An incredible sports week ahead, plus RIP Stacey King
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Good morning! What a week ahead. Coming up:
- 🫨 MSG frenzy (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7340406/2026/06/07/new-york-city-knicks-nba-finals-27-years-trump/)
- 🎾 Zverev’s breakthrough (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7339476/2026/06/07/french-open-final-alexander-zverev-flavio-cobolli-result-analysis/)
- 🙏 Beloved broadcaster dies (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7340197/2026/06/07/stacey-king-bulls-dies-obituary/)
Calendars: Let’s take a deep breath
To prepare for this week, I kept looking at the calendar and vacillating between stressed and pumped. Wow, there are so many big games. Amazing, right? But also … so much to care about. Yay?
So this might be more of a personal exercise, but I think it can benefit us all. A guidebook to the week ahead, which is one of the most important in recent sports history:
Tonight: Game 3, MSG
I never really understood the mystique of Madison Square Garden until Jan. 19, 2015, my first game there. I was living in New York and went to see a god-awful Knicks team play my hometown Pelicans. I expected a mediocre atmosphere due to the quality of both teams: New Orleans entered the game 20-20, the Knicks 5-36.
The place was still jammed, still rocking, still impressive. For a 5-36 team!
I felt the energy immediately and was shocked.
So about tonight:
- The Knicks will play their first finals home game since 1999. The cheapest ticket available is north of $5,000. If the fans show up for 5-36, what do you think this will be like? Part of me wonders whether it will be too frenzied.
- And then there is the president. Donald Trump plans to attend this game, which has made the hosting process a little more intricate. Security will be comprehensive. There will be no bags allowed, and in what bummed me out from afar, no watch parties outside the arena (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7340020/2026/06/07/knicks-spurs-madison-square-garden-donald-trump-security-watch-parties/).
- That’s before we even mention the game itself, in which San Antonio will be fighting for its playoff life down 2-0. No NBA team has come back from down 3-0 to win a playoff series. Again, this might be too intense. On that note, James L. Edwards III’s essay about his own anxiety and how it relates to Jalen Brunson was touching. It’s worth a read today (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7337156/2026/06/07/jalen-brunson-knicks-nba-finals-pressure/).
Prepare yourself. This is a night even Madison Square Garden has never seen before (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7340406/2026/06/07/new-york-city-knicks-nba-finals-27-years-trump/).
Tomorrow: Game 4, Stanley Cup
Not to be outdone, the NHL’s title series has been madness. The Golden Knights are up 2-1 against the Hurricanes, but if you’ve watched the games, they’ve mostly felt like a flurry of sticks, pucks and fists that end with a roll of the dice and a random result. Pierre LeBrun called Vegas’ double-overtime win in Game 3 “bedlam,” (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7339331/2026/06/07/golden-knights-hurricanes-stanley-cup-final-game-3/) and I think that’s appropriate.
What happens tomorrow? Who knows! I mean that as a compliment. We don’t even know who’s starting in goal (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7340489/2026/06/07/andersen-bussi-hurricanes-goalie-stanley-cup-game-4/) for Carolina yet.
More after a quick news break.
News to Know
- Clive Brunskill / Getty Images
- Zverev breaks through Alexander Zverev is finally a Grand Slam champion after defeating (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7339476/2026/06/07/french-open-final-alexander-zverev-flavio-cobolli-result-analysis/) Flavio Cobolli in five sets yesterday to win a French Open that felt more about surviving than winning. Still, Zverev entered as the No. 2 seed and avoided the upsets so many of his counterparts suffered. The 29-year-old was clearly the best men’s player without a Grand Slam title before yesterday.
And yet, as Charlie Eccleshare wrote in a nuanced column, Zverev’s uncomfortable status in the sport remains (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7340383/2026/06/07/alexander-zverev-grand-slam-title-domestic-abuse-allegations/).
- King dead at 59 Beloved former NBA player and Bulls broadcaster Stacey King died at 59, the team announced yesterday. The news came as a shock to many, as King had endeared himself to the Bulls fanbase via a four-year stint as a player — which coincided with the first Michael Jordan-led three-peat — and 19 years on TV for the team. Read our obituary (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7340197/2026/06/07/stacey-king-bulls-dies-obituary/).
More news:
- As she preps for a doubles comeback this week, Serena Williams said she’s open to playing singles again, too. Watch out (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7339399/2026/06/07/serena-williams-tennis-comeback-queens-grass-wimbledon/).
- Nelly Korda is finally the U.S. Women’s Open champion. She beat a stacked field for her fourth major win (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7340968/2026/06/07/nelly-korda-u-s-womens-open-2026/).
