 | Today we're celebrating Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's (and Lu Dort's) first NBA championship and other top performances by Canadians over the weekend. Plus, the IOC's first female president takes office, and the PWHL's Vancouver expansion team names its first head coach. | | | Weekend recap: SGA completes a season for the ages | | | Here's a look at what Canadian athletes accomplished over the past few days:
Basketball: SGA caps an incredible year
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led Oklahoma City to its first NBA championship with a game-high 29 points and 12 assists in the Thunder's 103-91 win over Indiana in Game 7 of the Finals last night. SGA, from Hamilton, Ont., was named the Finals MVP, becoming the first Canadian (and just the fifth non-American) to win the award in its 56-year history.
Gilgeous-Alexander is just the fourth NBA player to win the scoring title, the regular-season MVP and the Finals MVP in the same season, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal. He also powered OKC to the league's best regular-season record at 68-14, and last summer he led the Canadian men's national team in its first Olympic appearance in a quarter century. Quite the (non-calendar) year!
Montreal’s Lu Dort, an NBA All-Defensive First Teamer this season, added nine points for the Thunder last night and hustled for a couple of big steals down the stretch as OKC's league-best defence suffocated Indiana. Young big man Chet Holmgren was a force around the rim for OKC, blocking five shots while scoring 18 points.
Hats off as well to the Pacers, who were massive underdogs coming into this series but fought to the bitter end — even after star point guard Tyrese Haliburton went down with a torn Achilles in the first quarter. Bennedict Mathurin, also from Montreal, scored a team-high 24 points off the bench, and starter Andrew Nembhard, from Aurora, Ont., had 15 points and six assists while helping hold Gilgeous-Alexander to a tough 8-for-27 shooting from the field.
So, from SGA's MVP performance to the impressive play of Dort, Mathurin and Nembhard in supporting roles, we can definitely say this was Canada's best NBA Finals ever — and another milestone in the remarkable rise of Canadian basketball.
In other big NBA news from the weekend, the Phoenix Suns traded 15-time All-Star Kevin Durant to the Houston Rockets for guard Jalen Green, Mississauga forward Dillon Brooks, the No. 10 pick in this Wednesday's draft and five second-round picks. Durant ranked sixth in the league in scoring this season with 26.6 points per game. But the 36-year-old has missed at least 20 games in five of the six seasons since tearing his Achilles in the 2019 Finals against Toronto while with Golden State.
In international basketball, Canada's women's 3x3 team opened their World Cup in Mongolia with victories over Latvia and Austria today. The Canadian squad of Kacie Bosch, Paige Crozon, Cassandra Brown and Saicha Grant-Allen, seeded sixth in the tournament, finish out their group stage on Wednesday against No. 3 France and No. 11 Hungary.
Canada's men's 3x3 team, seeded 17th, plays its first World Cup games tomorrow against No. 6 Austria at 2:55 a.m. ET and No. 11 China at 7 a.m. ET. Watch those and other games live on CBCSports.ca and CBC Gem starting tonight at 11 p.m. ET. Here's more on the Canadian teams at the 3x3 World Cup.
Soccer: Canada stunned by Curacao at the Gold Cup
After routing Honduras 6-0 in Vancouver to open their continental championship tournament, Canada was in position to clinch a spot in the quarterfinals with a victory over Curacao on Saturday night in Houston. But, despite being 60 spots above their opponents in the world rankings and getting a quick goal in the ninth minute by Nathan Saliba, the Canadians ended up with a disappointing 1-1 draw when Curacao scored in second-half stoppage time.
Played in sweltering heat in front of a sparse crowd, the chaotic match included two disallowed goals for Curacao due to offsides. The underdogs also appeared to earn a penalty kick in the 86th minute when the ball struck Saliba's arm in the box, but it was ruled that play had halted because someone in the crowd blew a whistle (classic CONCACAF stuff).
Despite the setback, Canada remains in good shape to advance. The top two teams from each group move on to the quarterfinals, and the Canadians head into their final round-robin match leading Group B with four points and a healthy plus-6 goal differential. Honduras is next with 3 points, followed by Curacao (2) and El Salvador (1).
Canada faces El Salvador on Tuesday night at 10 p.m. ET in Houston. Head coach Jesse Marsch is eligible to return from his two-match suspension for berating a referee during a match against the United States in March. But Marsch is potentially facing more disciplinary action from CONCACAF after reportedly lashing out at an official who told him he wasn't allowed to watch Canada's Gold Cup opener from a suite.
Assuming Canada advances, its opponent in the quarterfinals on Saturday or Sunday would be from Group C — likely Panama, Jamaica or Guatemala. Two quarterfinal matchups are set: the United States vs. Costa Rica, and Mexico vs. guest Saudi Arabia.
