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Welcome to the latest episode of Hot Takedown, FiveThirtyEight’s sports podcast. On this week’s show (June 14, 2016), we welcome The Undefeated’s Justin Tinsley to discuss the NBA Finals and the Cleveland Cavaliers’ unlikely victory in Game 5 against the Golden State Warriors. Then, The Washington Post’s Neil Greenberg joins to talk about the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Stanley Cup triumph and whether they might be the next NHL dynasty. Finally, we chat with Justin about his story for The Undefeated on the 1971 Howard University soccer team that was stripped of its title because of an arbitrary statistic. Plus, a Significant Digit on the one thing missing from Nolan Ryan’s stellar career.
Links to what we discuss are here:
- Kyrie Irving and LeBron James made history in the Cavs’ Game 5 victory over the Warriors, Neil Paine and Andrew Flowers write.
- ESPN Stats & Information Group takes a closer look at James’s and Irving’s Game 5 performances.
- Neil Paine says LeBron’s playoff performances are uncommonly good.
- Sharon Katz writes that LeBron’s finals record isn’t really disappointing at all.
- Here are FiveThirtyEight’s updated NBA Finals predictions.
- According to Neil Paine, the Penguins’ win in the Stanley Cup Final was a victory for the numbers.
- But Neil Greenberg says the Penguins’ formula for Stanley Cup success won’t be easy to replicate.
- Will Graves at The Associated Press argues that Pittsburgh has a shot at creating a dynasty.
- ESPN Stats & Info breaks down how the Penguins won their fourth title.
- Finally, here’s Justin Tinsley’s article on The Undefeated about the Howard soccer team whose Division I title was stripped by the NCAA. You can watch a Spike Lee-produced film about the team there as well.
- Significant Digit: 0. That’s the number of Cy Young Awards that Nolan Ryan won. During his long career as an MLB pitcher, he amassed 324 wins and struck out 5,714 batters.
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