Cyd🇺🇦☮️🟧

Retired and loving life as my own! Proud “mom” to yorkie Ruby and grateful for her unconditional love. Colts, Boilers, Cubs for diversionary relief. #Resist

[Niall Stanage @NiallStanage]

This is a devastating interview.

Scott Pelley tells the NYT that Bari Weiss directly put a “thumb on the scale” for Trump over the killing of Renee Good.

Here’s his explanation of exactly what happened.

[Terry Moran 🇺🇸 @TerryMoran]

“They never wanted to end cancel culture. They wanted to control it. Some forbidden ideas - the ones MAGA likes - must be protected and platformed. Other ideas - the ones Bari Weiss dislikes - are genuinely verboten. Say them out loud and you lose your job.”

[Martina Navratilova @Martina]

Despicable … but then Bari Weiss was hired to destroy the CBS brand

[chiky handler @chiky_handlr]

Hunter Biden has two things Don Jr., Eric & Ivanka cannot & never will have:

Charisma & a dad who loves him.

[Prez @PrezLives2022]

So Ivanka claims she came across this island swimming in the Mediterranean and she came ashore barefoot to explore the islands😂😂

Here is the problem with this: First, the island is in the Adriatic Sea. Secondly, the Albanians say the island is full of snakes making her barefoot story implausible. Lastly, in the words of Steve Schmidt, the island is full of landmines thus making her extremely lucky or a liar. I’m going with liar.

[Jo @JoJoFromJerz]

Donald Trump has turned our country into the laughing stock of the world.

[Luke Beasley @lukepbeasley]

I’ve been critical in the past of Kristen Welker for doing softballs with Trump so let me happily say GREAT JOB this time, Kristen. That’s how it’s done. Showing the American people what happens when you reasonably push back(as you should) against Trump’s lies is a crucial public service. Thank you.

[Mary L Trump @MaryLTrump]

Donald had a temper tantrum on national television and walked out of an interview simply because Kristen Welker presented him with a basic fact.

Note to other journalists: now is the time to pile on. He won't be able to handle it.

[Emoluments Clause @Emolclause]

#BREAKING: Rep Madeleine Dean: “…I said to him, Mr Acting Attorney-General [Todd Blanche], when are you going to prosecute? So far we have one dead guy [#Epstein] and one woman in a Summer Camp [Ghislaine Maxwell]. When are you going to prosecute those who victimized, trafficked, abused, raped girls and women, more than a thousand of them? He blamed the victims. He said they really haven’t come forward with the names…right then I knew the coverup was complete.”😳

[Adam Mockler @adammocklerr]

BREAKING: Administration that's all over the Epstein files doesn’t want to release the remaining Epstein files.

[Barb McQuade @BarbMcQuade]

Seems like a bait and switch. After predictable outcry, Trump DOJ pulls back slush fund for insurrectionists, but retains tax immunity for Trump. Was that the plan all along? It’s all corrupt.
https://t.co/NnZwe4nLO0

[Martina Navratilova @Martina]

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👍🏼

[Ken Swift @kenswift]

Clark playing sick and tossing her cookies at half time, yet still running point with almost a triple double, while playing solid defense (Gray 28% and Rhyne 22%) and making passes like this, is not lost on me.

[Sports Patriot @SportsPatriotUS]

Last night I posted a simple question:

If Caitlin Clark is so bad, why is she the only player in the WNBA who gets face-guarded full court for entire stretches of a game?

Apparently, that touched a nerve.

Suddenly, every “basketball expert” on the internet showed up to explain defense to me.

“Why wouldn’t you guard her like that?”

“Are they supposed to just let her walk to the basket?”

“All guards are defended that way.”

No.

That is not the point.

The point is not that teams should leave Caitlin Clark open.

The point is that if teams did not have to guard her this way, they would not.

There is a reason defenders are turning their backs to the ball, ignoring help-side principles, and attaching themselves to Caitlin Clark 94 feet from the basket like she is the entire offensive system.

