The Cleveland Cavaliers shocked the basketball world Sunday with a 31-point road win in Game 7 to advance past the Detroit Pistons and into the Eastern Conference Finals. There they’ll meet the red-hot New York Knicks, who have not lost in the postseason since May.

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In the West, the Victor Wembanyama-led San Antonio Spurs will face the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder in a matchup of the top two teams in the league. That series starts tonight and will be streamed on Peacock.

Also, our World Cup countdown continues with Colombia star Luis Díaz. For more WNBA and World Cup coverage, check out the NBC News website.

NBA Conference Finals Preview

After a blowout win Sunday by the Cleveland Cavaliers over the Detroit Pistons in Game 7 of their second-round series, the conference finals are now set: The Cavaliers will play the New York Knicks in the East, and the San Antonio Spurs will play the Oklahoma City Thunder in the West. Here’s a quick preview of both matchups.

Let’s start with the Thunder and Spurs, a titanic clash that begins tonight between the two best teams from the regular season. Let me put this as simply as I can: Whether you love the NBA or not, you need to find a way to watch every minute of this series. This is the first time since 1998 that two teams with at least 62 regular-season wins have met in the playoffs, and we should be in store for an incredibly hard-fought battle.

This matchup features two ascendant young stars in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Victor Wembanyama (who finished first and third in MVP voting, respectively), exciting young talent, a legitimate regional rivalry and two suffocating defenses. It’s as high-level as hoops gets on the court, with the added bonus of animus and history off the court to ratchet up the tension.

San Antonio won the regular-season series over OKC 4-1, but the Thunder practically never had their full squad available. Game 1 should be a little bit of a feel-out process for both sides.

In the East, the dominant Knicks will take on Cleveland. New York has won seven straight playoff games and owns a playoff-best 20.0 net rating. The Knicks should be heavily favored this series as the Cavs have labored through the playoffs, needing seven games to win in each round.

Cleveland is coming off its most inspiring performance, however, eliminating Detroit on the road. It will have to overcome the duo of Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson, who are thriving. Brunson is averaging 27.4 points on a career playoff-best 48.5% shooting, while Towns is averaging a career playoff-best 6.6 assists, adding 17.4 points for good measure.

World Cup Countdown

Leading up to the 2026 World Cup, we’re counting down 26 players to watch. They may be household names or unsung heroes, but they are crucial to their team’s success. They are the players you need to know before the games start. Today’s entry is Colombia’s Luis Díaz.

The 29-year-old Colombian winger/midfielder is one of the best goal scorers in the sport, currently lighting it up on the club level for Bayern Munich, after three years with Liverpool. Diaz should be eager and aggressive in what will be his first World Cup appearance after Colombia missed out on the 2022 tournament.

Exactly how excited is Diaz to play in his first World Cup? He scored a whopping seven goals during qualification, second only to Argentina’s Lionel Messi among South American players. In between qualifiers, Diaz also helped Colombia reach the 2024 Copa América Final, scoring two goals in a tournament in which Los Cafeteros finished second. In only 72 appearances for Colombia, Diaz has already scored 21 goals, putting him fourth on the country’s all-time list.

He also has a flair for the dramatic. In Diaz’s first major tournament with Colombia, the 2021 Copa, he scored his first goal via bicycle kick against Brazil. He should also be familiar with American soil, scoring once each in two friendlies that took place in the United States last fall.

Colombia’s best finish at the World Cup came in 2014, when the country made it to the quarterfinal. It could be in a position to make its best run yet, as Diaz is entering the tournament hot. Between the Bundesliga and Champions League, during the 2025-26 season, Diaz scored 22 goals, a career-best mark. With a hot scorer in the prime of his career, Colombia could be a major threat as long as Diaz is in top shape.

Friday’s entry was South Korea’s Son Heung-min. Read about him here.

What We’re Reading

With ICE officers potentially at World Cup matches, vendors are weighing the risk of working.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr nearly walked away from Golden State.

