The Atlanta Hawks ownership group is working to finalize the sale of the team to a group led by billionaire equity and investment fund manager Antony Ressler, three people familiar with the process told USA TODAY Sports. They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly until the sale is complete. Ressler's group, which includes former NBA player Grant Hill and Jesse Itzler, the co-founder of Marquis Jet, will buy the Hawks from Bruce Levenson, Michael Gearon Jr., and other investors for $850 million. Itzler's wfie, Spanx founder Sara Blakely, and Clayton Dubilier & Rice partner Rick Schnall and BTIG co-founder Steven Starker are also part of Ressler's group. NBA owners must approve the sale of the team, but that is expected.

Known for pounding opponents inside with Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph, the Memphis Grizzlies are showing they can be just as effective outside the paint. Hey, they can even shoot 3-pointers. Mike Conley and Courtney Lee each scored 18 points, and the Grizzlies beat Portland 97-82 Wednesday night to grab the franchise's first 2-0 lead in a playoff series. The Grizzlies took full advantage of starting the playoffs at home for only the second time in their short postseason history. They had only won their playoff opener once before, and that was on the road in San Antonio in 2011. "All we did is just take care of home court, which we were supposed to do," Lee said. "We didn't want those guys to come in here and get one and switch home-court advantage in their favor." Gasol had 15 points, and Randolph and Beno Udrih added 10 apiece.

The Hawks are now up 2-0 in the series. That is a numerical fact. The Hawks are still heavy favorites to advance to the Eastern Conference finals. That is a logical conclusion based on the fact they need to beat Brooklyn just two more times and then likely the Washington Wizards, another team they handled during the regular season. Still, it is not hard to see that the playoffs have been different – even weird – for Atlanta so far. The beautiful offensive flow from the regular season isn't quite there. A bench that has been so productive all season is struggling to churn out baskets. Shots that normally go down are spinning out. A team that was almost automatic when it got a 10-point lead at any point from Oct. 29 to April 15, losing just a handful of times all season, has been in very real danger of blowing double-digit leads the past two fourth quarters. And yet, for anyone to draw big conclusions about Atlanta at this juncture would be to overlook the bottom line. Even though the Hawks haven't played to the standard they set in the regular season, they are still right on course to get through this series without too much stress and have plenty of room to improve.

"It's what you expect in the playoffs," Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said. "They're a very good team. They kept coming back and there were big possessions late in the game, and we feel fortunate we made just enough plays and got just enough stops. I think defensively we got a little bit better tonight, but we need to play better going forward and play better for longer stretches." Atlanta got to a franchise record 60-22 by doing one of two things night in and night out. If the Hawks didn't dominate someone from start-to-finish, they usually took control of a game with one killer stretch where their offense and defense fed off each other and opposing teams just got buried under the pressure of trying to guard all that ball movement backed up by waves and waves of shooters. So for Atlanta to make just 43% of its field goals in Game 1, then dip to 38.9% in Game 2 is unusual. It's disconcerting. It's not what the Hawks are supposed to do. "We had a lot of good looks," said guard Kyle Korver, who scored 17 points. "I thought we had a couple stretches where we got a little stagnant and too 1-on-1, but overall we just didn't shoot the ball that well for awhile." The Hawks' most stagnant stretch occurred in the second quarter when they missed nine straight shots and briefly fell behind 43-40, which was also right about the time the organization officially announced that an agreement had been reached to sell the team to a group led by Los Angeles-based billionaire Tony Ressler. At any other moment, this would have been big news in Atlanta, an organization that for years has dealt with ownership strife through warring factions of a group called, ironically, the "Atlanta Spirit." The Hawks' record this year has largely served as cover for much of that ugliness, which came spilling out to some degree when a 2012 e-mail with inappropriate, racially-charged sentiments from owner Bruce Levenson were discovered during an NBA investigation. General manager Danny Ferry, who put together this roster, has also been in limbo since comments from a scouting report about Luol Deng during a conference call with owners were made public. The Hawks weren't really interested in talking about the looming ownership change before Game 2, which is understandable. Budenholzer essentially cut off any questions about it, saying he was aware of the reports but that all the focus should be on the playoffs.

The 22-year-old son of Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Rand Paul is facing a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol following a collision in Kentucky last weekend. Authorities in Lexington, Ky., said William Hilton Paul crashed a maroon 2006 Honda Ridgeline truck into an unoccupied car at 11:24 a.m. Sunday. Police spokeswoman Sherelle Roberts said Paul was treated at the University of Kentucky hospital for minor injuries to his face. She said Paul was cited for operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol and failure to maintain insurance. 

A spokesman for Rand Paul's presidential campaign said it had no comment. The charges mark the third time that William Paul has had a run-in with the law involving alcohol, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported on its site Kentucky.com. Paul, a senior majoring in communications at the University of Kentucky, was cited for possession of alcohol by a minor in October 2013 at the Keeneland horse racetrack. In January of that year, he was arrested at the airport in Charlotte, N.C., and charged with simple assault of a 22-year-old flight attendant, consuming beer or wine underage, disorderly conduct and being intoxicated and disruptive on a US Airways flight. 

The Charlotte charges were dismissed later under a deferred prosecution program for first time offenders, after William Paul completed alcohol education classes and 150 hours of community service, the newspaper reported. Paul is scheduled to be arraigned on the latest charges May 12 in Fayette District Court. According to the citation, Lexington police found Paul in the driver's seat of the truck after it collided with a parked vehicle. The report said Paul was "belligerent" and had "a strong odor of alcohol," bloodshot eyes and slurred speech, Kentucky.com reported. He failed a field sobriety test and refused to take a blood test, according to the citation. 

Contributing: Associated Press

BANDUNG - Dozens of world record-breaking event participants play angklung most Siliwangi Stadium, Bandung, fainted and had to leave the premises. Deputy Secretary PMI Bandung, Ace Kusnadi, say, the participants alleged exhaustion and heat given location filled by participants which amounted to 20 thousand people. "Earlier there were about 50 students who received treatment," he told reporters on Thursday (04/23/2015). Most, said Ace, the participants experienced shortness of breath. "Maybe they are tired because from the entry in the queue too full," he said. Even one of the participants should be rushed to a nearby hospital for acute asthma who suffered a sudden relapse. Seeing the number of participants who received treatment, Mayor of London, Ridwan Kamil, who was present at the site, too, encouraged the participants were mostly from students Bandung. "Let's keep the spirit. Follow the instructions. All here is part of history, "he said. The record-breaking event as a series of peaks show Asian-African Conference (KAA), the 60th to be held on Friday, April 24th tomorrow. In the event title, the committee took the theme 'Angklung for The World'.