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SPORTS

SUNDAY, MAY 29 , 2022. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/SPORTS M2 D

Mystics at Fever

Tuesday, 7 p.m., ESPN3 (streaming)

JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST

Jake Higgins and Maryland reached their second consecutive
NCAA title game; they will face seventh-seeded Cornell on Monday.

BY PATRICK STEVENS

east hartford, conn. — Sat-

urday’s wait was worth it for the

Maryland men’s lacrosse team.

The top-seeded Terrapins

started their NCAA tournament

semifinal at Rentschler Field

four hours late after weather

snarled the day’s schedule, then

finished off Princeton, 13-8, to

move within a victory of an

undefeated season.

Logan Wisnauskas scored four

goals to become Maryland’s ca-

reer leading scorer, Keegan Khan

had three goals and two assists,

and Logan McNaney made a

career-high 19 saves for Mary-

land, which has won 34 of its past

35 games — the lone loss coming

against Virginia in last year’s

national title game.

Maryland (17-0) will meet

s eventh-seeded Cornell (14-4), a

17-10 winner over sixth-seeded

Rutgers earlier Saturday, in Mon-

day’s title game. The Terps will

play in their seventh champion-

ship game in 12 seasons under

Coach John Tillman while aim-

ing to become the first undefeat-

ed national champion since Vir-

ginia in 2006.

The Terps also became the first

team to reach back-to-back title

games with an undefeated record

since 1981-82 North Carolina,

which won the championship

each season.

It wasn’t as overwhelming of a

performance as Maryland has

become accustomed to. The

Terps crushed Vermont and Vir-

ginia to reach the semifinals for

the ninth time since 2011 but

needed a more workmanlike ef-

fort to dispatch Princeton for the

second time this season.

“It’s a semifinal game, so you

expect it to be tough,” Tillman

said. “We won the game by five

goals, and we didn’t even feel like

we played great. Sometimes we

have to catch ourselves and be

like, ‘That’s a good team we just

beat.’ ”

SEE MARYLAND ON D10

Terrapins tame Tigers to reach national title game

MARYLAND 13,

PRINCETON 8

JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST

Nationals center fielder Victor Robles launched his first home run

since Aug. 4 and had six RBI in Saturday’s doubleheader opener.

BY ANDREW GOLDEN

Manager Dave Martinez joked
after the Washington Nationals’
13-7 victory over the Colorado
Rockies to open a doubleheader
Saturday that he wished he could
bottle that offense and carry it
over to the next game.
At times, the Nationals have
shown they can score runs in
bunches, as they did in Saturday’s

first game. At other times, they

struggle mightily to find clutch

hits, leading to results such as

their 3-2 loss in the nightcap at

Nationals Park.

“We just couldn’t get that big

hit with guys on base,” Martinez

said. “These doubleheaders some-

times go sideways a little bit.”

Big hits theoretically can come

from anywhere, but a strong per-

formance by a player near the

bottom of the order — say, Victor

Robles — can provide the unex-

pected spark that this lineup

needs. That’s what happened in

the first game, when Robles drove

in six runs, including three on a

fourth-inning home run — his

first of the season.

As the ball left his bat, Robles

made sure he had the perfect view

to admire it, walking backward

down the first base line. When the

ball curved inside the left field

foul pole, his backward walk

turned into a backward skip, and

then the center fielder flipped his

bat before trekking around the

bases.

“For there to be a lot of home

runs, you have to hit the first one

first,” he said through an inter-

preter. “I’m very happy today I hit

the first one, so hopefully many

more to come.”

Robles turned around a 1-2

curveball for that three-run hom-

er. It was the No. 8 hitter’s first of

the season — and his first since

Aug. 4, when he blasted one

against Philadelphia.

Washington trailed early after

the Rockies’ C.J. Cron hit a first-

inning, three-run moonshot off

Aaron Sanchez. Nelson Cruz hit a

two-run single in the bottom half

SEE NATIONALS ON D5

Robles rediscovers power stroke as Nats earn split

NATIONALS 13-2,

ROCKIES 7-3

BY KAREEM COPELAND

uncasville, conn. — Washing-

ton Mystics Coach Mike Thibault

was thrilled to claim Kennedy

Burke off waivers on the day the

WNBA season started. What

seemed to be a simple addition to

help the team’s depth turned out

to be so much more.

Burke was in the starting lineup

again and tied for the team high

with 13 points during Saturday

night’s 79-71 loss to the Connecti-

cut Sun at Mohegan Sun Arena. A

notable segment of Mystics fans

had hoped the team would retain

University of Maryland favorite

Katie Benzan, an undrafted rook-

ie, but Burke has done a bit of

everything since returning from

playing overseas. The 6-foot-1

wing entered Saturday’s game av-

eraging career highs in points

(9.0), rebounds (2.0) and steals

(1.5). She added three rebounds,

three steals and an assist against

the Sun.

“From the first time she played

with us... she was very aggres-

sive,” Mystics forward Tianna

Hawkins said. “She just got in and

fit in where she could, and she

hasn’t backed down. She’s a com-

petitor, and she’s going to give her

all every night. And she has a lot of

confidence — I know that.”

