Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix had a cleanup procedure performed on his right ankle last week as part of a scheduled follow-up with surgeon Norman E. Waldrop, a league source confirmed to The Athletic on Tuesday.

Nix originally had surgery in late January after suffering an ankle fracture at the end of Denver’s overtime victory over the Buffalo Bills in the divisional round of the playoffs. The injury forced him to miss the Broncos’ 10-7 loss to the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game.

The latest procedure could affect Nix’s availability for OTAs, which begin for the Broncos in early June, and the minicamp to follow. Broncos coach Sean Payton acknowledged after the final day of the NFL Draft on Saturday that Nix had a scheduled follow-up with Waldrop, but he didn’t specifically answer a question as to whether the timeline for Nix to return to the field had changed.

“He had a recheck that was scheduled. He’s doing great,” Payton said of Nix on Saturday. “We’re excited about his progress. Nothing to report. These guys will be coming in here. He’s here. A number of these guys are coming in the building.”

Payton, general manager George Paton and co-owner Greg Penner all voiced confidence during the NFL’s league meetings in late March that Nix would participate in OTAs.

“He’s attacked his recovery in the same way that he attacks preparing for games,” Penner said of Nix at the time. “He’s done a terrific job. He’s ahead of schedule, no concerns at all for (the offseason program) and going forward from there. We’re really pleased with his progress and the support from (vice president of player health and performance) Beau Lowery and everyone.”

It now appears to be an open question as to whether — or how much — Nix will see the field during Denver’s on-field workouts in June. Even if Nix is limited during OTAs, though, the source indicated, he’s expected to be fully ready by the time the Broncos begin training camp in late July.

Nix suffered the injury while carrying the ball during the final drive of Denver’s 33-30 victory over the Bills. The Broncos’ euphoria after reaching the conference title game for the first time in a decade was quickly doused when Payton announced, about an hour after the game ended, that imaging done in the stadium showed Nix had suffered a broken ankle and would be out for the rest of the season. 

“I broke my ankle one step away from the Super Bowl,” Nix wrote in an essay published in “The Players’ Tribune” earlier this month. “It hurt. Bad. Not just physically. It hurt because I love playing the game with my teammates. It hurt because we’ve built something really special. It hurt because when you’re that close to something you’ve dreamed about your whole life, you don’t want it taken out of your hands.”

Nix threw for 3,931 yards, 25 touchdowns and 11 interceptions last season. His 24 victories since being drafted 12th overall by the Broncos in 2024 are tied with Russell Wilson for the most by a quarterback during his first two seasons in league history.

The New York Knicks started fast and finished strong, cruising to a 126-97 home win over the Atlanta Hawks in Game 5 of their Eastern Conference first-round series Tuesday night.

Jalen Brunson scored a game-high 39 points to go along with eight assists. Karl-Anthony Towns had 16 points, 14 rebounds and six assists, and OG Anunoby added 17 points and 10 rebounds for the Knicks. New York led by as many as 32 points after taking the lead for good on a Josh Hart 3-pointer that made it 9-6 with 8:41 remaining in the first quarter. The Knicks led by 13 after the opening period, 16 at halftime and by 18 after the third, illustrating just how surgical they were in snatching a 3-2 series lead.

Hawks guard CJ McCollum, who played the role of hero for Atlanta in Games 2 and 3, finished with just six points on 3-of-10 shooting and a team-high four turnovers. Jalen Johnson led the Hawks with 18 points and 10 rebounds.

Here are some takeaways with Game 6 set for Thursday in Atlanta.

Hello, Jalen

Brunson has finally arrived. After four games of fighting Dyson Daniels, after four games of battling Nickeil Alexander-Walker, the real Brunson — the perennial All-NBA scoring maestro — returned Tuesday.

The news wasn’t just that Brunson went for 39 points; it was the way the Knicks used him.

Dating back to Game 3, they started running him around more away from the basketball, providing him with different opportunities to score. Game 5, on top of the pick-and-roll magic in the fourth quarter, was his greatest off-ball game against the Hawks, too.

He sliced around the Knicks’ half-court offense with Towns manning a lead-facilitating role once again and freed himself in the process. Once he caught a rhythm, it no longer mattered that Daniels is a former Defensive Player of the Year runner-up. Brunson caught the Hawks guard with a hesitation in the fourth, and then another to finish an and-1. This was Brunson’s most-efficient performance of the series, but it was also his craftiest. It was the playoff Brunson that Knicks fans have grown accustomed to seeing for the last four seasons. — Fred Katz

Hawks’ starters getting pummeled

Atlanta’s one advantage coming into this series seemed to be that its starting lineup was working better than New York’s. Atlanta’s go-to group of McCollum, Alexander-Walker, Daniels, Johnson and Onyeka Okongwu had a sterling plus-20.3 net rating in 30 games as a unit in the regular season, while New York’s chosen quintet mustered only a plus-2.3 mark in the 41 games they’d played together.

