Need help with today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle? You’ve come to the right place.

Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.

A quick public service announcement before we continue: The bottom of this article includes the answers — and hints — for the four categories. So if you want to solve the board hint-free, we recommend you play before continuing.

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Today’s difficulty

Game No. 604’s difficulty: 2 out of 5

Connections: Sports Edition hints for May 20, 2026

Scroll below for one answer in each of the four categories.

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Yellow: BLOCK

Green: ST. LOUIS

Blue: BATS

Purple: PHOENIX

Connections: Sports Edition answers for May 20, 2026

Scroll below for the full answers to each of the four categories.

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Yellow

Actions on a field goal attempt: SNAP, BLOCK, HOLD, KICK

Green

U.S. Olympic host cities: ATLANTA, LOS ANGELES, SALT LAKE CITY, ST. LOUIS

Blue

Triple-A baseball teams: BATS, EXPRESS, IRONPIGS, JUMBO SHRIMP

Purple

Ends in an NFL QB: CLOVE, FALLEN, PHOENIX, SQUIDWARD

What is Connections: Sports Edition?

Connections: Sports Edition is The Athletic’s first-ever game, a daily puzzle designed for players to find connections between 16 words on the game board.

The game’s objective is to group words or objects into four groups of four based on commonalities within each group as quickly as possible. Find the groups without making four mistakes. Each puzzle has exactly one solution, so watch out for words or items that seem to belong to multiple categories!

Category examples:
Sports ____ : Fan, Car, Bar, Radio
U.S. Summer Olympians: Biles, Phelps, Ledecky, Lyles

Each category group is assigned a color, revealed as you solve, ranging from straightforward (yellow) to medium (green) to challenging (blue) to tricky (purple).

Who creates the puzzles for Connections: Sports Edition?

That’s me! My name is Mark Cooper, and I create Connections: Sports Edition and work as a managing editor for college sports here at The Athletic. I was previously The Athletic’s managing editor for breaking news.

The next puzzle will be available at midnight in your time zone. Thanks for playing — and share your scores in the comments!

The Knicks weren’t going to die easily. Not in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Not with the chance to strike first against the Cleveland Cavaliers and continue chasing their first NBA Finals since 1999.

Not down 93-71 with just under eight minutes remaining.

Not even down by seven with less than three minutes left.

With Game 1 slipping from their fingertips, the Knicks unloaded a 30-8 run to close the last and force overtime. In the extra period, their surge only continued on the way to a 115-104, series-opening win. The Knicks’ fourth-quarter comeback was the NBA’s largest in the playoffs in 13 years and their largest in team playoff history.

The reclamation effort was spearheaded by 17 points in the fourth quarter and overtime from Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson, who highlighted the comeback with a 38-point night. It was enough to leave him nearly speechless at the improbability of it all.

“I mean, we got some stops, kept fighting, kept believing, kept tipping away,” Brunson said in his ESPN post-game interview. “They were playing great basketball, and we just found a way. I really don’t have an answer.”

Here’s how they did it:

07:39 — Jalen Brunson jumper (Cavaliers 93, Knicks 73)

Down 22, it was time for Brunson, a two-time All-NBA guard, to take the reins of the Knicks’ fortunes. He hit a tough five-foot floater through traffic to kickstart a Knicks offense that hadn’t scored in over three minutes at this point.

06:58 — Landry Shamey 3-pointer (Cavaliers 93, Knicks 76)

Shamet had not scored all game before he took a pass from Karl Anthony Towns and splashed a triple midway through the fourth. It was the first of three from deep he’d hit in the fourth quarter and overtime.

05:44 — Jalen Brunson layup (Cavaliers 93, Knicks 80)

Dean Wade of the Cavaliers took away the assignment of guarding Brunson from James Harden. Wade didn’t fare much better, though, as Brunson blew left straight by Wade for a scoop lay-in that kissed high off the glass before dropping in.

