We won't dwell on the obvious. If you care about basketball at all, you know by now that Game 1 of the NBA finals is set for Thursday night in Miami, where the hometown Heat will play the San Antonio Spurs.
Time: 9 p.m. ET.
Broadcaster: ABC-TV.
Led by LeBron James, Miami is defending its 2012 championship. Led by Tim Duncan, San Antonio is looking to win its fifth title.
The NBA Finals begin Thursday night in Miami. Though they haven't won a championship since 2007, the San Antonio Spurs have remained in the hunt because of their style of team play. The Spurs will face the Miami Heat.
Major League Baseball is investigating as many as 20 players, including some of the league's biggest stars. MLB wants to know if they used banned drugs from an anti-aging clinic in Florida. That clinic is now closed and the owner is now cooperating with MLB investigators. Two former MVPs, Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun, are reportedly on the list of players who are being interviewed. ESPN's "Outside the Lines" broke the story last night.
NPR's Tom Goldman joins us now. Tom, what can you tell us?
ESPN's big scoop of the day — that Major League Baseball "will seek to suspend about 20 players connected to the Miami-area clinic at the heart of an ongoing performance-enhancing drug scandal" — raises a logical question:
Dark clouds hang over Major League Baseball. There are reports that about 20 players may be suspended because of their connections to a Miami clinic that dispensed performance-enhancing drugs. (Photo taken Sunday at Yankee Stadium.)
"Major League Baseball will seek to suspend about 20 players connected to the Miami-area clinic at the heart of an ongoing performance-enhancing drug scandal, including Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun, possibly within the next few weeks," ESPN's Outside the Lines reports.
Renee Montagne talks to Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated about the second week of the French Open tennis tournament. In quarterfinal action Tuesday, Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga defeated veteran champ Roger Federer in straight sets.
When my old pal the Sports Curmudgeon had some mildly churlish things to say about golf a few weeks ago, both he and I were upbraided by loyal linksters. As one snapped at me, "You don't know anything about golf."
U.S. speedskater Simon Cho, seen here in 2012, will boycott a hearing in Germany over an incident in which he tampered with a Canadian athlete's skate. Cho says his coach ordered him to tamper with the equipment.
U.S. Olympic speedskater Simon Cho will boycott a hearing next week that could result in his receiving a lifetime ban from the sport, NPR has learned.
Cho is the short-track bronze medalist (Vancouver, 2010) who in October confessed to sabotaging the skate of a Canadian athlete during an international meet in Poland in 2011.
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel. The NBA Finals are set. For a third straight year, the Miami Heat will be playing for the championship. The Heat won last year and they'll defend their title against the San Antonio Spurs. Tip-off for the championship series is Thursday, and now here to talk about the Heat, Spurs and about grace under pressure is NPR's Mike Pesca. Hi, Mike.
