D2 EZ M2 THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, MAY 17 , 2022
PRO FOOTBALL
N FL representatives
t o meet with Watson
Cleveland Browns quarterback
Deshaun Watson is expected to
meet with NFL representatives
this week as part of the league’s
investigation of allegations of
sexual misconduct made against
him, a person familiar with the
situation confirmed Monday.
An NFL spokesman declined to
comment on the meeting, saying
in a statement that “the review is
active and ongoing.”
Watson faces potential
disciplinary measures by the
league under its personal conduct
policy. The initial ruling on a
prospective suspension or fine
will be made by a disciplinary
officer appointed by the NFL and
the players’ union. Commissioner
Roger Goodell still has the
authority to resolve an appeal by
either side of the initial ruling.
Two grand juries in Texas
declined to charge Watson with a
crime. He faces 22 active civil
lawsuits by women accusing him
of inappropriate behavior,
including acts of lewdness,
during massage therapy sessions.
Watson and his attorney, Rusty
Hardin , have denied the
allegations.
The Browns completed a trade
with the Houston Texans for
Watson, 26, in March and signed
him to a new contract worth a
guaranteed $230 million over five
seasons.
— Mark Maske
Green Bay Packers cornerback
Jaire Alexander reportedly
agreed to terms on a four-year,
$84 million contract extension
with a $30 million signing bonus.
Alexander, 25, was a second-
team selection in all-pro voting in
2020 but played just four games
last season before injuring his
right s houlder....
The Tennessee Titans s igned
defensive lineman DeMarcus
Walker and cornerback Kenneth
George. The Titans also placed
safety Jamal Carter on injured
reserve.
W alker has played 49 games
over five seasons with the Denver
Broncos and Texans. George
played in 33 games in four
seasons at the University of
Tennessee....
The Atlanta Falcons signed
inside linebacker Nick
Kwiatkoski to a one-year
contract and a dded wide receiver
Geronimo Allison to the roster.
Kwiatkoski has played in 77
games o ver six seasons with the
Chicago Bears and Las Vegas
Raiders. Allison had 89
receptions for 1,045 yards and six
touchdowns in 49 games over five
seasons with the P ackers and
Detroit Lions....
The Baltimore Ravens signed
linebacker Vince Biegel , who
played five games last season for
the Miami Dolphins....
The Saskatchewan
Roughriders became the fourth
Canadian Football League team
to cancel training camp practices
after the league and its players
broke off negotiations on a newcollective bargaining agreement.
The Montreal Alouettes,
Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Toronto
Argonauts canceled practices
Sunday, a day after negotiations
halted, putting players on seven
of the league’s nine teams in a
legal strike position.
The ratio of Canadian players
on team rosters seems to be a
sticking point in the negotiations.SOCCER
A rsenal no longer controls its
fate in Champions League
qualification.
A 2-0 loss at Newcastle f orced
Arsenal to relinquish the
initiative in its fight with n orth
London rival Tottenham for a
finish in the English Premier
League’s top four and a return to
Europe’s top competition.
Heading into the final round
Sunday, Tottenham occupies
fourth place — two points above
Arsenal in fifth — and just needs
to beat already-relegated
Norwich to guarantee a top-four
spot. Given Tottenham’s far
superior goal differential, a draw
is likely to be enough against the
league’s last-place team.
Newcastle has won seven of its
past eight home matches....
J uventus captain Giorgio
Chiellini bid farewell to the Turin
club’s home fans during a 2-2
draw with Lazio in Italy’s Serie A.
After 17 seasons at Juventus,
Chiellini, 37, recently announced
he was leaving at the end of the
season....
American midfielder Ian
Harkes was selected a s DundeeUnited’s player of the year.
The 27-year-old, a son of
former U.S. captain John Harkes ,
had three goals in 28 Scottish
Premier League matches during
his fourth season with the club.TENNIS
Two-time French Open runner-
up Dominic Thiem is still
without a win in an injury-
affected season after another
first-round exit.