03:30 — Jalen Brunson 3-pointer (Cavaliers 94, Knicks 89)

By this point, the Knicks were switching every play to get Harden onto islands guarding Brunson. And the Knicks star was feasting. Isolated at the top, cross left, behind the back right, step right for an inch more space over the former MVP, and that was all Brunson needed to hit a rainbow 3, giving him 11 straight points to cut Cleveland’s lead to five.

01:14 — Mikal Bridges 3-pointer (Cavaliers 99, Knicks 96)

All hands were on deck guarding a Brunson drive right with a hard double by Cleveland guard Sam Merrill, and Harden flashing onto the diminutive Knicks leader on the right side of the paint. Former Defensive Player of the Year Evan Mobley lurked on the weak side of the paint to contend if Brunson broke through. But Mobley had abandoned Mikal Bridges in the weakside corner, and Brunson found him with a baseline feed. Target practice for Bridges, who ended with 18, and nailed a corner 3 to cut the lead to three and send the Garden into a frenzy.

00:45 — Landry Shamet 3-pointer (tied at 99)

Remember in Game 1 of last season’s Eastern Conference finals? When Tyrese Haliburton capped a Pacers comeback with a deep shot in overtime? The one that bounced from the rim to the rafters, then back in?

The basketball gods owed the Knicks one back.

Shamet’s elbow 3 hit the back rim, then the blackboard, then the front rim, teetering as if deciding if this was the Knicks’ karma repaid before falling and bringing the score tied with under a minute remaining in New York.

00:19 — Jalen Brunson jumper (tied at 101)

Down by 2, game on the line, everyone clear out. Brunson, for the umpteenth time, down the stretch, staring at Harden helplessly in front of him. Back on the island again.

This time, the Cleveland guard put up little fight as Brunson flashed past him and threw up a high floater, over the outstretched helping hand of Cavaliers center Jarrett Allen, kissing the glass thank you on its way back down onto the front rim and in to tie the game at 101, where it would stay into overtime.

In the extra period, the Cavaliers had little fight left to give against the revitalized cacophony of New York fans, and the Knicks outscored Cleveland 14-3 in the overtime period to close out Game 1.

They refused to die — not when probability said they should’ve.

Not this game.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The talk among several NASCAR Hall of Fame voting panel members in post-election mingling on Tuesday was that this was the toughest vote yet.

While this was only my third year on the panel, it certainly was the one where I walked away with the least amount of certainty over where the room was headed.

With first-year nominee Kevin Harvick a lock to make it, it left the voting room to decide which among the remaining nine nominees on the Modern Era ballot was the most extraordinary standout.

Ultimately, Harvick was joined by Jeff Burton, Larry Phillips from the Pioneer ballot and Landmark Award winner Lesa France Kennedy in the 2027 NASCAR Hall of Fame class.

My votes were for Harvick, Burton, Phillips and Kennedy. Let me explain why.

Harvick

Harvick was a no-brainer lock, and there’s nothing that could have happened in the room to change my mind about that.

He was 10th on the all-time Cup Series wins list at the time of his retirement (Denny Hamlin passed him earlier this year) and was by far the highest Hall-eligible winner. To put it in perspective, the next-closest Hall-eligible driver on the all-time wins list has 25 victories (Jim Paschal).

In fact, the discussion took Harvick for granted to the point that many names were much more talked about until late in the process. Then the tone suddenly shifted to sort of an, Uh, we’re all in agreement Harvick is a lock, right?

Ultimately, of course, he was. Harvick appeared on 92 percent of the ballots.

For many voters, the choice of Jeff Burton, left, over other drivers like Greg Biffle, right, came down to Burton’s legacy in the sport beyond driving. (Todd Warshaw / Getty Images for NASCAR)

Burton

Aside from Harvick, strong cases were made for Alabama Gang member Neil Bonnett and Hendrick Motorsports engine builder Randy Dorton, among others.

But ultimately, I went with Burton on my ballot for the second straight year. In full transparency, I also spoke in favor of Burton during the discussion.

Even if he had walked away from NASCAR following his racing career, Burton was already a Hall of Famer. He has 21 career Cup wins, which before Tuesday was the third-most of any eligible driver not already in the Hall of Fame (Harvick and Paschal, as mentioned above). Three of his Cup wins were in Crown Jewel races.