Listen closely for Jamal Crawford’s new, signature catchphrase.

The woman who keeps beating men in ultramarathons runs on mashed potatoes.

Jannik Sinner has completed the “Career Golden Masters” at just 24.

Aaron Rodgers is a Steeler again, officially.

What We’re Watching

Arguably the best matchup that could take place in the NBA happens tonight, when the Spurs will face the Thunder in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals. San Antonio is led by superstar big man Victor Wembanyama, who is averaging 20.3 points, 10.7 rebounds and 4.1 blocks over 10 postseason games. His counterpart, Oklahoma City’s do-everything guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, has the Thunder a perfect 8-0 so far in the playoffs.

Meanwhile in the NHL, we get a Game 7 between the Montreal Canadiens and Buffalo Sabres to determine who goes to the Eastern Conference Finals. Buffalo is coming off a dominant 8-3 win to push this series to the brink. The winner will take on the Carolina Hurricanes.

All times are Eastern:

• 7:30 p.m.: No. 2 Buffalo Sabres vs. No. 3 Montreal Canadiens, on ESPN
• 8:30 p.m.: No. 1 Oklahoma City Thunder vs. No. 2 San Antonio Spurs, on NBC/Peacock
• That’s it for now! We’ll be back Tuesday.

Kars4Kids must stop broadcasting its widely known catchy jingle in advertisements across California after a judge found that the nonprofit group violated the state’s false advertising and unfair competition laws.

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Orange County Superior Court Judge Gassia Apkarian issued the May 8 ruling against Kars4Kids and its jingle featuring children dancing and singing. The decision came in a lawsuit filed by a California man who argued that the ad prominently features young children, even though some of the proceeds are directed toward programs benefiting Israel trips for elder teens.

“Money cannot ‘un-donate’ a car or restore the donor’s belief that they were helping a local, needy child,” the ruling says. “The evidence also shows that children, especially needy or underprivileged children, are not the recipients of the proceeds of the donations.”

Apkarian ruled that Kars4Kids may not use the “Kars4Kids” jingle, or any variation of it, in California unless the ads include “an explicit and audible disclosure of the organization’s religious affiliation.”

The nonprofit group, which primarily funds a Jewish nonprofit organization and accepts donations of “cars, boats, or real estate,” now has 30 days, or until June 8, to stop broadcasting in California.

Apkarian found that the ads, which have been on the airwaves for more than 20 years, violated California’s false advertising law by disseminating public statements about the disposal of property — specifically vehicle donations — that were misleading by omission.

“We believe this decision is deeply flawed, ignores the facts and misapplies the law,” Kars4Kids said in a statement to NBC News. “It’s well known that we are a Jewish organization and our website makes it abundantly clear.”

The group added that the lawsuit was “nothing more than a lawyer-driven attempt to siphon off charitable funds for their own gain,” and said it expects to prevail on appeal.

The ruling stems from an August 2021 lawsuit filed by Bruce Puterbaugh, who alleged he donated a 2001 Volvo XC earlier that year to Kars4Kids after hearing the ad “over and over” on the radio. At the time, he expected his donation, made in California, to benefit children in California.

Puterbaugh later testified that after his donation, he learned “from a neighbor that the funds were directed to a Jewish organization in New York,” according to the ruling.

“That’s not what I wanted…I feel taken advantage of by the ad and information that was not there,” Puterbaugh said, according to the ruling.

He testified that the advertisement contained “nothing about specific religious affiliation,” and that, although he called the organization’s phone number, he never visited its website. He argued that it was because he is “not a computer person.”

As part of the ruling, Kars4Kids was also ordered to pay Puterbaugh $250, the car’s estimated value. Puterbaugh’s lawyers did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment.