Thiem, ranked 194th, was
beaten by No. 134 Marco
Cecchinato , 6-3, 6-4, at the
Geneva Open. The loss dropped
Thiem to 0-5 in 2022, all on clay
courts. He returned in April from
a 10-month absence because of a
right wrist injury....
World No. 22 Gael Monfils , 35,
France’s highest ranked player,
withdrew from the upcoming
French Open b ecause of an injury
to his right heel that will require
minor surgery.MISC.
Sakari Manninen scored and
added two assists for host
Finland, which won its third
straight game at the h ockey world
championships with a 4-1 victory
over t he United States in
Tampere.
Alex Galchenyuk scored f or
the Americans in the third period.
Finland leads Group B with
nine points. The United States is
in third place with f ive.
In Helsinki, Pierre-Luc
Dubois scored twice to spark
defending champion Canada to a
5-1 triumph over Slovakia.DIGESTC anada leads Group A w ith
nine points in three games.
Slovakia has three points....
W eber State men’s basketball
coach Randy Rahe , 61, is retiring
after 16 seasons and three trips to
the NCAA tournament with the
Ogden, Utah, school.
Longtime Wildcats assistantEric Duft will take over the
program.
Rahe, t he Big Sky’s leader in
wins with 316 and league wins
with 198, was the conference
coach of the year four times. He
finished 316-91 at Weber State.
— From news services
and staff reportsTELEVISION AND RADIO
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3 p.m. St. Louis at New York Mets, first game » MLB Network
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8 p.m. Draft lottery » ESPN
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STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS
7 p.m. Eastern Conference semifinal, Game 1: Tampa Bay at Florida » TNT
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SOCCER
2:45 p.m. English Premier League: Liverpool at Southampton » USA Network
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HOCKEY
9:20 a.m. IIHF World Championship, Group B: Czech Republic vs. Austria »
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COLLEGE BASEBALL
7 p.m. Florida State at Florida » SEC Network
7 p.m. Kansas State at Virginia Tech » ACC Networkunderdogs. Everybody had the
Suns to win this one. It’s the same
as trash-talking. It gets me going.
Nobody picked us. It was motiva-
tion for us. The whole locker
room believed. That’s what won
us the game.”
The past month has had a
fast-forward effect on Doncic’s
career. Entering the playoffs, he
was playing catch-up to 2018
draft classmates Ayton and Atlan-
ta Hawks guard Trae Young,
whose teams made deep postsea-
son runs last year. What’s more,
Doncic was in danger of falling
behind all-time greats such as
Michael Jordan, who won his first
playoff series in his fourth season,
and LeBron James, who checked
that box in his third year.
Suddenly, Doncic has a chance
to join party-crashers such as
James and Kevin Durant, who
each reached his first conference
finals at 22. If the Mavericks upset
the Warriors and go on to win the
title, Doncic would stand apart in
modern NBA history because sin-
gular stars rarely win so much, so
soon.
Jordan got his first ring at 28.
James was 27. Antetokounmpo
was 26. Magic Johnson was 20,
but he had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Kobe Bryant was 21, but he rode
shotgun to Shaquille O’Neal. Tim
Duncan was 23, but he was
flanked by David Robinson.
Then again, history just might
smile on Doncic, who has culti-
vated a reputation as a hoops
prodigy since he was a teenager at
Real Madrid.
“When I’m having fun, I play
the best,” he said, soaking up the
afterglow. “Today was just incred-
ible.”Mavericks traded Kristaps Por-
zingis, Doncic’s highest-profile
teammate, to the Washington
Wizards. On April 10, Doncic suf-
fered a calf strain in the final
game of the regular season, an
injury that sidelined him for the
first three playoff games.
As recently as May 4, Doncic’s
lackluster defense was grabbing
headlines after a Game 2 blowout
loss to Phoenix. And last week,
with the Mavericks down 3-2 and
facing elimination, a frustrated
Doncic left the court muttering
about the Suns.
“Everybody’s acting tough
when they’re up,” Doncic said.