Because in many ways, she is.

That is the part people keep trying to avoid.

Caitlin Clark is not being defended like an ordinary guard.

She is being defended like a problem the other team does not believe it can solve within a normal defensive structure.

That matters.

As someone who has played, coached, watched, taught, and studied this game for most of my life, I find it almost comical watching professional teams resort to this kind of coverage while the media, players, and league-adjacent voices keep insisting Caitlin is not that good.

Because what they are doing against her is essentially a modified junk defense.

They are essentially using altered version of a box and one defense. Where a player is face guarded by one defender wherever they may go on the court while the other defenders are left to defend the rest of the playing court.

In the WNBA they are doing the same thing to Caitlin. They are face guarding her while the remaining defenders are just playing an over-exaggerated help defense.

There are several different variations of this so call it whatever you want.

But when one defender is assigned to deny one player everywhere, while the rest of the defense loads up around the action, that is not normal man-to-man defense.

That is a special plan.

And special plans are not created for ordinary players.

You usually see this type of thing at the youth level.

Instructional leagues.

Middle school.

Maybe early high school.

Why?

Because at those ages, physical development is uneven. Skill gaps are enormous. One dominant player can completely overwhelm a game. So coaches panic. They tell one kid, “Do not leave her. Do not help. Do not look at the ball. Just stay attached.”

And yes, sometimes it slows the star down.

But it also tells everyone in the gym something obvious:

That team does not believe it can defend the star straight up.

When I coached against teams that relied on that kind of defense, we knew exactly what it meant.

They were not confident in their defensive system.

They were not confident in their players’ ability to defend within team concepts.

They were sacrificing normal basketball principles just to keep one player from wrecking the game.

That is why seeing versions of it at the professional level against Caitlin Clark is so revealing.

Because if she is as overrated as so many people claim, why is this necessary?

If she is just a volume shooter, why guard her this way?

If she is just hype, why chase her before she even touches the ball?

If she is not one of the most dangerous offensive players the women’s game has ever seen, why are professional defenders being asked to abandon normal help-side responsibility just to deny her airspace?

The answer is simple.

Because if they do not do it, she will torch them.

That is what her critics hate admitting.

Caitlin Clark’s gravity exists before the ball ever gets to her hands.

She forces defenders to make decisions they do not have to make against other players.

She forces coaches to bend coverages.

She forces help defenders to cheat.

She forces entire game plans to tilt.

Now, there is a difference between disciplined denial and building your entire defensive personality around making sure one player never breathes.

That is where this gets interesting.

We saw a version of this in one of the most memorable moments of the 2024 WNBA All-Star Game.

That was not an ordinary All-Star Game.

That was Team WNBA against the U.S. Olympic team... the same Olympic team that intentionally left Caitlin Clark off the roster.

The setting alone made the whole thing impossible to ignore.

Caitlin was not on Team USA because that would not have fit within the narrative.

She was on the other side.

And while Team WNBA went on to beat the Olympic roster 117–109, Caitlin still managed to set an All-Star rookie record with 10 assists.

But one of the most revealing moments came from Kelsey Plum.

Plum guarded Caitlin full-court like the entire defensive game plan had been reduced to one instruction:

Do not let Caitlin breathe.

Plum was not playing normal team defense.

She was not playing true help-side defense.

She was not seeing ball and player the way defenders are taught from the time they are kids.

She was face-guarding Caitlin like a middle school coach told her, “Wherever she goes, you go. Forget everything else.”

And within seconds, Caitlin exposed Plum and embarrassed her in front of the world.

A moment Plum almost certainly still has nightmares about and probably wishes she could do over.

And everyone watching could see how absurd it looked.

That is the point.

When an Olympic-level guard is chasing Caitlin Clark around in an All-Star setting with her back to the ball, it says more about Caitlin’s offensive gravity than any commentator ever could.

Because if Caitlin is just hype, why guard her like that?