According to its website, Kars4Kids has facilitated the donation of more than 500,000 cars. The organization also works closely with and funds another nonprofit group, Oorah, which runs summer Orthodox camps in the tristate area and organizes annual trips to Israel for 17- and 18-year-olds.

The chief operating officer of Kars4Kids, Esti Landau, testified that Kars4Kids serves as Oorah’s primary funding source, sending approximately $45 million annually, or more than 60% of its total funds, the judge wrote. Oorah also spent $16.5 million to buy a building in Israel, the ruling says.

Neal Roberts, one of Puterbaugh’s lawyers, told NBC News that the ruling could affect charities because “it’ll make sure they clean up their act.”

“Whether they’re regular commercial entities or charitable commercial entities, they need to be clear in their advertising about what they’re doing with the funds people give them,” Roberts said.

“I think it’ll make charities wary of deceiving people, because they could be subject to lawsuits from other lawyers and the state to stop that kind of activity.”

Kars4Kids is further prohibited from using images of “prepubescent children to solicit donations that support individuals who have reached the age of majority,” the ruling says.

The judge also wrote that Landau recognized that the short 30-second ads that have been running for two decades do “not say anything” about the charity’s specific nature.

“When a charity generates millions annually through a ‘jingle’ that conceals its primary religious and geographic focus, it creates an unfair playing field for local California charities that are honest about their missions,” the ruling says.

Oorah and Landau did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment.

A Minnesota prosecutor accused the ICE officer who shot a Venezuelan man of lying about this incident and was charged on Monday with assault and falsely reporting a crime. Subscribe to read the story ad free

Get unlimited content and ad free articles. Minnesota prosecutors revealed Monday afternoon that Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officer Christian Castro was charged in January with four counts of assault of the second degree and a false reporting of a crime. This occurred during an attempt to arrest immigrants. The charges accuse Castro shooting through the front of a home “with the intention to cause immediate bodily injury or death to the adults who were inside the door,” Hennepin county attorney Mary Moriarty told a press conference on Monday. She said that there was a warrant out for his arrest.

“Mr. Castro fired his service gun at the front of the house, knowing that people had just entered the home and posed no threat to him. The Department of Homeland Security has not responded to a request for comments on the charges.

According the authorities, ICE officers confronted Sosa Celis, a Venezuelan, and Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna during an immigration enforcement action near Sosa Celis’ home on the night Jan. 14. Authorities said Sosa-Celis had been shot in the leg. Moriarty stated that both men were present in Minnesota “lawfully,” and that this was “a case of mistaken identification.” the shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis Police officers stand in tear gas on the scene of an alleged shooting in Minneapolis, Jan. 14. Adam Gray / AP FILE

According to the original statement of the police department, the shooting took place after Sosa -Celis & Aljorna allegedly assaulted the officer using a shovel & broom. The charges against them were dismissed with prejudice when Minnesota prosecutors found that new evidence was “materially incongruent” with the accusations made against them.

The video released by the agency in February and March appeared to contradict its account. One man is shown holding a shovel, before dropping it. A second man then runs towards the home with no shovel. The officer tackles the man. In mid-February acting ICE director Todd Lyons stated that a review video evidence revealed two officers “appeared to have made untruthful statement” in sworn testimonies. Lyons stated that both officers were placed on leave administratively pending the conclusion of an investigation. He added that a joint review of video evidence by ICE (ICE) and the Department of Justice(DOJ) revealed that sworn testimonies provided by two officers appeared to have made false statements. He said that if the investigation is successful, the officers could be terminated from their jobs and face criminal prosecution. Moriarty stated at the press conference that Castro was “not under any physical threats when he fired his gun, or even before.”

Moriarty also said that Castro “wasn’t under any threat physically when he shot his weapon or even beforehand.” She stated that Castro was not even hit.

, who was a part of

, was charged with felony assault in the second degree with a dangerous weapons last month. Moriarty reported in April that Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. had been accused of pointing a weapon at the heads of 2 civilians in a vehicle.