The Brooklyn Nets will face another difficult challenge as they have had to overcome obstacles all season when they play the Philadelphia 76ers in the opening round of their best-of-seven playoff series this Saturday at 1p.m. The Nets will be on the road as the No. 6 seed in the East for Games 1 and 2 to begin the postseason while the 76ers will have home court advantage at the Wells Fargo Arena as the No. 3 seed.

The complete Round 1 schedule detailing dates and times will be announced tomorrow. The Nets, which finished the regular season 45-37, and the Sixers, which was 54-28, met four times this season with the Sixers going 4-0. The Nets’ greatest concern is Sixers center Joel Embiid, who is a good bet to win his first career league MVP award. Embiid topped the NBA in scoring at 33.1 points, to go along with 10.2 rebounds and 4.2 assists. Team defense will be critical in slowing down the 7-foot Embiid, but Nets center Nic Claxton, who has had a strong season on the defensive end, will be the primary defender.    
The Nets and 76ers’ recent history includes the trade of James Harden for Ben Simmons last September in a deal that so far has been one-sided if it’s based on the production of the two players. The 33-year-old, 6-foot-5 Harden played in 58 games this season averaging 21 points, 6.1 rebounds, and a league-high 10.7 assists.
Simmons, a, 26, a 6-foot-10 point-forward, appeared in just 42 games, the last on Feb. 15, due to knee and back issues. He ended his season averaging 6.9 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 6.1 assists.

“Ben will not be joining us the rest of the year and through the playoffs,” said Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn a little over two weeks ago in announcing Simmons was being shut down. “After consulting with our doctors, multiple specialists, he’s just going to begin a rehab program. Our doctors and the specialists feel and think that he’ll have a full recovery so that starts now.”

A trade that has worked out well for the Nets’ present and future was the acquisition of forward Mikal Bridges from the Phoenix Suns. The centerpiece of the deal was Kevin Durant, whose Suns are the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference and will meet the No. 5 seed Los Angeles Clippers in Round 1. Since coming to the Nets at the NBA trade deadline, Bridges has averaged 26.1 points for Brooklyn, roughly nine points above his pre-Nets average of 17.2.

The Philadelphia native is excited to get to play against the team he grew up loving. “I was a huge Sixers fan. I mean, everybody knows that,” said Bridges this week. “Just grew up in Philly and grew up going to all the games in the world.”

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A little over 10 games into the Major League Baseball season, the Yankees and the Mets have had mixed results. The Yankees began a three-game series on Monday versus the Cleveland Guardians with a 3–2 loss. They went into Tuesday night’s game with a record of 6–4 with ace Gerrit Cole on the mound. The 32-year-old righty has been characteristically stingy, boasting a 2–0 record and 0.73 ERA with 19 strikeouts in 12.1 innings pitched before facing the 7–4 Guardians, who were leading the American League Central division.

The Yankees, who have taken all three of their series before meeting the Guardians, winning two of the three against the San Francisco Giants, Philadelphia Phillies, and Baltimore Orioles, were in Baltimore this past weekend to play an ascending young team. The Orioles have not been to the postseason since 2016, but are on the rise with cornerstone players, led by center fielder Cedrick Mullins, catcher Adley Rutschman, and shortstop Gunner Henderson.

The Yankees lost the opening game by 7–6 but bounced back and won the next two,  4–1 on Saturday and 5–3 on Sunday. Giancarlo Stanton’s third home run of the season powered the Yankees in Game 2 and Aaron Judge’s two solo homers the following day—he had four going into Tuesday’s game—led the charge in the series finale.

On Monday night, the Yankees bats were stifled by Guardians starter Shane Bieber, who went seven innings and gave up just five hits and two earned runs. “I thought we swung the bats well against him. We just obviously couldn’t break through,” said Yankees manager Aaron Boone.

After closing out their series in Cleveland last night (Wednesday), the Yankees will begin a 10-game homestand tonight in the Bronx hosting the Minnesota Twins for four games. The Los Angeles Angels will be at Yankee Stadium next Tuesday through Thursday and the Toronto Blue Jays April 21–23.

The Mets began a three-game series at Citi Field on Monday versus the ultra-talented San Diego Padres, which defeated them in a National League Wildcard matchup last season. The Mets’ No. 1 starter, Max Scherzer, took the mound against the Padres’ five-time MLB All-Star Yu Darvish, looking to redeem himself not only from last October’s playoff performance when he gave up seven earned runs in a 7–1 Game 1 loss to San Diego, but a 9–0 April 4 trouncing by the Milwaukee Brewers in which he was rocked for three homers in three straight at-bats and five earned runs.

Scherzer indeed resembled a three-time Cy Young Award winner on Monday by going five innings and holding the Padres to one hit and zero runs, striking out six in a 5–0 Mets victory.  “Thought I was able to avoid the big hit and was able to sequence well enough, and I had all my off-speed pitches going,” said Scherzer.

The Mets were 6–5 before the final game of their series with the Padres yesterday afternoon and will now be in California for the next 10 days as they begin a 10-game road trip tomorrow against the Oakland A’s. Manager Buck Showalter’s crew will take on the Los Angeles Dodgers for three games next Monday through Wednesday and the Giants for four next Thursday through April 23.

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Twin sisters, both high jumpers and competing on the same team, but also having a bit of school rivalry. Barnard College, the women’s undergraduate school of Columbia University, and Columbia College, the university’s coed undergraduate school, compete together under the Columbia-Barnard Athletic Consortium. This allows Anna Jordahl-Henry, a Barnard senior, and twin sister Julia, a Columbia senior, to root for each other while having a bit of competition.

“We always had this plan to go to college together, but at the same time, had very different boxes that we wanted a school to check off,” said Anna. “I wanted somewhat of a smaller, more intimate school, and Julia wanted a big college, but not too big. She really loved Columbia. When I came to visit, I liked the track coach, but I wasn’t in love with Columbia. It felt very big and kind of overwhelming. Then my coach said, ‘Let’s go check out Barnard,’ and I loved the atmosphere.”

Anna said it has given she and Julia a chance to be apart, but also together. Barnard is literally across Broadway from the Columbia campus. While each does her own thing, they’ve also been able to support each other as student-athletes.

“A lot of people ask, ‘How do you compete against each other?’ I think it really pushes both of us…,” said Anna. “We’re both trying to reach the school record. Having each other there motivates us to push each other to higher heights.”

Their father was a track athlete at Harvard, as well as doing the jumping events—high jump, long jump, and triple jump. His nickname was “Shoes” because he needed different shoes for every event. At an early age, he put the girls into a track and field program. 

Their athletic prowess was obvious from the start. Julia picked up high jump first and Anna soon after. In high school, Anna was predominantly a sprinter, and still holds the 200-meter outdoor record for Massachusetts.

Barnard is the only women’s college that gives student-athletes the opportunity to compete at the Division I level. There is a relatively small number of student-athletes at Barnard, but that enables them to be a close-knit group.

“It’s definitely a community,” she said of Columbia’s track and field team. “If I didn’t have such a great relationship with my teammates and the Barnard women, it would be a lot harder to push through all the time and energy I put into track and field.”

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