MON EIGHT

With the Indiana Pacers just one win away from a trip to the NBA Finals, the team couldn't get it done in Game 5. The New York Knicks fought back,winning the contest 111-94and pushing the series to 3-2. It was a welcome sign for New York, which had mostly looked overmatched in previous games of the series. It may have also been a turning point for the Knicks, who finally have some momentum as the series shifts to Game 6 Saturday in Indianapolis. TNT analyst Charles Barkley may have summed it up best after Game 5, when he called Game 6 a "must-win" for the Pacers. His reasoning: If the Pacers drop two straight games and then have to go play a Game 7 in New York, the Knicks have a massive advantage. That puts a lot of pressure on the Pacers to finish the job in Game 6. Given what's at stake, that amount of pressure could prove overwhelming. Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton won't let that happen. Following Indiana's Game 5 loss, Haliburton urged histeammates to stay calmas the series heads to a Game 6, per ESPN. "We're a resilient group," Haliburton said after the game. "We always want to respond when things don't go well after a game like that. We understand what the stakes are. ... We're fine. There's no need to panic or anything." That's probably exactly what the Pacers need to hear after a disappointing performance in Game 5. Frustrations already seemed to be boiling over after the loss, as Pascal Siakam got into an awkward exchange with a reporter who questioned the Pacers' effort during the contest. "You good bro?... Who is this guy?" 😳👀Awkward exchange between Pascal Siakam and this reporter after Pacers Game 5 loss 😬pic.twitter.com/t3Y5bEeGhu — Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport)May 30, 2025 Throughout the entire playoffs, the Pacers have thrived on their ability to be calm in tense situations. The team has pulled offmultiple late-game comebacksin the postseason so far, showing poise when other teams would wilt under the pressure. At the center of all those comebacks is Haliburton, who has excelled most when the Pacers needed it. Given Haliburton's late-game heroics, he's the perfect person to tell the rest of his teammates to remain calm ahead of what should be a pressure-packed Game 6. If they can follow that advice, there's a good chance the Pacers will find themselves in the NBA Finals soon. If not, it's going to be much harder to remain calm if a Game 7 in New York is on the schedule.

MUNICH (AP) — European club soccer reaches its crowning moment with theChampions League finalin Munich on Saturday. This season's showpiece pits French champion Paris Saint-Germain against Italian runner-up Inter Milan, with the former striving for its first ever European Cup title, while Inter is going for its fourth. Success for PSG would make it the first French champion of Europe since bitter rival Marseille in 1993, and finally reward years of huge investment from its Qatari backers, who bought a majority stake in the club in 2011. Inter faces the prospect of a trophyless season after seeing Napoli pip it to the Italian title. But Inter has shown it's a threat on the European stage with epic wins overBarcelona in the semifinalsand Bayern Munich in the quarters. Here's your guide to the final. When is the Champions League final? — Kickoff is at 9 p.m. local time in Germany on Saturday. That's 3 p.m. ET or 1900 GMT. How to watch the final on TV? — In the U.S., on Paramount+. DAZN will show it in Canada. — Other countries arelisted here. Players to look out for in the final — Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappé have all left PSG but that doesn't mean there aren't players to watch. Georgian winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia has starred for the team since joining from Napoli in January. Bradley Barcola, Désiré Doué and Ousmane Dembelé are chipping in the goals that Mbappé's no longer scoring, and the team has one of the world's best goalkeepers in Gianluigi Donnarumma, formerly of Milan. — Inter counts on Argentina star Lautaro Martínez to lead the team with his captaincy and goals. Which stadium is hosting the final? — The match will take place in Bayern Munich's 75,000 capacity home stadium, known as Allianz Arena for sponsorship reasons since it opened in 2005, though UEFA refers to it as Munich Football Arena during its competitions. Key facts — PSG would become only the second French champion of Europe with a win. The closest it came so far was in 2020 when it lost in the final to Bayern after a restructured tournament because of the coronavirus pandemic. — Inter's success in 2010 ended its long wait since back-to-back wins in 1964 and '65. But it lost on its last appearance in the final, to Manchester City in 2023. This will be its seventh final altogether. It has won three and lost three so far. — This will be the fifth European Cup final to be played in Munich. Each of the previous four produced a first-time winner: Nottingham Forest in 1979, Marseille in 1993, Borussia Dortmund in 1997, and Chelsea in 2012. ___ AP soccer:https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Coco Gauffcame through an unexpectedly difficult match against Tereza Valentová to win 6-2, 6-4 on Thursday,becoming the youngest player in 17 yearsto reach the third round of theFrench Openfor five consecutive years. The 21-year-old failed to hold her serve four times during the second set but broke back on five occasions to round off a topsy-turvy run and take the victory over