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Knicks return to NBA Finals for the first time since 1999
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🚨 Headlines
⚾️ Houston hurls no-no: Astros starter Tatsuya Imai, plus relievers Steven Okert and Alimber Santa (in his debut!), combined to throw a no-hitter in Monday's 9-0 win over the Rangers, marking MLB's first no-no since 2024. This was Houston's seventh no-hitter since 2019, which is four more than any other team in that span.
🏀 All-NBA: MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander headlined the All-NBA First Team alongside Nikola Jokić, Victor Wembanyama, Luka Dončić and Cade Cunningham. Headlining the second and third teams? A whopping four players named Jalen (Brunson, Johnson, Duren) or Jaylen (Brown).
🥎 WCWS bracket set: The eight-team field is led by defending champion Texas, 12-time champion UCLA, 2012 champion Alabama, and five teams seeking their first title: Texas Tech, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Nebraska and Arkansas.
⚾️ Baseball bracket set: UCLA earned the No. 1 overall seed in the 64-team NCAA baseball tournament, which begins on Friday with 16 double-elimination regionals. Defending champion LSU, who barely finished above .500 (30-28), missed the tournament for the first time since 2011.
🥍 Lax champs crowned: Princeton (D1) dominated Notre Dame to win its first title since 2001, while Northwestern (WD1) outlasted UNC to win its ninth title. Plus: Tufts (D3) won its third straight title, Middlebury (WD3) won its fifth straight title, Tampa (D2) won on a walk-off and Florida Southern (WD2) won its second title.
🏀 Party like it’s 1999
The Knicks cruised to a 130-93 victory over the Cavaliers on Monday night in Cleveland (where there were lots of Knicks fans!) to complete their second straight series sweep and reach the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999.
A month to remember: The Knicks have outscored their opponents by 262 points during their current 11-game winning streak. How dominant is that? It's the best point differential during any 11-game stretch (regular season or playoffs) by any team. Ever.
April 25: Knicks 114, Hawks 98
April 28: Knicks 126, Hawks 97
April 30: Knicks 140, Hawks 89
May 4: Knicks 137, 76ers 98
May 6: Knicks 108, 76ers 102
May 8: Knicks 108, 76ers 94
May 10: Knicks 144, 76ers 114
May 19: Knicks 115, Cavaliers 104
May 21: Knicks 109, Cavaliers 93
May 23: Knicks 121, Cavaliers 108
May 25: Knicks 130, Cavaliers 93
Put another way: No team has ever entered the NBA Finals on a bigger heater. Only two teams have had a longer winning streak in a single postseason (2017 Warriors, 1999 Spurs), and neither of them were annihilating the competition during their respective runs like these Knicks.
King of New York: Jalen Brunson was named unanimous MVP of the Eastern Conference Finals after averaging 25.5 points and 7.8 assists. It was the latest feat for the Knicks' humble superstar, who is quickly becoming a franchise legend — and an NBA icon.
Mike Brown's been on NBA benches for nearly 30 years, coaching some of the greatest players in the history of basketball. And he can't stop raving about the way Brunson leads, about how hard Brunson works.
"You know, most superstars I've been around work extremely hard. But his work ethic, man, it's off the charts," Brown said Monday. "On top of that, you know, he's pretty even-keeled. Never gets too high, never gets too low. And when your leader's that way — which you need to have, especially when you hit adversity — it's easy to get everybody else to follow."
Asked if that temperament and consistency reminded him of anybody he's been around, Brown had two immediate answers. "Tim Duncan and Steph Curry," he said. "They're not the same player, but man — the aura that those guys have, the quiet strength that they have, is unbelievable."
The last word: "I feel like the word 'hope' has been gone from the New York Knicks for a long time," Karl-Anthony Towns said after the game. "And for [us] to be part of this team that revives the word 'hope' in the city, it's something really, really special. And it's an honor."
