The Saturday edition of NYT Connections Sports Edition arrives with puzzle #733, serving up a grid that ranges from baseball history and big-city basketball to television comedy and the room where athletes face reporters. It rewards solvers who know the lore behind the box scores.
What Makes Connections Sports Edition Tick
For newcomers, NYT Connections Sports Edition presents 16 sports-themed words that must be sorted into four thematic groups of four. The twist? You're limited to four mistakes, and the color-coded difficulty system (yellow being easiest, purple being trickiest) means surface-level connections often mislead.
Connections Sports Edition brings the same addictive puzzle format to the world of athletics, featuring athletes, teams, sports terminology, and legendary moments. The game's genius lies in its red herrings, words that could fit multiple sports categories but belong in only one.
Today's Grid at a Glance
Here are the 16 words staring back at you in puzzle #733:
CAPTAIN CLUTCH | KAT | CY | STAGE
BARKLEY | OAK | LECTERN | WALTER
GROVER | PHELPS | PODIUM | MELO
KELCE | ROUSEY | CHRISTY | DAIS
A seemingly random collection that somehow connects into four perfect categories.
Strategic Hints (No Spoilers Yet)
Yellow Category Nudge: Think about where a coach or star stands when facing a wall of microphones after a game, and the platforms and furniture that come with that room.
Green Category Clue: Travel back to baseball's early decades and think about the arms whose career win totals still anchor the record book, then call them by the names their teammates would have used.
Blue Category Hint: Stay with one Eastern Conference basketball franchise and think about the short handles its fans have given players over the decades, from the 1990s to the current roster.
Purple Category Teaser: These four surnames come from different sports, and the common thread is a night spent entertaining a live studio audience rather than competing on any field or court.
The Full Solutions
Last chance to solve independently: answers below
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Yellow (Setting For A News Conference): DAIS, LECTERN, PODIUM, STAGE
PODIUM, DAIS, LECTERN, and STAGE all name the spot where a coach or player faces the press, whether it is the raised platform itself or the stand that holds notes and microphones.
PODIUM carries an Olympic medal-ceremony echo that tempts a link to PHELPS, but here it belongs with the press-room furniture.
Green (Winningest MLB Pitchers, Informally): CHRISTY, CY, GROVER, WALTER
CY Young, WALTER Johnson, GROVER Cleveland Alexander, and CHRISTY Mathewson are the four winningest pitchers in MLB history, led by Young's record 511 victories. The grid lists them by first name only.
CY is the giveaway thanks to the pitching award that carries the name, while GROVER can pull your mind toward Sesame Street before the baseball link clicks.
Blue (Nicknames Of Knicks, Past And Present): CAPTAIN CLUTCH, KAT, MELO, OAK
KAT is Karl-Anthony Towns, MELO is Carmelo Anthony, CAPTAIN CLUTCH is Jalen Brunson, and OAK is 1990s enforcer Charles Oakley, so the group spans several eras of Knicks basketball.
BARKLEY is the red herring, a basketball legend who never played for the Knicks and belongs with the comedy hosts instead.
Purple (Athletes Who Have Hosted "SNL"): BARKLEY, KELCE, PHELPS, ROUSEY
Ronda ROUSEY, Michael PHELPS, Travis KELCE, and Charles BARKLEY have each hosted Saturday Night Live, and Barkley has done it more than once.
The trick is that no two of them share a sport, since the list runs through mixed martial arts, swimming, the NFL, and the NBA, so the only link is the host's chair in Studio 8H.
The Verdict
Yellow is the cleanest opener, because PODIUM, DAIS, LECTERN, and STAGE are plain vocabulary with no real rival home in this grid.
The real trap is BARKLEY sitting beside KAT, MELO, OAK, and CAPTAIN CLUTCH, where a famous basketball surname invites a premature Knicks guess.
Blue decides streaks. Once you remember that Barkley never played for the Knicks, the hosts and the nicknames separate cleanly, and the four pitchers' first names stay tidy throughout.
Reset and Repeat
Tomorrow brings a fresh grid, but today's lesson holds: a household hoops name like BARKLEY can belong on a comedy stage instead of a roster. Come back for the next edition and bring the same suspicion of the obvious fit.
For now, puzzle #733 is solved. See you at midnight for the next round.
