SI:AM | Bones Hyland—and His Remarkable Story—Trump MVP Showdown in Philly

Plus, Karl-Anthony Towns’s monster game.

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland and I’m a new Bones Hyland fan. 

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You really should know about Bones Hyland

Every NBA fan had last night’s Nuggets–Sixers game circled on their calendars—and it lived up to the hype.

Leading MVP candidates Nikola Jokić and Joel Embiid were excellent in a back-and-forth thriller that Denver won in Philly, 114–110. Embiid had 34 points and nine rebounds (and had a couple of plays where he cooked Jokić one-on-one). Jokić finished with 22 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists (including this nasty feed on the break). He also hit a clutch circus shot after drawing contact from Embiid with just over 90 seconds left in the game.

For all the talk about the superstar centers, the difference was the benches. Philly’s trio of Embiid, James Harden and Tyrese Maxey combined for 77 points, but the bench combined for only 14. The Nuggets’ bench, meanwhile, put up 48 points, led by 21 from rookie Bones Hyland. (He hit deep threes on back-to-back possessions, leading to an excellent call from Mike Breen: “a Bones barrage from downtown!”)

Hyland grew up in nearby Wilmington, Del., and was greeted before the game by members of the Wilmington fire department who helped save his life when his house caught fire in 2018. Hyland and his brother survived the blaze, but his grandmother and cousin were killed. Hyland, who was a high school junior at the time, ruptured his patellar tendon when he jumped from a second-floor window to escape the fire.

Jokić and Embiid were the headliners, but, as Chris Mannix writes, the bigger story was the 21-year-old rookie from VCU:

“This game, though, was about Hyland, about a wide-eyed rookie born less than an hour away from here submitting a career-best performance in front of so many of the people who love him most. ‘He takes a tremendous amount of pride in where he’s from and the people who helped him get here,’ said Malone.”

After hearing about his difficult upbringing and seeing this adorable reunion with a former teacher after the game, how could you not love him?

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It was a great night for another big man

He won’t win the MVP like Embiid and Jokić might, but Karl-Anthony Towns had the best game of any of them last night. He erupted for 60 points on 19-of-31 shooting (7-of-11 from three) and added 17 rebounds in the Timberwolves’ 149–139 win over the Spurs.

That’s the highest-scoring game in the NBA this season, surpassing the 56-point games from Trae Young and LeBron James. It’s also the highest single-game scoring total in Minnesota franchise history. You can see his full highlight reel here.

A whopping 32 of KAT’s points came in the third quarter alone, giving him the fifth-most points in a single quarter in NBA history. When being interviewed after the game, Towns literally couldn’t believe he had a 32-point quarter.

And while we’re on the topic of eye-popping Timberwolves stat lines, get a load of what Malik Beasely did last night: zero points, zero assists, zero rebounds, zero blocks, zero steals, zero turnovers, zero fouls, 0-for-1 shooting in 18 minutes. At least he got some exercise.

The best of Sports Illustrated

Michael Hickey/Getty Images

In today’s Daily Cover, Pat Forde goes deep on the struggles Purdue has faced in the men’s NCAA tournament and why this could be the year that the perennially successful program finally breaks through.

Here are our experts’ picks for the women’s NCAA tournament. … Chris Mannix explains why New York City can’t simply drop its vaccine mandate to allow Kyrie Irving to play. … With Tom Brady’s return in mind, our photo department assembled a gallery of 24 athletes who came out of retirement.

📧 SI’s Morning Madness newsletter is back. Our free, daily NCAA tournament newsletter has everything you need to stay up-to-date and give you an edge when filling out your brackets. Sign up for free at SI.com/newsletters and read today’s edition here.

Around the Sports World

Fernando Tatis Jr. is recovering from a fractured wrist and weighing a surgery that would keep him sidelined for a few months. … The Steelers are signing Mitch Trubisky, who appears in line to succeed Ben Roethlisberger as the starter. … Davante Adams has reportedly told the Packers he won’t play under the franchise tag. … New teammates Josh Donaldson and Gerrit Cole, who feuded last year over sticky stuff, hashed things out before their first Yankees workout.