her Czech opponent, who was last year's girls' champion in Paris. Two-time French Open winnerMaria Sharapovawas also 21 when she reached the third round at Roland-Garros for the fifth straight year in 2008. "I think overall it was fine. I think towards the end of the second set I could have been much more aggressive on the serve. The return game was pretty good," said Gauff after her win, perrolandgarros.com. "She's obviously a great young player, I knew it was going to be a tough match today. "Definitely going to practice (tomorrow) and work on things I feel I could have done a lot better today." The world No. 2 won just 19% of her second serve points and had six double faults to her opponent's three. Nonetheless, she has now won 12 of her last 14 matches as part of a run which has seen her reach the final of both the Madrid Open and Italian Open. She will face Valentová's compatriot Marie Bouzková in the third round on Saturday. Elsewhere, Jessica Pegula claimed a confident 6-3, 7-6(3) victory over Ann Li to record her 30th match-win of the year; only world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka has more. In Gauff and Pegula, the US has two of the top three seeds at the French Open for the first time since Venus and Serena Williams in 2010, and Pegula put up a performance worthy of her ranking. The 31-year-old dropped the first two games to her compatriot, but then won six of the next seven to breeze into a 1-0 lead. In the second set, Pegula had to fend off two break points for Li and won the tiebreak with a deep backhand. "It was a really tough match today," Pegula said afterward, per theWTA. "Ann has been playing some really good tennis this year and had a lot of close matches with good players. It was tricky with the wind. She was slicing a lot, kind of making me earn a lot of points. "I felt like it was a pretty physical match, a lot of long points and long games. But happy I was able to kind of hold on to that second set there definitely." Pegula will play Markéta Vondroušová in the third round on Saturday. Later on Thursday, Madison Keys, who is playing in her first grand slam since she won the Australian Open in January, eased to a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Katie Boulter. In doing so, the 30-year-old became the oldest woman to win nine consecutive grand slam matches since Angelique Kerber in 2018, per the WTA. Keys will face another former Australian Open winner, Sofia Kenin, on Saturday. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account atCNN.com

FLORENCE, Italy (AP) — Fiorentina says coach Raffaele Palladino has left the Serie A club "by mutual consent" after only one season in charge. It was reported earlier this week that Palladino had handed in his resignation but that the club was trying to convince the 41-year-old coach to stay. "Fiorentina can confirm that Raffaele Palladino's contract, as well as those of his backroom team, has today been terminated by mutual consent," the Italian club said Friday ina brief statement. Palladino coached Fiorentina to a sixth-placed finish in Serie A and a Conference League spot. It was regarded as a successful season, so his reported resignation had caught club management off guard. Fiorentina also reached the semifinals of the Conference League. It had lost in the final of that competition in each of the previous two seasons, under Vincenzo Italiano. Less than a week after the season ended,the Serie A coaching carouselis ramping up.Massimiliano Allegri returned to AC Milanon Friday and a number of other changes are expected. ___ AP soccer:https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

HOUSTON (AP) — Soon after Lance McCullers Jr.'s family received online death threats following a tough start by the Houston Astros' pitcher, his 5-year-old daughter, Ava, overheard wife Kara talking on the phone about it. What followed was a painful conversation between McCullers and his little girl. "She asked me when I came home: 'Daddy like what is threats? Who wants to hurt us? Who wants to hurt me?'" McCullers told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "So, those conversations are tough to deal with." McCullers is one of two MLB pitchers whose families have received online death threats this month as internet abuse of players and their families is on the rise. Boston reliever Liam Hendriks took to social media soon after the incident with McCullersto call out people who were threatening his wife's life and directing "vile" comments at him. The Astros contacted MLB security and the Houston Police Department following the threats to McCullers. An police spokesperson said Thursday that it remains an ongoing investigation. McCullers, who has two young daughters, took immediate action after the threats and hired 24-hour security for his family. "You have to at that point," he said. Abuse increasing with rise in sports gambling Players from around the league agree that online abuse has gotten progressively worse in recent years. Milwaukee's Christian Yelich, a 13-year MLB veteran and the 2018 NL MVP, said receiving online abuse is "a nightly thing" for most players. "I think over the last few years it's definitely increased," he said. "It's increased to the point that you're just: 'All right, here we go.' It doesn't even really register on your radar anymore. