{"id":745591,"date":"2026-05-27T20:27:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T20:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/745591\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T20:27:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T20:27:24","slug":"president-donald-trump-planning-trip-to-nba-finals-game-in-new-york-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/745591\/","title":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump planning trip to NBA Finals game in New York City"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump says he has plans to attend an NBA<\/a> Finals game at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he received an invitation from New York Knicks<\/a> owner James Dolan, but he isn’t sure which game he will attend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think I’ll be going to one of the games,” Trump said<\/a>. “I was invited by numerous people and Jim [Dolan], and I think I’ll be going.”<\/p>\n

The Knicks, after completing a four-game sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> on Monday, are in the Finals for the first time since 1999, but are still waiting to learn their opponent as the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> lead the San Antonio Spurs<\/a> 3-2 in the Western Conference Finals. Regardless of who emerges from the West, the Knicks will host Games 3 and 4 on June 8 and 10, respectively. Game 6, if the series gets that far, would also take place at Madison Square Garden, this time on June 16.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That gives Trump, a New York City native, three opportunities to attend a game. If he does attend, Trump would be the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game. Trump has regularly attended major sporting events during his presidency, including the College Football<\/a> Playoff National Championship in Miami in January and Super Bowl<\/a> LIX in New Orleans last year. Additionally, a\u00a0UFC event is scheduled to be held on the White House’s South Lawn<\/a> next month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though a sitting president has never attended an NBA Finals game, former president Barack Obama has sat courtside for several NBA games, both while in office and after his two-term presidency. He attended Game 2 of the 2019 NBA Finals between the Toronto Raptors<\/a> and Golden State Warriors<\/a>. While in office, he attended a Washington Wizards<\/a> vs. Chicago Bulls<\/a> game in 2009 and a season-opening meeting between the Bulls and Cavaliers in 2015.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump said he originally planned to attend Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals, but the Knicks needed only four games to advance past Cleveland.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I was going to go on Wednesday but they closed it out very quickly,” Trump said. “… Boy, what a team, they’ve won all their games. They have some great players. … The Knicks have really suffered for years.”<\/p>\n

The Knicks have been dominant throughout their run to the Finals. They’re currently on an 11-game win streak, dating back to Game 3 of their first-round series against the\u00a0Atlanta Hawks<\/a>. They’ve outscored opponents by 262 points during that span, and their plus-19.4 point differential is the best mark of any team entering the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump says he has plans to attend an NBA Finals game at Madison Square Garden in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,91820,91822,6,1220,20684,191,179,474,91821,91823],"class_list":["post-745591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-basketball","tag-knicks-finals","tag-last-knicks-championship","tag-nba","tag-nba-finals","tag-nba-finals-schedule","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-trump-knicks","tag-who-will-the-knicks-play-in-the-finals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116648427151609163","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}