In today’s edition of The Update Journal, we investigate whether the Knicks won a championship through defense, chemistry, clutch shot-making… or by accidentally turning the playoffs into a monastery with sneakers. If the rumors are true, New York may have borrowed from the Dodgers’ apparent “no distractions, no problems” championship blueprint — which raises the terrifying possibility that abstinence has better postseason analytics than half the league’s coaching staffs.

Then, the vampire schedule starts biting back. Watching Interview With the Vampire one episode a week sounded responsible, mature, and emotionally safe — until The Vampire Lestat entries started piling up like unpaid bills with fangs. Now there’s a sleepaway camp deadline, limited free time, questionable Wi-Fi, and the deeply unwise possibility of watching Claudia-related vampire trauma in the middle of the woods at night. Nothing says “summer programming strategy” like risking nightmares between bug spray and bunk inspections.

And in The Last Word, we close with a reminder that being yourself matters — even when it’s uncomfortable, even when people don’t get it, and even when the world would rather you shrink, hide, or explain yourself in MLA format. Be yourself anyway. Loudly, honestly, and with just enough attitude to make the room adjust.

In the headlines on #TheUpdate this Thursday, a teenage tourist was killed when a carriage horse he was riding in got startled and bolted in Central Park after the operator got out to take a photo of the passengers, cops and sources said. The tragedy is sure to reignite the long-standing push by activists and some lawmakers to ban horse carriages in the Big Apple.

After decades waiting for justice, relatives of women murdered by New York’s Gilgo Beach serial killer laid into him before he was sentenced to life in prison. He told them: “I am responsible” for the crimes.

And Tropical Storm Arthur formed off the Texas coast as the first tropical storm of the season in the Atlantic basin, threatening a wide swath of the Gulf Coast with potentially dangerous flooding even as it was expected to quickly weaken.