Nuggets

After eating a lot of fast food, some of it on roller coasters, YouTuber Allen Ferrell has been banned by Six Flags from all of its amusement parks nationwide. For life.

McDonald’s chicken nuggets were apparently an ultra-processed food item too far for the folks at Six Flags’ Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio.

“This guest has been banned from all Six Flags parks for life,” a Cedar Point spokesman explained in an email Thursday to Cleveland TV station WKYC. “Safety is a cornerstone of our business and we have zero tolerance for inappropriate and unsafe behavior.”

Zero tolerance for inappropriate behavior? Zero? Where’s the fun in that?

“Our ride safety policy strictly prohibits all loose articles on rides, including food which can become a choking hazard,” the spokesperson continued.

“I had no idea that eating a 10-piece chicken nugget on a roller coaster would be a national headline, but here we are,” Ferrell told Fox 8 News in Cleveland.

He said he gets the park’s point with the ban, even though he’s been going there since he was a kid and is a huge fan of the operation.

“I understand. And we kind of worked it out,” he told Fox 8 News. “They just don’t want other people getting hurt on the ride. But me personally, it was a really fun challenge.”

Ferrell’s shtick on social media is accepting challenges from his followers and then taping himself attempting to do what they propose. Eat a McDonald’s Big Mac inside a Burger King. Throw a plunger at a Target sign. Bowl blindfolded until he gets a strike.

“If anyone asks,” Ferrell tells one apparently bored ride operator in the video that documented this particular coaster crime, “I do not have chicken nuggets in my underwear.”

Ferrell decided to try the challenge on the park’s Millennium Force ride, a “looming giant amongst a park full of them,” a coaster that was “designed for the purpose of proving bigger is better.” A roller coaster that when it was created in 2000 “demanded an all-new category just to classify its one of a kind nature,” giving rise to the “giga-coaster.” According to Cedar Point, as all of this verbiage is, Millennium Force “shoots riders over hills, past lagoons and through tunnels, all at unthinkable speeds.”

The ride actually tops out at 93 mph, a speed often thought about on freeways in the Los Angeles area when traffic is going 8 mph. It’s quite thinkable to eat fast food in a car in L.A. But it turns out what was really unthinkable was Ferrell getting all 10 nuggets down the hatch before the Six Flags ride was over.

In the video, which had almost 800,000 views on YouTube as of Friday afternoon, he morphs from happy snacking dude to dude moaning in discomfort, struggling to shove nuggets in his mouth while unintentionally applying dipping sauce to his face via G-force.

“Oh, I failed,” Ferrell says, wiping off the face-sauce as the coaster pulls up to the platform and someone in line blurts, “Are those chicken nuggets?”

Turns out he snarfed seven of them, he confesses to the two guys in front of him in the coaster car. Ferrell said later that he was glad to be in the back row because it meant nobody behind him got sauced.

That said, watching the sweet-and-sour sauce flying in slow motion is actually quite amusing. But eating nuggets that have been in one’s underwear?

The perma-ban sounds like the least of his problems.

The Minnesota Timberwolves eliminated Nikola Jokic’s Denver Nuggets while the New York Knicks put on one of the most dominant displays in NBA playoff history, destroying Atlanta to advance, and the surging Sixers beat the visiting Celtics again to force a decisive Game 7

Sixth-seeded Minnesota will play the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference semifinals after completing a 110-98 win on Thursday for a 4-2 series upset defeat of third-seeded Denver.

Three-time NBA Most Valuable Player Jokic top-scored for Denver with 28 but it was not enough to fend off the dogged Timberwolves, who were playing without star man Anthony Edwards due to injury.

The clash in Minneapolis was tight throughout, with no team gaining a double-digit lead until the game’s dying moments.

The Timberwolves edged the first half, leading 57-50 at the break.

Jokic roared to life. The Serbian superstar scored 14 points in the third quarter alone to ensure a nail-biting finish.

Having already been ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct from game four after a shoving match, Jokic enraged the home crowd by sparking another brawl, with Jaylen Clark.

With his Timberwolves leading by five with 90 seconds remaining, Jaden McDaniels sank a long jump-shot for two to rouse the home fans and force a Nuggets timeout.

When play resumed Denver could only turn over the ball again. McDaniels closed out the win with two free throws, ending his night with a career-high 32 points, to top-score overall.

“It’s a great night. It’s a great victory for us. Hopefully … we’ve got 12 more to go,” said Minnesota coach Chris Finch.

“We came into these playoffs not trying to beat Denver, but trying to win a championship.”

A visibly crestfallen Jokic, whose side last won the NBA championship just three years ago, said they “just didn’t do a good job”.

“I needed to play better. I must play better,” he added.

Edwards – out with a bone bruise and hyper-extended left knee – could return for the Timberwolves’ series with the high-flying Spurs.

Knicks crush Hawks in record-setting rout

Elsewhere on Thursday, the Knicks routed the Atlanta Hawks 140-89.

It was the most points scored and the biggest win by the Knicks in a playoff game, setting up an Eastern Conference semifinal with either the Celtics or the 76ers, who are tied 3-3 after a Philadelphia win.

