a lot of hockey, that’s a lot of goals to a little…

Both sides of the bracket now sit at 3-1. We are just a few games away from possibly a REMATCH of last year’s 7 game slugfest, which started with Florida going up 3-0 and then the Oilers coming back and forcing a Game 7! Could be fireworks!

🏀 Condon Returning to UF

I’m getting deja vu talking about how Florida men’s basketball is reloading with another player.

This time it’s with the return of their star center Alex Condon, who was going through the draft process but decided that his best fit would be back with the Gators. The junior 7-footer from Australia was a key piece to their championship run last year, but was only listed as the 38th prospect in the draft by ESPN. Condon averaged 10.6 points, 7.5 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.3 blocks in just under 25 minutes. The big man did not start playing basketball until he was 16-years old and was a late bloomer in the 2024 recruiting class for Florida. The deadline for players to withdraw from the NBA draft and maintain college eligibility is tonight at 11:59 PM ET, we’ll see if anyone else drops back to the college ranks.

⬇️ Quick Links

• 🏈 Terry Bradshaw not sold on the Rodgers to PIT rumors

• 🏀 PAIGE BUECKERS! Shows out back in CT!

• 🏀 More on Haliburton’s historic triple-double

What To Watch

🏀 NBA Playoffs

• Western Conference Finals: Timberwolves @ Thunder (8:30 PM on ESPN)

⚾️ Major League Baseball

• What to Watch: Red Sox @ Brewers (1:10 PM), Dodgers @ Guardians (1:10 PM). Giants @ Tigers (1:10 PM), Twins @ Rays (1:10 PM), Braves @ Phillies (6:45 PM), Yankees @ Angels (9:38 PM), full schedule

🏒 NHL Playoffs

• East Final: Panthers @ Hurricanes (8:00 PM on TNT)

🏀 WNBA

• Fever @ Mystics (7:30 PM on NBATV)

⚽️ Soccer

• MLS: Columbus vs Nashville (8:00 PM on FS1), Vancouver @ Colorado (10:30 PM on FS1)

• UEFA Conference League: Real Bettis @ Chelsea (3:00 PM)

The Moment You’ve Been Waiting For

Thanks for sticking to the end! Share The Daily Stump using this link, it would go a long way. Appreciate the hell out of you all. Trees may get chopped. Stumps hold strong 🌴