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. You're just so used to that on a day-to-day, night-to-night basis. It's not just me. It's everybody in here, based on performance." And many players believe it's directly linked to the rise in legalized sports betting. "You get a lot of DMs or stuff like that about you ruining someone's bet or something ridiculous like that," veteran Red Sox reliever Justin Wilson said. "I guess they should make better bets." Hendriks has had enough Hendriks, a 36-year-old reliever whopreviously battlednon-Hodgkin lymphoma, said on Instagram that he and his wife received death threats after a loss to the Mets. He added that people left comments saying that they wished he would have died from cancer among other abusive comments. He later discussed the issue and his decision to speak out about it. "Enough is enough," he said. "Like at some point, everyone just like sucking up and dealing with it isn't accomplishing anything. And we pass along to security. We pass along to whoever we need to, but nothing ends up happening. And it happens again the next night. And so, at some point, someone has to make a stand. And it's one of those things where the more eyes we get on it, the more voices we get talking about it. Hopefully it can push it in the right direction." What teams are doing Both the Astros and the Red Sox are working with MLB security to take action against social media users who direct threats toward players and their families. Red Sox spokesperson Abby Murphy added that they've taken steps in recent years to make sure player' families are safe during games. That includes security staff and Boston police stationed in the family section at home and dedicated security in the traveling party to monitor the family section on the road. Murphy said identifying those who make anonymous threats online is difficult, but: "both the Red Sox and MLB have cyber programs and analysts dedicated to identifying and removing these accounts." The Astros have uniformed police officers stationed in the family section, a practice that was implemented well before the threats to McCullers and his family. Abandoning social media For some players, online abuse has gotten so bad that they've abandoned social media. Detroit All-Star outfielder Riley Greene is one of them, saying he got off because he received so many messages from people blaming him for failed bets. "I deleted it," he said of Instagram. "I'm off it. It sucks, but it's the world we live in, and we can't do anything about it. People would DM me and say nasty things, tell me how bad of a player I am, and say nasty stuff that we don't want to hear." Criticism is part of the game, threats are not The 31-year-old McCullers, who returned this year after missing two full seasons with injuries, said dealing with this has been the worst thing that's happened in his career. He understands the passion of fans and knows that being criticized for a poor performance is part of the game. But he believes there's a "moral line" that fans shouldn't cross. "People should want us to succeed," he said. "We want to succeed, but it shouldn't come at a cost to our families, the kids in our life, having to feel like they're not safe where they live or where they sit at games." Houston manager Joe Espadawas livid when he learned about the threats to McCullers and his familyand was visibly upset when he addressed what happened with reporters. Espada added that the team has mental health professionals available to the players to talk about the toll such abuse takes on them and any other issues they may be dealing with. "We are aware that when we step on the field, fans expect and we expect the best out of ourselves," Espada said this week. "But when we are trying to do our best and things don't go our way while we're trying to give you everything we got and now you're threatening our families and kids — now I do have a big issue with that, right? I just did not like it." Kansas City's Salvador Perez, a 14-year MLB veteran, hasn't experienced online abuse but was appalled by what happened to McCullers. If something like that happened to him he said it would change the way he interacts with fans. "Now some fans, real fans, they're gonna pay for that, too," he said. "Because if I was him, I wouldn't take a picture or sign anything for noboby because of that one day." McCullers wouldn't go that far but admitted it has changed his mindset. "It does make you kind of shell up a little bit," he said. "It does make you kind of not want to go places. I guess that's just probably the human reaction to it." Finding a solution While most players have dealt with some level of online abuse in their careers, no one has a good idea of how to stop it. "I'm thankful I'm not in a position where I have to find a solution to this," Tigers' pitcher Tyler Holton said. "But as a person who is involved in this, I wish this wasn't a topic of conversation." White Sox outfielder Mike Tauchman is disheartened at how bad player abuse has gotten. While it's mostly online, he added that he's had teammates that have had racist and homophobic things yelled at them during games. "Outside of just simply not having social media I really don't see that getting better before it just continues to get worse," he said. "I mean, I think it's kind of the way things are now. Like, people just feel like they have the right to say whatever they want to whoever they want and it's behind a keyboard and there's really no repercussions, right?" ___ AP Baseball Writer Mike Fitzpatrick and AP Sports Writers Jimmy Golen, Kyle Hightower, Larry Lage and Steve Megargee contributed to this report. ___ AP MLB:https://apnews.com/hub/mlb