The Knicks wrapped up their 4-2 series victory in emphatic style, leading the Hawks by as many as 61 points before benching their starters for the final quarter.

New York’s 47-point half-time lead, at 83-36, was the widest in NBA postseason history.

OG Anunoby top-scored with 29 points, including 26 in the first half, before he was rested. None of New York’s starters played more than 29 minutes.

“We can’t just meet the moment, we’ve got to exceed it, and I thought we did a great job of doing that tonight,” said Karl-Anthony Towns, who recorded a triple-double with 12 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists.

Having finished third in the Eastern Conference, the heavily favoured Knicks had been down 2-1 early in the playoff series, before roaring back.

They are the first team to advance to the East’s semifinals – their fourth straight year of reaching that stage.

The Hawks briefly led at the start of the game, going up 11-9 before the wheels dramatically came off. They trailed 40-15 at the end of the first quarter.

The final 51-point margin of defeat was not quite the largest in playoff history, which stands at 58 points.

“Obviously you hate to lose anything. And to lose the way we did, I think, particularly given the enthusiasm and support that we’ve had from the people in this building … disappointed on a lot of levels,” said Hawks coach Quin Snyder.

Sixers dump Celtics again to send series to Game 7

The Celtics-76ers playoff series is headed for a decisive game seven in Massachusetts after Philadelphia beat Boston 106-93.

The Celtics had held a 3-1 series lead, but the 76ers proved dominant on their home court to make it 3-3.

Tyrese Maxey top-scored with 30 points. Paul George added 23, and 2023 Most Valuable Player Joel Embiid poured in another 19, plus 10 rebounds and eight assists.

It is the 23rd playoff series between the two historic rivals – an NBA record.

Edward’s teammate Donte DiVincenzo was also hurt as Minnesota rallied to beat Denver and take a 3-1 NBA playoff series lead.

Ayo Dosunmu came off the bench to score ‌a career-high 43 points on 13-for-17 shooting, and the short-handed Minnesota Timberwolves pulled away for a 112-96 win over the ⁠Denver Nuggets in Game ⁠4 of their Western Conference quarterfinals series on Saturday night in Minneapolis.

The victory, which gave Minnesota a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series, came at a steep cost for the Timberwolves, who lost two key starters ⁠due to injury.

Anthony Edwards, a four-time All-Star and the team’s top scorer, left in the second quarter and did not return because of a left knee injury. Earlier, in the first half, Timberwolves guard Donte DiVincenzo injured his right leg on ⁠a noncontact play. Early reports indicated he might have ruptured his Achilles tendon.

Naz Reid added 17 points off the bench for Minnesota. Julius Randle finished with 15 points and nine rebounds, and Rudy Gobert grabbed a game-high-tying 15 rebounds to go along with four points.

Jamal Murray scored 30 points on 10-for-25 shooting to lead Denver. Nikola Jokic finished with 24 points, 15 rebounds and nine assists. ‌However, he shot 8-for-22 from the field and missed all three of his 3-point attempts.

Thunder 121, Suns 109

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored a playoff-career-high 42 points to lift Oklahoma City to a road win over Phoenix.

The reigning NBA Most Valuable Player finished 15 of 18 from the floor with eight assists to give the Thunder a commanding 3-0 lead in their first-round Western Conference playoff series.

Oklahoma City have won 11 consecutive first- round games. Playing without Jalen Williams, who suffered a hamstring strain in Wednesday’s Game 2 victory, the Thunder leaned even more heavily on Gilgeous-Alexander.

Dillon Brooks led the Suns with ⁠33 points while Jalen Green added 26 points. Devin Booker scored 16 points, but was ⁠held to 6-of-16 shooting from the floor.

Knicks 114, Hawks 98

Karl Anthony-Towns totalled 20 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds for his first career playoff triple-double as New York earned a victory over host Atlanta and evened their Eastern Conference first-round series at two games apiece.

Towns ensured Game 5 on Tuesday ⁠in New York will not be an elimination game for the Knicks and also ensured the series returns to Atlanta for Game 6 on Thursday. Towns posted his fifth career triple-double ⁠in any game. He also notched the seventh postseason triple-double in New York’s ⁠history. Anunoby led the Knicks with 22 points and 10 rebounds for his fourth career playoff double-double.

CJ McCollum led the Hawks with 17 points but was held to three points after half time. Nickell Alexander-Walker added 15 and hit five 3s, but the Hawks were a dreadful 10 of 41 (24.4 percent) from behind the arc.

Magic ‌113, Pistons 105

Paolo Banchero and Desmond Bane scored 25 points apiece as Orlando withstood a fourth-quarter rally to beat visiting Detroit in Game 3 of their first-round Eastern Conference playoff series.

Banchero had 12 rebounds and nine assists for the eighth-seeded Magic, ‌who improved ‌to 7-1 in their last eight home postseason games, including play-in tournament games. Bane was 7-for-9 from 3-point range.

Cunningham scored 12 of his 27 points in the fourth quarter for the Pistons. Tobias Harris scored 23 points, Ausar Thompson had 17 and Duncan Robinson added 10.