Page 27 - Florida Sentinel 6-24-22

Sports
Ndamukong Suh: 'It
Warriors Celebrate Championship With Rally, Parade In San Francisco
(L) Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry holds his Finals MVP trophy. (R) The Golden State Warriors team pose for photos with the Larry O’Brien Championship trophies during the Championship rally and parade.
Looks Like The Bucs
Are Out Of The Picture'
Ndamukong Suh would like to continue his NFL ca- reer, but it’s not likely to hap- pen with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Appearing on ESPN2’s “NFL Live” on Monday, Suh acknowledged that he ap- pears to be moving on after three seasons in Tampa Bay.
Suh turned 35 in Janu- ary, and the Bucs spent their top pick in the 2022 NFL draft on Houston defensive lineman Logan Hall. In ad- dition, the Bucs just spent a decent chunk of their remain- ing salary cap space on a dif- ferent veteran defensive lineman, Akiem Hicks.
Those moves were the writing on the wall that
NDAMUKONG SUH
Tampa Bay wouldn’t have room for Suh, both finan- cially and on the depth chart.
If this is indeed the end of Suh’s run with the Bucs, he finished with 14.5 sacks, 23 tackles for losses, five fumble recoveries and two touch- downs in 49 games.
From the moment all those months ago that Klay Thompson uttered “cham- pionship or bust” with his team off to an 18-2 start, the Golden State Warriors seemed set to make good on his lofty proclamation.
It took Thompson get- ting healthy at last, then Draymond Green and Stephen Curry overcoming their own injuries down the stretch, and a cast of young- sters shining on the big play- off stage for the Warriors to win again.
Coach Steve Kerr and his champion Warriors cele- brated with a victory parade through San Francisco on Monday as thousands packed the streets on a warm June day and blue and gold confetti fell — with all those new faces taking part this time, too. Players jumped off their respective rides to min- gle with fans, Porter and Thompson dancing and Andrew Wiggins spraying fans with champagne.
Curry sported his three previous championship rings on a necklace.
“I had to bring the jewelry back out. I don’t look at it during the year,” Curry told NBC Sports Bay Area.
Golden State captured the franchise’s fourth champi- onship in eight years by beat- ing the Boston Celtics 103-90 in the clinching Game 6. Af- terward, Finals MVP Curry, Thompson and Green — the three core members part of each title run, sat together in celebration, with Curry cradling the trophy.
And this time, Thomp- son’s “Holy cannoli, this is crazy” reaction resounded everywhere. With the War- riors winning on the road, the home fans got their mo-
ment to cheer the team once more on Monday.
“We know what we’re ca- pable of and we’re playing at the highest level,” third-year guard Jordan Poole said Saturday as players went through exit interviews. “We wouldn’t be here if we had any self doubt. When you put guys together who are able to really lock in and do it to- gether as a team, the power and the feeling is all, it’s in- sane. You can kind of feel that positive vibe and posi- tive energy, and we all have each other’s back.”
Thompson returned in January from more than 2 1/2 years sidelined following surgery for a torn ACL in his left knee then another opera- tion on his torn right Achilles tendon. But Green then
went down followed by Curry late in the regular season.
Fellow veteran Andre Iguodala, the 2015 NBA Fi- nals MVP who is now 38 and also missed significant time, returned to contribute dur- ing the postseason and help Golden State get back to the top.
A whole cast of newcom- ers contributed to this title — from Poole to Wiggins to Gary Payton, II.
Wiggins, Payton and Otto Porter, Jr. all have expressed their desire to re- turn to the Warriors, while assistant coach Kenny Atkinson backed out of the head coaching position with Charlotte to stay put and try to win another title in the Bay Area.
Lightning Strike Back
With Game 3 Win; Next
Game Wednesday
The Tampa Bay Lightning woke up in Game 3.
The two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Lightning doused the Colorado Ava- lanche with four goals in the second period on their way to getting their first win in the series, 6-2.
Tampa Bay Lightning center An- thony Cirelli (71) celebrates with Tampa Bay Lightning left wing Pat Ma- roon (14) after scoring during the first period of Game 3.
Tampa Bay
came up big in the
second period to
bounce back from a 7-0 shutout in Game 2 and make it a series against Colorado.
less than 5 minutes after the Landeskog goal thanks to Anthony Cirelli. The Light- ning got the lead woth an On- drej Palat score more than a minute later.
The second period would be where the Lightning really broke the game open.
The Lightning will look to tie the series up at 2 apiece withawininGame4on Wednesday night. The Light- ning were also down 2-0 to the New York Rangers before coming back to win the East- ern Conference final.
Game 4 will take place in Tampa, Florida, at 8 p.m. ET.
It looked like it was going to be more of the same from the Avalanche early in the game. Gabriel Landeskog scored the first goal of the game on a power play oppor- tunity on assists from Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar. It was Landeskog’s 10th goal of the postseason.
It would have put Col- orado up 2-0 but an early goal by the Avalanche was waved off because of an offside call.
Tampa Bay would score their first goal since Game 1
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