Further reading:
🌍 The world in photos
🇨🇦 Montreal, Canada — The Hurricanes beat the Canadiens, 3-2 (OT), on Monday night courtesy of Andrei Svechnikov's game-winner to notch their second straight overtime victory and take a 2-1 series lead in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Home woes: The Canadiens are now just 2-5 at home during these playoffs, making them the eighth team in NHL history to lose five of their first seven home games in a single postseason.
🏴 London, England — Arsenal put the finishing touches on the club's long-awaited title during Sunday's Premier League finale, Tottenham survived relegation and Pep Guardiola managed his final game for Manchester City.
Elsewhere in Europe: Barcelona blanked Lyon, 4-0, to win the Women's Champions League for the fourth time in six years … AC Milan and Juventus both failed to qualify for the Champions League for the first time since the tournament rebranded from the European Cup in 1992.
🇫🇷 Paris, France — Nishesh Basavareddy, an American wild card ranked 148th in the world, stunned No. 7 Taylor Fritz on Sunday at the French Open. Next up for Basavareddy: Alex Michelsen, another fellow American.
More history for Djoker: Novak Djokovic, who rallied for a first-round victory, has now appeared in 82 men's Grand Slam tournaments, breaking a tie with Roger Federer and Feliciano López for the most ever.
🇬🇷 Athens, Greece — Olympiacos clinched their fourth EuroLeague title on Sunday with a 92-85 win over Real Madrid in front of a home crowd that included Greece's own Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Remember these guys? 12-year NBA veteran Evan Fournier (pictured above) was named EuroLeague Final Four MVP after leading Olympiacos with 20 points in the final. And Madrid's leading scorers were 10-year NBA vet Trey Lyles and former No. 5 overall pick Mario Hezonja.
💯 Big Numbers
🏎️ 0.0233 seconds
Felix Rosenqvist won the 110th running of the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday in the closest finish ever, overtaking Davis Malukas on the final lap to seize victory by 0.0233 seconds. Relive the final moments.
More racing: Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli won the Canadian Grand Prix for his fourth straight victory to extend his lead atop the Formula 1 standings; Daniel Suárez won an emotional Coca-Cola 600, paying tribute to his mentor, Kyle Busch, following his untimely death.
⚽️ $275 million
Hull City beat Middlesbrough, 1-0, in Saturday's Championship playoff final on a stoppage-time goal from Oli McBurnie, clinching promotion to the Premier League for the first time since 2017. Hull's victory in "The Richest Game in Sports" will net the club at least $275 million in guaranteed broadcast and commercial revenues over the next three seasons.
Hull's high-wire act: The Tigers barely avoided relegation last season, hired an unknown manager last summer, were hit with a restrictive transfer embargo and only snuck into the playoff on the final day of the season. Despite all that tumult in the past 12 months, they'll take their talents to England's top flight later this summer.
⚾️ 8 triples
Diamondbacks speedster Corbin Carroll hit two more triples on Sunday, giving him a league-leading eight on the season — twice as many as anyone else. Carroll, who made his MLB debut in 2022, is now one of just four active players with 50 career triples, joining Andrew McCutchen (debuted in 2009), Mike Trout (2011) and Starling Marte (2012).
Wild stat: Carroll has more triples this season than 21 teams. He also has a .974 OPS, which leads the NL and ranks third in all of baseball.
⛳️ 30 under par
Wyndham Clark played a flawless round of golf on Sunday to win the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, shooting an 11-under 60 to end the week at 30 under par, three strokes ahead of Si Woo Kim (-27) and five ahead of Scottie Scheffler (-25).
Clark the closer: This was the second time that Clark shot a 60 or better in the final round en route to victory, something only three other PGA Tour golfers in history have accomplished even once.
💉 Enhanced Games: ‘Steroid Olympics’ or infomercial?
