Mubeen Blogs

The Wolves probably won’t win a title without big roster changes, but their postseason run made their case as one of the league’s most entertaining teams The Minnesota Timberwolves are out of the NBA playoffs . It’s a miracle it took this long. In their first-round series against the Denver Nuggets, they saw two starters and another key reserve suffer significant injuries . The Nuggets entered the series on a 12-game winning streak and were favored from the jump. After somehow winning that series in six games, finding Denver’s weak points and pummeling them until they broke, the Wolves met an even more daunting opponent in the San Antonio Spurs. Though they’d have been forgiven for tiredly accepting a sweep, the Wolves swiped Game 1 on the Spurs’ home floor, then a close Game 4 at home. After that, the tank finally ran empty. But even in the losses – including Friday night’s in Game 6 – the Wolves found ways to frighten. They’d go down 18-3 and then tie the game by the end of the fir...

There needs to be a zero-tolerance approach to stealing other clubs’ secrets – Kim Hellberg’s emotional response shows just how deep this goes Kim Hellberg was clearly upset and his press conference after Middlesbrough’s defeat at Southampton in the Championship semi‑final playoff second leg became unexpectedly moving as a result. In football, the Boro manager said, you accept that some teams have greater resources than others but where the coach of the less well-off team can gain an advantage is in the “tactical element”; it is in effect the only weapon he has. And if that weapon is made less effective by an opponent cheating, it is understandable that Hellberg should feel that his profession, the skillset he has developed to test himself against his peers, has been betrayed. That disgust is, no doubt, genuine enough, and it is perhaps difficult for those of us who do not work in that world fully to grasp how frustrating it must be if strategies and ploys carefully conceived and pra...

The idea that one day Mourinho might return to the Bernabéu had hung in the air, if not really as a serious possibility. Now the impossible is probable The last time José Mourinho was at the Santiago Bernabéu, he parked up in the bus. That night in late February the Benfica manager was suspended, a red card from the first leg of the Champions League playoff meaning he wasn’t allowed on the touchline he had prowled 13 years and a lifetime ago, so Real Madrid prepared a media booth for him to watch from. Situated on the eighth floor, Spanish radio to the left of him, Portuguese to the right, Cabin No 6 had been supplied with nuts, fruit, salad and jamón sandwiches. As kick-off approached, a crowd gathered by the door. But if the camera phones were out, he wasn’t. Mourinho never showed. Instead, he stayed in the basement 10 floors below, watching from an iPad on board the bus and leaving the post-match press conference to his assistant, João Tralhão. The next time he comes, which could b...

In this exclusive book extract, Rob Draper and Jonathan Northcroft reveal the remarkable process which led to Thomas Tuchel’s appointment as England manager In 2024, when the Football Association was tasked with finding Gareth Southgate’s successor, Mark Bullingham hired two external data companies who built a profile of what successful international managers looked like then tailored it to mesh with England’s player base. The top 50 coaches in the world were matched against the criteria and a shortlist emerged. “I joked with the team afterwards, because it came up with a list you and I could have come up with in the pub in 10 minutes,” Bullingham, the FA’s chief executive, says. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/lpwOkbY

Sherman theatre, Cardiff Connor Allen’s autobiographical show is a twister that winds in everything from gothic mystery to therapy sessions in an ambitious, rather incoherent mix Connor Allen’s autobiographical show features plenty of smoke and mirrors, literal and figurative. Smoke swirls from a pit on a darkened stage, jagged mirrors stand like rocks across it. It is an emotionally anguished play featuring a mixed-heritage protagonist (played by Allen) who has been abandoned by his Jamaican father and raised by his Welsh mother. His inability to forgive his father takes him back to Jamaica where he experiences a psychic watershed. This twister of a drama shifts ambitiously in form and tone, sliding between gothic thriller, family psychodrama and standup-style direct address at one point when Allen interacts with the audience with tipples of gin in warmly comic tones. At Sherman theatre, Cardiff , until 23 May Continue reading... from The Guardian htt...

The OpenAI chief rejects claims he deceived Elon Musk as high-stakes AI trial nears its end Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email The OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman , took the stand on Tuesday to defend himself and his company against a lawsuit by Elon Musk . Altman is set to be one of the final witnesses in the trial, which has pitted two of the tech industry’s most powerful men against each other in a dramatic courtroom showdown. Musk has accused Altman and OpenAI of breaking the AI firm’s founding agreement by restructuring it into a for-profit enterprise, alleging that Altman essentially swindled him into co-founding the company and providing tens of millions in financial backing. Musk also claims Altman unjustly enriched himself in the process and is seeking the CEO’s removal from OpenAI, the redistribution of $134bn to the firm’s non-profit and the undoing of its for-profit conversion. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2tuIl1b

BBC to bring back classic gameshow after 24 years away Former world champion to host with Paddy McGuinness The BBC is reracking the balls and chalking the cues again after announcing that the classic TV gameshow Big Break will return after 24 years away. The seven-time snooker world champion Stephen Hendry is to co-host the series alongside the presenter and comic Paddy McGuinness in a reboot of a show that originally ran for 10 series from 1991 to 2002. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/QmvVrZq