If she is overrated, why abandon normal defensive principles?

If she is not one of the most dangerous offensive players in the sport, why does an Olympic guard have to treat the ball like a secondary concern?

That moment told the truth.

The defense was not saying Caitlin was average.

The defense was screaming the opposite.

As a former coach, I used to ask my players one question over and over:

I would ask repeatedly "When do you play defense?"

I asked it until they could answer in unison without thinking.

"BEFORE YOUR MAN GETS THE BALL!"

That was the lesson.

You defend early.

You pressure passing lanes.

You make catches difficult.

You stay alert.

You see ball and player.

You do not get beat backdoor.

And if your man does get the ball, then you "D" up and force them in the direction of the designed defense we are playing at the time.

That is basketball.

So yes, if I were coaching against Caitlin Clark, I would absolutely make life miserable before she caught the ball.

I would not let her walk into easy catches.

I would not let her dictate pace comfortably.

I would not let her get rhythm touches without resistance.

But I would try to do that within a real defensive structure.

I would personally choose a split-zone man to man.

A defense where players still see the ball.

A defense where teammates still help.

A defense where denial does not become obsession but it is the goal of all defenders on the court.

A defense where one player is not so consumed with Caitlin Clark that she stops being part of the team defense altogether.

Because the moment your defender is no longer playing help-side defense, no longer seeing ball and player, and no longer treating anyone else on the floor as a threat, that is a confession.

You are admitting Caitlin Clark is the emergency.

You are admitting your normal defense is not enough.

And that is exactly why this debate is so funny.

The same people telling us Caitlin is overrated are also defending the kind of coverage that proves she is not.

They want it both ways.

They want to say she is not elite, while applauding defenses for treating her like the only player on the floor who can ruin the game before she even touches the ball.

Sorry.

That does not add up.

If she were ordinary, teams would guard her ordinarily.

They do not.

And that should tell everyone what the film is already screaming.

Caitlin Clark changes the floor.

She changes defensive assignments.

She changes help principles.

She changes spacing.

She changes where coaches are willing to send pressure.

She changes what defenders are allowed to ignore.

She changes the entire geometry of a possession.

That is not what happens for a manufactured player.

That is what happens for a player defenses fear.

And if the WNBA, its media voices, and its loudest critics want to keep pretending Caitlin Clark is not that good, fine.

But then they need to explain why teams keep using defenses normally reserved youth basketball and for players who are too dangerous to guard straight up.

Because basketball people know what that means.

You do not face-guard a player full court because she is average.

You do it because if you let her play normal basketball, she will destroy you.

That is the truth they keep trying to talk around because it does not fit the narrative.

Caitlin Clark is not being defended this way because she is hype.

She is being defended this way because the hype is backed by fear.

And fear, in basketball, is one of the highest compliments a defense can give.

[Tymofiy Mylovanov @Mylovanov]

Applebaum: Trump is using a specific language from the 1930s: “enemies within,” “enemies of the people,” migrants and political opponents as “vermin,” migrants “poisoning the blood” of Americans.

That language comes from Hitler, Stalin and the Stasi. 1/

[Glenn Tunes @glenn_tunes]

77 MILLION VOTED FOR THIS 🙄 YOU GUYS MUST BE SO PROUD🤦

[Steve Schmidt @SteveSchmidtSES]

“The danger doesn’t arrive when tanks appear in the streets. It arrives when leaders lose the ability to say no. It arrives when loyalty replaces judgment. It arrives when public officials preserve powers they would never tolerate in the hands of their opponents.”

https://t.co/TTZtkwyWMs

[Elizabeth Warren @SenWarren]

At 4am, Senate Republicans gave the greenlight for the IRS to drop ALL investigations into Trump and his family.

That means if Trump is evading taxes, we’ll never know.

I have a bill to make this illegal. And I won’t stop fighting to get it done.

[The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln]

Happy 1 year anniversary to this tweet.