President Trump is expected to attend Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Monday, and the security preparations for his visit will transform one of the busiest areas of Midtown Manhattan.
Hundreds of U.S. Secret Service officers and agents will be deployed, along with thousands of New York Police Department personnel, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the planning, as reported by CBS News. A hard closure is expected around the entirety of Madison Square Garden, with no watch parties, no vehicle access, and no pedestrian travel through the secured area. The Seventh and Eighth Avenue corridors around the arena are expected to be closed.
Only ticketed fans will be allowed to enter, and they will go through Secret Service-level screening before entering, a process described as similar to TSA screening at airports. No bags of any size will be permitted, including purses, backpacks, or totes. Checkpoints are scheduled to open at 6:30 p.m., two hours before tipoff, and fans are being encouraged to arrive early. Magnetometers can screen roughly 300 people per hour, and officials expect to have dozens operating to handle tens of thousands of attendees.
"It's the first president that's ever come in to go to a basketball playoff game. So you can imagine the Garden is gonna have 50,000 fans, now you've got a presidential motorcade coming in, streets sealed off," former NYPD Deputy Commissioner Rich Esposito told CBS New York.
Trump said he was invited by Knicks owner James Dolan and described himself as a "big fan" of the team. He will be the first sitting president to attend an NBA game since 2015, when former President Barack Obama watched the season opener between his hometown Chicago Bulls and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Penn Station, which sits directly beneath Madison Square Garden and is the nation's busiest train station, will remain open. Officials said they do not expect any impact on train service.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani also plans to attend Game 3. He told reporters he "will be in a very different section of the stadium" from Trump. The heightened security around the president comes after two assassination attempts during his 2024 campaign and a third alleged attempt on his life.