He also has 27 O’Reilly Series victories, which is 10th on the all-time wins list for that series.

But the voting room loves off-the-track contributions to the sport as well. There’s often talk of who has “given back” to the sport, and voters pay attention to who continues to help NASCAR grow rather than simply walk away after their career is over.

For me, Burton has been a Hall of Fame contributor off the track in addition to his on-track success. He has long been one of the top advocates for driver safety, was an eloquent ambassador for the garage during his racing career (“The Mayor” was his nickname), and then embarked on a lengthy TV career as a NASCAR analyst for NBC and USA.

His latest contribution is even more significant: Burton formed the Drivers Advisory Council and has tirelessly served as a liaison between NASCAR and the drivers. The lines of communication between officials and competitors are said to be more open than ever, and that’s in large part because of Burton’s behind-the-scenes work.

For all those reasons, I voted for Burton.

But the vote was very split, and Burton only appeared on 32 percent of the ballots. Bonnett and Dorton received the third- and fourth-most votes, respectively, followed by Greg Biffle.

I was surprised there wasn’t more of an emotional push for Biffle following his tragic death in a plane crash late last year. But ultimately, it wasn’t his year to get in.

The problem is there’s a bit of a logjam right now with drivers like Burton, Bonnett and Biffle, all of whom won a relatively similar amount of Cup races, in addition to deserving crew chiefs and engine builders. So it really comes down to the extras on the resume, and Burton had those with his off-track contributions.

Pictures of Larry Phillips, Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton, the drivers in NASCAR’s 2027 Hall of Fame class. (David Jensen / Getty Images)

Phillips

For each of the last two years, I arrived at the voting room set to vote for Phillips.

I ended up not doing so either time.

The thing about the voting room is you can tell which direction the room is leaning based on the discussion, and it becomes clear who the finalists are. From that point, you have a decision as a voter: Either vote for one of the most-mentioned names to weigh in on the debate — or toss your vote into the wind, like voting for a third-party presidential candidate.

This year, though, there was certainly enough momentum for Phillips in the room. It made my decision much easier this time, and the push he received on Tuesday only amplified it.

Simply put, legends like Mark Martin have publicly sung Phillips’ praises for years. Martin once said Phillips is “the only driver I would pay to watch,” and even NASCAR Hall of Famers consider him one of the all-time great racers.

The problem was that he never left the Midwest in pursuit of national glory. But local tracks and weekly racers are part of NASCAR’s grassroots, and Phillips was named one of NASCAR’s 75 Greatest Drivers a few years ago.

So if he’s under the NASCAR umbrella, is one of the greatest ever and won an estimated 1,000 races (perhaps even more!), shouldn’t he be in the Hall of Fame?

Well, now he is. Phillips received 38 percent of the vote, and my guess is that’s because crew chiefs/engine builders Harry Hyde, Banjo Matthews and Herb Nab ended up splitting the rest as non-drivers.

Kennedy

Entering Tuesday, I was pretty set on voting for T. Wayne Robertson, whose promotional work with Winston helped launch NASCAR into its glory days. Sure enough, the room was told of Robertson’s contributions and how the sport wouldn’t have been as strong without him.

But then there was a lot of movement toward Kennedy, and it snowballed from there. Admittedly, I was swayed by the arguments.

Think of Kennedy’s signature projects. Daytona Rising, for example, transformed NASCAR’s iconic track into a beautiful, modern palace of speed. The Phoenix Raceway renovation resulted in an era of NASCAR titles being decided at a championship-caliber facility.

Then there’s the Kansas Speedway project, perhaps her greatest vision. When Kansas was built, it was basically a bunch of fields in the middle of nowhere. These days, the speedway is surrounded by loads of development, including an MLS stadium, a casino, hotels, restaurants and potentially the future site of the new Kansas City Chiefs stadium.

Many people in the room spoke of Kennedy’s desire to stay out of the spotlight and be behind the scenes, but also praised her importance to NASCAR as a whole.

Since the Landmark Award is about contributions to NASCAR, that fit the bill more than anyone this year.