It hasn’t worked out that way. At all. For the fifth straight game, Atlanta’s starting group finished with a negative net rating, and on this night, it wasn’t even close. The Hawks tried to change the defensive matchups to wrongfoot the Knicks, putting Daniels on Towns, but New York was completely unfazed as Towns burned the Hawks from the “pinch post” time and again.

The Hawks must win those minutes because New York has the clear advantage once the benches get involved. While Jonathan Kuminga gave Atlanta good minutes in Games 2 and 3, he’s been erratic in the three defeats, and no other Hawks reserve has caused even an ounce of worry on the Knicks sideline.

Atlanta didn’t help itself in other areas, with free-throw misses, bizarre bench lineups and, yes, rough minutes for whatever sub Quin Snyder tried. But the core issue heading into Game 6 is that the Hawks need to win the starters vs. starters minutes. So far, they’re 0 of 5. — John Hollinger

Let’s talk about OG

Maybe it’s because Towns has dominated. Maybe it’s because Hart has turned into prime Scottie Pippen. Maybe it’s because Mikal Bridges has been a no-show.

Whatever it is, we shouldn’t go any further in this Knicks-Hawks series without talking about the impact of OG Anunoby.

A case could be made that Anunoby has been New York’s second-best player in this series, and maybe its most consistent. In Tuesday’s Game 5 win, he tallied 17 points, 10 rebounds, two steals and a block. For the series, Anunoby is averaging 20 points and nine rebounds per game, on top of his usual menacing off-ball defense.

That rebounding is really benefiting New York. Anunoby only averaged 5.2 per game during the season. He’s almost doubling that up this series. His ability to control the glass, in addition to the work of Towns and Hart in that department, has been a catalyst in slowing down the Hawks’ offense. Atlanta has been limited in transition because New York has taken care of the ball and gotten huge rebounding performances from several key players. The Hawks have struggled to get both transition and second-chance points over the last few games.

Anunoby has done a lot of everything this series, and it’s a big reason why the Knicks are one win away from advancing. — James L. Edwards III

Time to call for help

After almost every game of this series, I’ve written about who should step up for the Hawks. But after Tuesday, the answer is someone? Anyone? Everyone needs to make something shake in Game 6.

Credit due to the Knicks defense, of course, but Atlanta couldn’t hit anything, not even free throws. The Hawks shot 44.6 percent overall and 31.0 percent on 3s. They were 10-of-17 from the line. McCollum, the hero early in the series, struggled to find his spark. That Hawks bench that was so important a couple of games ago didn’t make much of an impact. And they only had 27 rebounds to the Knicks’ 48.

So this time, I’ll state the obvious: Atlanta needs everybody to do as much as possible to even the series.

In the last two games, the Hawks have been outscored by 37 points with Johnson, their All-Star forward, on the court. That won’t work for a team that relies on him taking over different facets of the game. Atlanta’s success comes with Johnson leading the way, but who else will help him keep its season alive? Anyone? — Shakeia Taylor

DALLAS — In the past dozen years, no team has made the Stanley Cup playoffs more than the Minnesota Wild, with 10 appearances.

Now, after 11 years of playoff torture — being good enough to almost always get in but not good enough or fortunate enough to get through a single round — the Wild are one win away from advancing to the Western Conference semifinals.

With another dominant performance at five-on-five, the Wild put the powerhouse Dallas Stars on the brink of elimination, winning 4-2 in Game 5 at American Airlines Center to take a 3-2 series lead.

The Stars went another game without a five-on-five goal. They have now been outscored 14-4 at even strength in the series and 11-3 at five-on-five, with no five-on-five goals in the past 207 minutes, 53 seconds.

Mats Zuccarello scored early in his return to the Wild after missing three games with a head injury, Matt Boldy tallied a power-play goal in the second, Michael McCarron had a third-period goal that stood up as the game-winner and Kirill Kaprizov capped it with an empty-netter. Kaprizov also assisted on two goals.

Jesper Wallstedt, who entered the game with a .929 save percentage, 3.57 goals saved above expected, a .970 five-on-five save percentage and .929 five-on-five high-danger save percentage, made 20 saves.

Dallas, meanwhile, finds itself on the brink of a first-round loss that, while somewhat excusable based on the NHL’s unforgiving divisional playoff format, would be a crushing disappointment for a team built to win and win right now. The Stars reached the Western Conference final each of the last three springs, and have harbored legitimate hopes of finally breaking through to the Stanley Cup Final this season.

With two 45-goal scorers in Jason Robertson and Wyatt Johnston, a superstar in Mikko Rantanen, a perennial Norris candidate in Miro Heiskanen and a high-end goaltender in Jake Oettinger, Dallas’ window is now. But their stunning inability to produce at five-on-five against the Wild and an absolute dearth of depth scoring — every Dallas goal this series has been scored by their top-five skaters — has the Stars one loss from their first early spring since 2023.