The versatility of Burke’s game

is what Thibault loves. She can put

the ball on the floor and get to the

rim, or she can knock down catch-

and-shoot jumpers from the pe-

rimeter. On defense, she can de-

fend every position but center.

There has been no hesitation to

Burke’s game; she has been ener-

getic and aggressive while fitting

in seamlessly.

The Mystics’ offense was

bogged down for much of Satur-

day’s game, and it was Burke who

came through with timely baskets

to keep them in the mix. Her sec-

ond-quarter three-pointer ended

an 11-0 run and cut the Sun’s lead

to 29-26. Burke also buried two

three-pointers during an 8-3

third-quarter run that gave Wash-

ington (6-3) a 47-46 lead.

The Sun (6-2) controlled most

of the game as the Mystics shot

40.0 percent, but Connecticut

never led by double digits. After

Washington used a 17-5 run that

spanned the third and fourth

quarters to grab a 66-62 lead, the

Sun used a 15-2 stretch to take a

nine-point edge that the visitors

never recovered from.

SEE MYSTICS ON D7

S urprising

contributor

Burke can’t

lift Mystics

SUN 79,

MYSTICS 71

Rockies at Nationals

Today, 1:35 p.m., MASN2

NCAA men’s lacrosse, final

Maryland vs. Cornell

In East Hartford, Conn.

Tomorrow, 1 p.m., ESPN

boston — In the
NBA playoffs, the
games need a
good story.
Without one, they
are merely
matchups that tip
off too late and
drag on through
too-long television timeouts and
those extended shots of officials
huddled over a monitor,
deciding whether one player
grazing another actually was a
flagrant foul.
The best players write their
own stories. Jimmy Butler, the
Miami Heat’s main character,
knew what he was doing late
Friday night when he revealed
the private conversation he had
with franchise legend Dwyane
Wade before Game 6 of the
Eastern Conference finals.
According to Butler, Wade told
him to forget his knee soreness,
because no one cares anyway,
and to “continue to build your
legacy.”
A good storyteller such as
Butler would call this context. If
he needed a little more tension,
Butler could’ve used the detail
of teammates P.J. Tucker and
Markieff Morris telling him he
needed to drop 50 in the must-
win game. With that kind of
buildup, the audience could
further delight in the
conclusion: Butler’s sensational
night, when he scored a playoff
career-high 47 points to go with
nine rebounds, eight assists and
four steals — on the Boston
Celtics’ home court.
Now with another postseason
masterpiece — a performance
that can compare to some of the
greatest ever seen in
elimination games — Butler’s
legacy only intensifies the
anticipation of a Game 7
moment Sunday in Miami.
SEE BUCKNER ON D6

Butler pens

yet another

epic chapter

to his story

Candace
Buckner

SOCCER

Real Madrid holds off

Liverpool to wrap up the

Champions League. D3

SOCCER

After a road loss, D.C.

United takes bad vibes

into a schedule break. D3

BOXING

“Beltway Battles” series

is trying to make D.C. a

king in the ring again. D10

BY GUS GARCIA-ROBERTS

IN LOS ANGELES

O

n a recent Thursday

morning, James Gold-

stein sat down at his gi-

ant concrete slab of a

desk, which offered a command-

ing view of the overcast city be-

low, to knock out some business.

He wore tennis gear and a red

ball cap pulled over frizzy white

hair.

His assistant, Roberta, had

made neat stacks of emails, itin-

eraries and invoices, printed in

large type gentle on his 82-year-

old eyes. The paperwork reflect-

ed the odd daily existence of a

man who got famous by watch-

ing basketball — and rich in a

way he doesn’t like to talk about.

There were NBA games to at-

tend. Scouts for Yves Saint Lau-

rent would be coming by his

famed compound to plan future

photo shoots. That evening, 900

partyers were set to descend on

his in-home nightclub to pro-

mote “the awareness of the meta-

verse,” as Roberta described it.

And then there were his appli-

cations to hike the rent on the

senior citizens who live in his

empire of mobile home parks.

Goldstein has turned a pecu-

liar source of fame into a careful-

ly crafted legacy. For decades,

including throughout this NBA

season and the playoffs, he has

been a ubiquitous presence in

courtside seats in arenas from

coast to coast. Nobody but Gold-

stein, who has season tickets to

both the Los Angeles Lakers and

Clippers, is known to watch up-

ward of 100 games per season

from the best seats in the house.

SEE GOLDSTEIN ON D6

Hardwood a nd hardball

NBA ‘SuperFan’ Goldstein sits courtside and has a Hall of Fame wing.

But his senior-citizen tenants say his business tactics are out of bounds.

JOHN W. MCDONOUGH/SPORTS ILLUSTRATED/GETTY IMAGES

James Goldstein became wealthy owning

mobile home parks in California, allowing

him to attend up to 100 NBA games a year.

RONALD MARTINEZ/GETTY IMAGES

Eastern Conference finals
Game 7: Celtics at Heat
Today, 8:30 p.m., ESPN