SIQ

It was on this day in 1869 that the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first professional team in baseball history. Paying players had previously been outlawed by the National Association of Base Ball Players (the first baseball organizing body), but a rule change after the 1868 season paved the way for the Red Stockings to turn pro. The Cincinnati club was quickly joined by 11 other teams in the professional ranks. Which of the following cities did not have a professional team in the NABP in 1869?

• Irvington, N.J.
• Washington, D.C.
• Hartford
• Troy, N.Y.

Check tomorrow’s newsletter for the answer.

Yesterday’s SIQ: What sport did Prince Albert II of Monaco compete in at five Olympics?

Answer: bobsled. Competing under the name Albert Grimaldi, the prince piloted two- and four-man bobsled teams at the 1988, ’92, ’94, ’98 and 2002 Winter Olympics. His best finish was 25th in the two-man bobsled at the 1988 Games in Calgary with brakeman Gilbert Bessi.

Prince Albert was an avid athlete in his younger years, participating in fencing, swimming and judo, among other sports. In a 2002 first-person piece in SI, the prince explained that he was first introduced to bobsled in ’85 and piloted a sled for the first time later that year. Three years later, he was in the Olympics.

Prince Albert is the son of Prince Rainier III and the American actress Grace Kelly. Two family members on his mother’s side (his grandfather and an uncle, both named Jack Kelly) won Olympic medals in rowing. His grandfather won three golds in single and double sculls at the 1920 and ’24 Olympics, and his uncle took home bronze in single sculls in ’56.

Other royals to compete at the Olympics include King Constantine II of Greece (who won gold in sailing at the 1960 Games) and David Cecil (aka Lord Burghley, the Sixth Marquess of Exeter, who won gold in the 400-meter hurdles at the ’28 Olympics and silver as part of the British 4X400-meter relay team in ’32). Prince Albert wasn’t even the only royal in the ’88 Olympics, though. He was joined by Prince Hubertus of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, a skier representing Mexico who was descended from German nobility. This ’88 SI article has too many details about his fascinating lineage to mention here, but I’d be remiss not to point out his rather impressive Olympic career. He skied at six Winter Olympics, including in ’14 at age 55. Oh, and he’s a musician who calls himself Andy Himalaya and Royal Disaster.

From the Vault: March 15, 2004

Ed Bailey/AP

The 2003–04 offseason was when baseball’s steroid scandal really snowballed. In December ’03, Barry Bonds testified before a federal grand jury as part of an investigation into his trainer Greg Anderson’s role in the BALCO steroid ring. In February ’04, Anderson was one of four men (including BALCO CEO Victor Conte) indicted on money laundering and drug distribution charges.

Steroid use in the game was no secret (Ken Caminiti admitted to SI’s Tom Verducci in 2002 that he had used steroids habitually throughout the later years of his career) but the BALCO investigation, which grew to encompass other sports, turned up the heat. The combination of Bonds’s spot at the center of the scandal and the timing of his chase of baseball’s home run record (he began ’04 just two homers behind Willie Mays for third all time) put the focus on him.

And so, about two weeks before Opening Day, the March 15, 2004, issue of SI devoted a lot of ink to steroids in baseball. Tom Verducci wrote a story headlined “Is Baseball in the Asterisk Era?” and interviewed commissioner Bud Selig for a Q&A, plus Jeff Greenfield explored the federal government’s attempt to rein in PED use.

“The 50-home-run plateau is becoming as archaic as the four-minute mile,” Verducci wrote, noting that there had been as many 50-homer seasons (18) between 1993 and 2003 as there had been in the 122 years of major league baseball before that. But MLB’s crackdown on drug use sparked by guys like Bonds has turned 50 homers into a noteworthy milestone once again. Since 2003, there have been just nine 50-homer seasons.

Check out more of SI’s archives and historic images at vault.si.com.