Heiskanen and Robertson scored for the Stars on Tuesday. Robertson has scored in every game in the series.

The Wild entered the game 1-6 all-time in Game 5’s when the series was tied 2-2. The only previous victory? Game 5 in 2015 in St. Louis — the last time the Wild won a playoff series.

When a best-of-seven playoff round is tied 2-2, the winner of Game 5 has gone on to win the series 79.4 percent of the time (239-62). That includes a 150-36 (.807) record for the home team and an 89-26 (.774) record for the road team.

The Wild will have a chance to avoid a Game 7 and close out this series in six games Thursday night in St. Paul, with the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche awaiting.

Another Wild goal wiped out, but Boldy gets it back

The Wild thought they took a 2-1 lead late in the first period before another Boldy goal was taken off the board.

With 13 seconds left in the first, Minnesota was creating on the power play. Boldy got the puck low and went to the net, taking three shots at Oettinger during a goal-mouth scramble. Boldy was tripped by Esa Lindell, and Heiskanen actually knocked the puck in, but Boldy’s stick pushed Oettinger’s right pad, which sparked a goalie interference challenge by the Stars.

The challenge worked, and Boldy’s goal was overturned, making it the third time in the past two games that a Minnesota goal was taken off the board. Boldy also had one waved off quickly in Game 4 when he made a distinct kicking motion on a goal before later scoring the overtime winner.

He knew that one in Game 4 was coming off, but this one was a closer call.

Boldy would get the power-play goal back in the final minute of the second after Dallas was whistled for too many men. After winning three puck battles, he scored his fourth goal of the series to snap a streak of 12 straight kills for the Stars. It was the Wild’s top power-play unit’s first goal in 18 tries in the past four games.

Brink’s turnover, penalty turn momentum

The Wild couldn’t have asked for a better start with Zuccarello returning to the lineup and scoring just 3:51 in. They gave up one shot in the first eight minutes and put on a defensive clinic.

That was until Bobby Brink’s offensive blue-line turnover that led to a … Brink penalty covering for it — not a good combo for a guy who stayed in the lineup with the returns of Zuccarello and Yakov Trenin. Being unwilling to pull Brink from the lineup led to rookie Danila Yurov and/or veteran Nico Sturm getting the night off.

The third line with Vladimir Tarasenko, McCarron and Brink was hemmed in so often in the first period and start of the second that coach John Hynes finally demoted Brink to the fourth line and elevated Trenin, back in the lineup for the first time since getting hurt in Game 2, early in the second.

One reason the Brink penalty stung is that the Wild have struggled so much on the penalty kill. For the ninth time in the series and fourth in a row, the Stars scored on the power play, with Heiskanen whistling his second in two games.

After that penalty kill, the Wild had lost a league-high 25 faceoffs on 42 draws (40.4 percent). Joel Eriksson Ek, who was charged with the loss on this one, had lost 11 of 17 draws to that point, McCarron 10 of 19 and Nick Foligno 4 of 6.

However, the kill came through with two big ones – one in the second and one in the third.

Myers fumbles promotion

For the past three trade deadlines, Stars general manager Jim Nill has gone shopping for an elusive second-pair right-shot defenseman, with varying levels of success. In 2024, Chris Tanev was everything Dallas hoped he’d be. In 2025, Cody Ceci was … fine. This season, Nill brought in towering blueliner Tyler Myers. But the emergence of Nils Lundkvist made Myers a luxury rather than a necessity, and he slipped in nicely to a third-pairing role instead.

But after Lundkvist took a McCarron skate to the face during Game 4 in St. Paul and couldn’t play in Game 5, the Stars once again had a hole on the right side. Coach Glen Gulutzan inserted Ilya Lyubushkin into the lineup, choosing him over Alex Petrovic and Kyle Capobianco. That bumped Myers up to the second pairing. And Myers didn’t get off to a great start.

Myers’ breakout pass up the boards to no one early in the first period was picked off by Ryan Hartman, who sent it to Kaprizov. Kaprizov’s shot was stopped by Oettinger, but Zuccarello was there to clean up the rebound to give the Wild a 1-0 early lead.

Karma, one might call it, as it was Myers who elbowed Zuccarello in the face and knocked him out of the series for the previous three games.

Myers also was caught flat-footed on McCarron’s third-period goal that put the Stars down 3-1. He also took an interference penalty midway through the second period, but Dallas killed that one off.

Lundkvist’s status for Game 6 is unclear. Gulutzan called it “a very deep cut” and said, “There’s a little bit of something else going on.” Lyubushkin, who joined Lian Bichsel on the third pair, had a goal and eight assists in 53 games during the regular season. Lyubushkin was a regular down the stretch but hadn’t played since the season finale in Buffalo on April 15.

“You’re a professional athlete, you have to be ready no matter what, always,” Lyubushkin said before the game. “Is it difficult? It’s not difficult. You just have to jump in the game and play.”