- Men’s golfer J.T. Poston survived a playoff to win the Memorial yesterday, the biggest victory of his career (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7340835/2026/06/07/j-t-poston-memorial-playoff-ryan-gerard/).
- Oilers star Connor McDavid won the Ted Lindsay Award, given to the NHL’s most outstanding player, for a fifth time. It puts him in rare company (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7323867/2026/06/07/ted-lindsay-award-mcdavid-winner/).
- Mondo Duplantis, who has won every pole-vaulting event he’s participated in since 2023, lost yesterday. He was dumbfounded, too (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7340171/2026/06/07/mondo-duplantis-pole-vault-diamond-league/).
- Copy, paste: Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski set the MLB record for velocity by a starting pitcher … again. More wild stats here (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7340116/2026/06/07/jacob-misiorowski-brewers-velocity-record-rockies/).
📰Find more news here 24/7 (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/news/).
Calendars (Cont.): About the rest of the week
Yes, we’re only on Wednesday. Let’s keep going:
- Wednesday: NBA Finals, Game 4 We’re getting into hypothetical territory here, but either the Knicks are going for a sweep or trying to stave off a tie series against the Spurs. Tickets to this one are going for minimum $10,000 as of send time.
Either way, Ben Stiller will be filming (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7340808/2026/06/07/meet-the-knicks-fan-shooting-nba-finals-courtside-magic-on-his-iphone-hollywood-legend-ben-stiller/).
Thursday: World Cup
Oh right, the world’s biggest sporting event kicks off on North American soil just three days from now. And at the moment, the headlines are not great:Iraq star player Aymen Hussein was questioned by authorities for seven hours before being allowed into the United States, and it’s one of multiple visa issues we’ve seen over the past two weeks for World Cup teams. Read more here (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7340164/2026/06/07/aymen-hussein-iraq-questioned-usa/).
The locals are also clashing, as Tom Bogert detailed yesterday. Why can’t the 1994 USMNT stars and the present team get along? (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7340064/2026/06/07/usmnt-1994-lalas-wynalda-weah-world-cup/).
The entire geopolitical and economic moment surrounding this World Cup, at least in the final hours before kickoff, is … complicated. Jerry Brewer wondered: Who’s this World Cup for? (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7332310/2026/06/08/fifa-world-cup-2026-trump-ticket-prices-fans/).
We’ll have a full preview of the actual action Thursday. Oh, and there’s also Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final this night.
- Friday: USMNT, CWS The big red circle on the proverbial calendar is here, the night on which the United States makes its 2026 World Cup debut against Paraguay in Los Angeles. There has never been more pressure on the group of players we’ve called the “golden generation” — maybe unfairly — for years now.
Also Friday: The College World Series starts in the middle of the afternoon. Fun day.
Caught up? I feel better. Almost done for today:
Watch Guide
📺 NBA: Spurs at Knicks
8:30 p.m. ET on ABC
We discussed above, of course, but this will clearly be must-see TV for many reasons.📺 MLB: Yankees at Guardians
6:40 p.m. ET on FS1
Need some basketball counterprogramming? Ping this game between two division leaders. I’m still intrigued by how New York plays without its injured stars, most recently Aaron Judge. This is a good test.📺 WNBA: Fever at Mystics
7 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network and Peacock
Both of these teams need a boost after a meh start to the season. Most eyes, of course, will be on the forever-debated Caitlin Clark, but there are other interesting players (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7335097/2026/06/05/fever-dream-kelsey-mitchell-caitlin-clark-wnba/) here, too.
Pulse Picks
Six weeks before he died, police pulled over Brandon Clarke and found kratom in his car, which he brushed off: “It’s just kratom.” His death has brought the drug under scrutiny. Read this important story today (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7336190/2026/06/08/brandon-clarke-death-kratom-scrutiny/).
We’re not at the halfway point yet, but Jim Bowden has early MLB All-Star picks. See them here (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7333967/2026/06/08/mlb-all-star-early-selections-shohei-ohtani-ben-rice-matt-olson/).
Wait, why do NHL players warm up by kicking soccer balls? (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7339998/2026/06/08/nhl-soccer-warmup-world-cup/).
Over in F1, Kimi Antonelli is crushing. His rivals are out of answers (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7340188/2026/06/07/kimi-antonelli-george-russell-f1-title-points/).
Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Our story on Simone Biles’ health scare last week. Read it here (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7338884/2026/06/06/simone-biles-health-scare-olympics/).
Most-read on the website yesterday: ☝️
📫 That’s all for now! Say hello at thepulse@theathletic.com, check out our other newsletters (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5803046/2025/12/31/the-athletic-newsletters-sign-up/) and connect with me on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/realchrisbranch) for more.
