Chris Branch

6 days ago | nytimes.com | Chris Branch

📣 | This is The Athletic's daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! Win your regional today. Quick Word: Watch out for takes todayWe begin this morning with a narrative you'll hear parroted across all channels of sports media: This NBA Finals matchup is a TV ratings nightmare. Commissioner Adam Silver must be sick. All those rich executives crying poor about two mid-market teams playing in the league's biggest event on the calendar.

1 week ago | nytimes.com | Chris Branch

📣 | This is The Athletic's daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! I know it's surviving in a different form, but we still need to commemorate the coming end of "Inside the NBA." While You Were Sleeping: Knicks-Pacers lives another gameWhen you get this deep into the playoffs, LinkedIn phrases start appearing in your head. Perseverance. Mental fortitude. So on and so forth.

1 week ago | nytimes.com | Chris Branch

📣 | This is The Athletic's daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! Gather some assets today. While You Were Clinching: The Thunder have found their final formFor years, the NBA had an inside joke of sorts about Sam Presti. The Thunder general manager was always building, always hoarding assets, always making the smart move - but what was it all for? Kevin Durant, Paul George, Russell Westbrook. Superstars all out the door with no rings to show.

1 week ago | nytimes.com | Chris Branch

📣 | This is The Athletic's daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! Play offense and defense today. While You Were Sleeping: We almost have a full pictureIt's easy to get caught up in the day to day of these NHL and NBA playoffs, where night after night brings us game after game, each more important than the last.

1 week ago | nytimes.com | Chris Branch

📣 | This is The Athletic's daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! Don't throw your college pitcher too long today. While You Were Sleeping: At least they got 1Finally, for a night, there is peace in Carolina. A 3-1 series deficit isn't ideal, sure, but gone are the Hurricanes from a strange, ignominious place in the sports world - losing 15 straight conference final games.