But the Mavericks’ defense,
which ranked seventh in the reg-
ular season, turned the screws on
Paul and Booker, who couldn’t
find the proper adjustment.
Meanwhile, Doncic just kept scor-
ing and scoring against a Phoenix
defense that crumbled as the se-
ries unfolded.
Doncic has averaged 31.5
points, 10.1 rebounds and 6.6 as-
sists in the postseason, ranking
second to Milwaukee Bucks star
Giannis Antetokounmpo in
points and placing in the top 10 in
rebounds and assists. His reputa-
tion as a big-game player — which
includes his professional career
overseas, his Olympics appear-
ances and impressive series
against the Los Angeles Clippers
in 2020 and 2021 — has swelled.
Without another all-star along-
side him, Doncic outplayed Paul
and Booker in back-to-back elimi-
nation games.
“I like these games,” Doncic
said. “It’s pressure. We were the
DONCIC FROM D1
Doncic enters rarefied air
in just his fourth season
MATT YORK/ASSOCIATED PRESSLuka Doncic had 35 points and 10 rebounds as Dallas blew out
Phoenix in Game 7 to move on to the Western Conference finals.
Desouza takes his time when
addressing criticism the show
has received from some of the
living legends it depicts.
“The thing is with the entire
show,” Desouza said after taking
a beat. “I mean, first and
foremost, Jerry West, he’s
entitled to his opinion about his
portrayal on the show, whether
that be a positive opinion or a
negative opinion — just like
Magic and Kareem and everyone
who’s spoken publicly about how
they feel about the show. All of
their opinions are very much
valid. The thing about the show
— and HBO has come out and
said this — ‘Winning Time’ is not
a documentary. It’s a
fictionalized work of art.”
He continued.
“The reason I feel personally
that some things are changed or
some things are embellished is
because we were just trying to
encapsulate all the facets of
humanity within these prolific
people. And present it to an
audience to, one, make enjoyable
TV but, two, make people fall in
love with these characters.”
That’s why it was easy to fall in
love with Desouza’s Cooper.
There is a story beneath all of the
fictional game results, the glitz
and the gluttonous behavior: the
story of a businessman (Buss)
building an empire, a player
(Magic) longing for respect, a
coach (Jack McKinney) fighting
for his life’s work and even an
everyman in Cooper trying to
keep up. It is the story of strivers,
and Desouza — the Baltimore kid
turned computer science
graduate and now enchanting co-
star — adds every sports fan’s
character to this Hollywood
creation: the underdog.heavyweights, including Sally
Field, Adrien Brody, John
C. Reilly and Harris. Not to
mention that Adam McKay, the
producer and director behind
“Succession,” “The Big Short”
and “Anchorman,” was yelling
direction into a megaphone on
Desouza’s first day on set. In a
scene shot for the show’s pilot
that was ultimately cut, Desouza
had to play basketball with
Isaiah in front of 600 extras.
“I’m about to have a nervous
breakdown,” he recalled.
The anxiety in doing his first
project, and fear of not being
able to keep up with the actors,
powered Desouza’s scenes when
Cooper was feeling nervous
about getting cut or falling out of
the coach’s favor. But the man
who didn’t know what a pick and
roll was made it look believable
during Episode 7 when Cooper
set a screen for Magic and got the
ball back to make the game-
winning layup.
Of course, this never happened
in the real game. That season,
when the Lakers defeated the
Celtics in Boston, Norm Nixon’s
free throws with three seconds
remaining were the difference in
a 110-108 win. Those kinds of
liberties can make s ports fans
roll their eyes — and, if you’re
Jerry West, demand a public
retraction.
Most of the Showtime Lakers
and current brass want nothing
to do with the show, probably
because the narrative plays up
their part in the wild, wild west
days of the late 1970s and early
’80s. (Reilly as the late Jerry Buss
is equal parts Austin Powers,
Hugh Hefner and the creepy dad
you wouldn’t bring your
girlfriends home to meet.) Soa knack for acting. Years later,
when Desouza realized his true
passion was the stage, not
software, he started taking 4 a.m.