The inaugural Enhanced Games came and went on Sunday in Sin City, where one world record was (unofficially) broken in the final event of the night and 42 athletes — encouraged to use performance-enhancing drugs — largely proved there's no shortcut to athletic achievement.
Jeff Eisenberg, Yahoo Sports:
The 42 swimming, track and weightlifting athletes who competed Sunday may have come to Las Vegas to chase personal records and millions in prize money, but the organizers of the Enhanced Games had greater ambitions than merely launching a new sports franchise. They sought to use the event to de-stigmatize the use of performance-enhancing substances and to entice consumers to buy them.
Enhanced, which went public earlier this month at a $1.2 billion valuation, is selling a range of performance-medicine products and longevity and wellness treatments to the public through its telehealth platform. What better marketing tool, organizers reason, than watching top athletes openly use some of those products to help them perform superhuman feats?
There were times where as many as 60,000 viewers tuned into Sunday evening's livestream to watch the Enhanced Games, but the event rarely delivered any jaw-dropping performances to hold the audience's attention.
At one point, swimming analyst Kurt Mills Hanson launched into an on-air sales pitch for viewers to check out the "enhancement protocols" that Enhanced sells on its website. "If you're a youngster, go check them out," he concluded.
📺 Watchlist: Tuesday, May 26
🏒 NHL Playoffs
The Golden Knights host the Avalanche in Game 4 tonight (9pm, ESPN) as they look to complete an unlikely sweep against the Western Conference's No. 1 seed.
A (nearly) insurmountable deficit: This is the 218th time in NHL history that a team has gone down 3-0 in a best-of-seven series. The only four teams to come back to win that series? The 1942 Maple Leafs, 1975 Islanders, 2010 Flyers and 2014 Kings.
🏀 NBA Playoffs
The Thunder host the Spurs tonight in Game 5 (8:30pm ET, NBC) as the Western Conference Finals, tied 2-2, has become a best-of-three series.
Lock-down D: San Antonio's stifling defense limited OKC to 82 points in Sunday's blowout victory, marking the first time since April 2022 that the Thunder were held under 90 points.
More to watch:
🎾 Tennis: French Open (5am, TNT/HBO Max) … Coco Gauff (8:50am) and Jannik Sinner (2:15pm) headline the final day of Round 1 action.
⚾️ MLB: Braves at Red Sox (6:45pm, TBS) … Atlanta's Spencer Strider (2-0, 3.00 ERA) vs. Boston's Ranger Suárez (2-2, 2.40 ERA).
🚲 Cycling: Giro d'Italia (7:45am, HBO Max) … Jonas Vingegaard leads by 2:26 in the race for the Maglia Rosa entering Stage 16.
🏒 Ice Hockey Worlds: USA vs. Austria (10:20am, NHL) … The Americans must win their group stage finale to advance to the quarterfinals.
Got plans tonight? Gametime is the best place to score last-minute tickets to the events in your city. Get tickets now!
🏀 NBA trivia
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokić, Victor Wembanyama, Luka Dončić and Cade Cunningham made the All-NBA First Team, unveiled Sunday.
Question: Those five players were born in five different countries. Can you name them?
Hint: Three Europe, two North America.
Answer at the bottom.
🇺🇸 Who will make the squad?
The USMNT will unveil its 26-man World Cup roster today (3pm ET, Fox) in New York City before training camp opens tomorrow outside Atlanta.
The latest buzz: The roster appears to have been leaked, removing much of the intrigue surrounding today's festivities. As players arrive in New York, attention has turned toward injuries, form and readiness.
Now streaming: A documentary team followed the USMNT for the past four years, chronicling their journey from the 2022 World Cup to this summer's tournament and distilling 600+ hours of footage into a five-part series. Episodes 1 and 2 are available now on HBO Max, and Episode 3 premieres tonight (9pm).
Trivia answer: Canada (Gilgeous-Alexander), Serbia (Jokić), France (Wembanyama), Slovenia (Dončić) and United States (Cunningham)
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