BOB COUSY

Jaylen Brown scored 25 points, Jayson Tatum added 22 and the Boston Celtics moved to the brink of a berth in the NBA Finals, running away after halftime to beat the Miami Heat 93-80 and take a 3-2 lead in the Eastern Conference title series.

Devin Booker scored 33 points, Chris Paul had 15 of his a season-high 27 points in the fourth quarter, and the Phoenix Suns rallied for a 115-109 win over the short-handed Utah Jazz.

For the NBA’s 75th anniversary team, 75 players weren’t enough.

The NBA, known today as a leader when it comes to culture and racial issues, was anything but during the 1950s when segregation divided the country.

“Basketball was at the bottom of the totem pole,” said Cousy, one of the sport's few bankable stars at the time. When Jackie Robinson became Major League Baseball’s first Black player in 1947, Cousy remembered it being major national news. Outspoken and fiercely independent Black stars like Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor became part of the NBA fabric in the 1950s. Though Cooper was the first Black drafted in the NBA, Earl Lloyd was the first to play in a game that season. The NBA would stabilize and strengthen as an eight-team league in the late 1950s.

US President Donald Trump looks on after presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Celtics basketball legend Bob Cousy in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on August 22, 2019. A CNBC survey conducted in the days before former President Donald Trump's impeachment trial finds a large share of Republicans want him to remain head of their party, but a majority of Americans want him out of politics. The CNBC All-America Economic Survey shows 54% of Americans want Trump "to remove himself from politics entirely." But Micah Roberts, the survey's Republican pollster, and a partner with Public Opinion Strategies, emphasized the change from when Trump was president. Polls before the election regularly showed Trump with GOP approval ratings around 90%, meaning at least some Republicans have defected from Trump.

US President Donald Trump looks on after presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Celtics basketball legend Bob Cousy in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on August 22, 2019. A day after his supporters rioted inside the U.S. Capitol, President Donald Trump turned his attention to golf. President Donald Trump was scheduled to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to three professional golfers on Thursday, a White House official said. Trump's remarks to supporters at a rally Wednesday outside the White House came just before a joint session of Congress convened to confirm President-elect Joe Biden's victory. Trump's supporters swarmed the Capitol, breaking through lines of law enforcement officers and invading the halls of Congress.

That’s just fine with Los Angeles Lakers guard Danny Green. Sunday would be his 257th career postseason appearance, two shy of matching Derek Fisher for the most in NBA history. He entered Game 3 of the NBA Finals seven free-throw attempts shy of matching Shaquille O’Neal (2,317) for another postseason record. It’s the 20th NBA Finals game for Foster, the 10th for Brothers and the first for Fraher. It’ll be the eighth finals game for Zarba, the fifth for Goble and the first for Brown.