Megabus rides to New York City
for auditions. On the bus, he
would fire up his laptop because
he wasn’t taking days off from
work, then arrive in the city to
read off lines in whatever cop
procedural was casting at the
time.
“It was a crazy grind,” Desouza
remembered.
Desouza made that trip about
15 times and never booked a gig.
His IMDb page looked exactly
like mine — blank. It wasn’t until
the summer of 2019 that Desouza
came across an open casting call
looking for a Michael Cooper
type: someone 6-foot or above
who played basketball and was
shaped like a beanpole. Desouza
filled two of the three categories
— the man knew nothing about
basketball, remember? — but
looked at Cooper circa the 1980s
and noticed an uncanny
resemblance. Despite his lack of
basketball knowledge, he sent in
a headshot and a video of himself
pretending to play the game,
even though he’s left-handed and
Cooper is not.
“And it was terrible,” he said.
Still, the show’s producers
looked past all that and saw
Desouza as Cooper, their lob-
catching defensive dynamo who
worries about making the team.
When Desouza stepped on set, he
said, he embodied the same
anxiety as his character.
Though other newcomers such
as Quincy Isaiah (Magic
Johnson) and Solomon Hughes
(Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) make
splashy debuts, the show features
an ensemble cast ofIndiana, Detroit and Boston in
Episode 7 — when in reality they
played at Kansas City and Utah
before returning to the Fabulous
Forum on Dec. 28 for the big
Magic-vs.-Bird showdown.
There are many more
moments that make you want to
watch every episode as an
unofficial fact-checker, but then
there are scenes such as the one
in Episode 6 between veteran
actor Wood Harris and newbie
Delante Desouza.
Two years ago, Desouza, a
Baltimore native and University
of Maryland alum, had never
heard of a pick and roll — “I
would’ve thought: ‘Oh, a football
pick, like an interception. And
then a roll; I guess a roll to the
touchdown, like the goal line,’ ”
he told me, laughing at his
limited sports knowledge.
But here he is playing Michael
Cooper, one of the more earnest
characters on a roster filled with
superstars, and he’s stressing
inside a hospital waiting room
about his future on the team.
Harris, who portrays Spencer
Haywood, notices his teammate’s
glum demeanor.
“ Brotha, I ain’t know you but a
minute, but what I can say is you
are the nervousest cat in a
building full of people who are
dying. Didn’t nobody end up in
the NBA by accident. ”
Desouza as Cooper: “I don’t
know, Spence. Maybe I’m the
first.”
“No, you not. You’re supposed
to be here, you understand?”
In that moment, there was
truth.
Desouza, 27, had every
intention of making a career in
computer science and being the
one in his family to break
through the poverty line. The son
of a Jamaican immigrant who
delivered the Baltimore Sun and
a public-school employee who
assisted special needs children,
Desouza remembers his family
not having much while he was
growing up in northwest
Baltimore. So it was a big deal
when his father saved up money
and brought the family a home
computer with Windows 98 —
you could play “Minesweeper” on
it.
Socially fearful and painfully
shy, Desouza wasn’t much for
going outside and playing ball, so
he took to the computer. By the
time he got to College Park, he
settled on computer science and
thought his life was set — until
he joined the workforce and
discovered he hated his job.
“Computers and software
development was a hobby, not a
passion,” Desouza said.
Around the same time his
father purchased the computer, a
then-14-year-old Desouza had
stumbled into acting. He joined
the Arena Players, which boasts
of being the longest-operating
African American community
theater in the nation. And this
being Baltimore, he had Robert
Chew, who played Proposition
Joe on “The Wire,” as one of his
acting coaches.
Before Desouza left for college,
Chew reminded him that he hadBUCKNER FROM D1CANDACE BUCKNERNewbie Desouza stars as underdog in ‘Winning Time’WARRICK PAGE/HBO
Baltimore’s Delante Desouza, a Maryland alum, plays M ichael Cooper in HBO’s “Winning Time.”