The Canadian team announced yesterday that veteran midfielder Jonathan Osorio will miss the rest of the tournament due to an injury suffered in practice before the Curacao game. Captain Alphonso Davies is out after tearing his ACL in March, and starting centre back Moise Bombito is still recovering from wrist surgery. Derek Cornelius (the other usual starter at centre back) is with the team at the Gold Cup but hasn't played yet due to a lower-body injury. Key midfielder Stephen Eustaquio remains unavailable until his pro team, FC Porto, is eliminated from the Club World Cup. They have a draw and a loss heading into their final group match tonight.
Golf: Henderson grinds and a Canadian shoots 59
Canada's Brooke Henderson tied for 36th at the Women's PGA Championship with a score of 10 over par on a brutal course in Frisco, Texas. Searing heat, gusty winds and cruel pin placements resulted in only three players finishing under par. Australia's Minjee Lee shot 4 under for a three-stroke win and her third major title.
Canadians Nick Taylor and Taylor Pendrith tied for 17th and 25th, respectively, at the Travelers Championship, one of the PGA Tour's lucrative "signature" events. American Keegan Bradley birdied the final hole to steal the $3.6-million US title from England's Tommy Fleetwood, who bogeyed the 18th for a 2-over final round after beginning the day with a three-shot lead. Fleetwood remains winless in 159 career PGA Tour starts.
Elsewhere in men's golf, Canada's Myles Creighton shot an 11-under 59 on Saturday en route to winning the Korn Ferry Tour's Wichita Open. Creighton is just the 15th player in tour history to shoot a sub-60 round, but the second of the week after Belgium's Dumont de Chassart did it on Thursday.
Other Canadian results:
* Olympic champion Camryn Rogers won the women's hammer throw at the Kuortane Games in Finland for her second victory of the week and fourth in five starts this season. Gabriela DeBues-Stafford placed second in a women's 1,500m race in France, while former Olympic decathlon champ Damian Warner was third in a men's shot put competition in his hometown of London, Ont.
* Canada qualified for next year's cricket T20 World Cup by finishing a perfect 6-0 at a four-team Americas qualifier near Toronto. Currently ranked 19th in the world, Canada made its T20 World Cup debut last year but failed to get out of its group after defeating Ireland and losing to Pakistan and the co-host United States. The 2026 World Cup will take place in February and March in India and Sri Lanka.
* Canada's women's volleyball team finished 0-4 in Week 2 of Nations League play, losing to Belgium on Sunday after falling to South Korea, host Turkey and Brazil earlier in the week. The Canadians, now ranked 10th in the world, are 2-6 on the season, putting them 15th out of 18 teams in the Nations League standings.
* The Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts fell to 0-3 on the season after Mario Alford's 99-yard kickoff return touchdown with nine seconds left in regulation gave Saskatchewan a 39-32 win on Friday night. The Roughriders improved to 3-0, matching Montreal for the CFL's best record. Winnipeg (2-0) also remained undefeated with a 27-14 win at B.C. on Saturday. | | |  | Shai Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 30 points in the Finals to lead Oklahoma City to its first NBA championship. (Matthew Stockman/Getty Images) | | | Quickly… | | | A couple other things to know:
1. The International Olympic Committee inaugurated its first female president.
Kirsty Coventry officially took office today after her decisive victory in a seven-candidate election in March to succeed Thomas Bach, who was president for 12 years. Coventry, a 41-year-old former swimmer from Zimbabwe who competed in five Olympics and won a total of seven medals, including two gold, is also the first IOC president from Africa. Eight of the nine previous presidents came from Europe, with American Avery Brundage (1952-1972) the lone exception.
Coventry will serve an eight-year term, with a chance to renew for four more. Her election platform emphasized prioritizing athletes, increasing engagement with young people and improving transparency, with "zero tolerance for corruption, doping and unethical behaviour." Coventry has also said the IOC "needs to take a leading role" on the issue of transgender women in sports and that "the overarching principle must be to protect the female category."
2. The PWHL's new Vancouver team hired its first head coach.
Brian Idalski joins the expansion franchise after 18 seasons as a college coach, including the last three with the women's team at St. Cloud State University. He was also head coach of China's women's hockey team at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Vancouver has the seventh overall pick in the entry draft tomorrow night. Expansion sister Seattle chooses eighth.
In other hockey news, the Anaheim Ducks traded talented but frustrating young forward Trevor Zegras to the Philadelphia Flyers, while the AHL's Abbotsford (B.C.) Canucks are headed to Game 7 of the Calder Cup final after losing in overtime last night to the Charlotte Checkers. | | | That's it for today. Talk to you later. | | | | Not subscribed? Sign up here to get the Buzzer delivered to your inbox. Got an idea, question, comment or other feedback on the newsletter? Drop us a line at thebuzzer@cbc.ca. | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
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