The Timberwolves put the finishing touches Wednesday on what had been a foregone conclusion for the past week, blitzing Golden State 121-110 at Target Center to win the Western Conference semifinal series 4-1.

Minnesota advances to the West Finals for the second straight season and will meet either Oklahoma City or Denver in the next round. The Wolves will start that series on the road, with Game 1 either on Sunday or Tuesday.

That series will require significantly better play from the Wolves.

Minnesota surrendered 27 second-chance points on Wednesday while turning the ball over 21 times. But it didn’t matter. Not against these Warriors, who were dead in the water the moment Steph Curry went down with a hamstring injury in the second quarter of Game 1.

From that point on, the Timberwolves’ margin for error expanded to the size of a sea.

The entire series was largely a celebration for Minnesota, who finally got to clinch a series victory at Target Center for the first time since 2004.

Julius Randle got to exert his physical dominance over the smaller Warriors. Anthony Edwards got to pick his spots to combust offensively. Minnesota got to use its endless supply of lengthy perimeter defenders to harass a Warriors team that lost its offensive hub and identity and was suddenly forced to ask a number of players to do things with which they were not familiar.

The result was four straight Wolves’ wins, three of which came with ease. Even in Minnesota’s come-from-behind victory in Game 3, Golden State was largely helpless down the stretch run.

On Wednesday, Minnesota simply overpowered the Warriors with shot making. The Timberwolves shot 63% from the field, including 43% from distance.

Randle continues to be Minnesota’s best player in the playoffs, this time finishing with 29 points and eight rebounds. Edwards had 22 points and seven assists to help cancel out seven turnovers. Rudy Gobert had 17 points, while Mike Conley had 16. Minnesota scored 72 points in the paint, the most any team has tallied in these playoffs.

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Minnesota United shuffled the majority of its starting lineup on Wednesday and the new mix of players weren’t cohesive in a 2-0 loss to Houston Dynamo at Shell Oil Stadium.

Amid a congested schedule of nine games in 30 days, Loons made a striking eight different changes to its starting XI, including five making their first starts of the season.

The makeover was a major reason Minnesota (6-4-2, 22 points) had its two-game winning streak end at Houston (2-4-6, 10 points), which came into the match in 12th place in the West.

Loons head coach Eric Ramsay said he wanted to prioritize fresh legs over in-form players on Wednesday, while more regulars are expected to start Saturday versus St. Louis City. Ramsay added he had no regrets over the team he put on the field, given how stifling the heat was in Houston.

“Even with what is on paper your strongest team, the team that is in real rhythm, the team that has played the large majority of the games so far, there is no guarantee you are going to get a spark, energy and a real intensity, particularly after the experience we had (in a 4-1 win over Inter Miami) on Saturday,” Ramsay said. “With that considered and the conditions here … I think on balance it was a justified way of looking at this game.”

The Loons’ defense conceded a goal on the final action of the first half. On a recycled corner kick, Devin Padelford couldn’t get enough direction on a clearance and Pablo Ortiz’s header to the far post got over 5-foot-8 DJ Taylor’s leaping attempt at a goal-line clearance.

Apple TV broadcasters Neil Sika and Lloyd Sam said Houston coach Ben Olsen felt Minnesota was vulnerable in defending set pieces. That was spot on.

Then in the second half, Houston scored on another recycled corner kick, with Felipe Andrade finding the back of the net in the 77th minute.

In the first half, Minnesota was outshot 11-1 and 2-0 in shots on frame.

Trying to rectify the imbalance, coach Eric Ramsay made a quadruple substitution, bringing in more attacking-minded players — Tani Oluwaseyi, Joaquin Pereyra, Robin Lod and Bongi Hlongwane — in the 64th minute.

Striker Kelvin Yeboah had the Loons best chance in the 81st minute, but his header went over the crossbar.

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Having already spent plenty of time away from her young son, Frost captain Kendall Coyne Schofield made sure that the team would get a few days off this week.

Coyne Schofield scored her first two goals of the playoffs, and Taylor Heise ripped a shot through traffic in overtime as the Frost ended the Toronto Sceptres’ season and advanced to their second consecutive Walter Cup Final with a 4-3 come-from-behind win on Wednesday night in St. Paul.

“There’s no doubt in my mind Kendall did not want to go back to Toronto,” Frost coach Ken Klee said. “She’s spent enough time away from Drew lately and I think she was like, ‘I’m not letting it happen. Two or three more days at home with my kid, I’m doing it.’ And obviously she was outstanding tonight.”

It was the fist goal of the playoffs for Heise, who came flying off the bench and scored for the Frost. They did not lead until the final goal, getting 26 saves from Nicole Hensley — including a sprawling pad save to thwart a Toronto breakaway in overtime — to win the best-of-five series 3-1.

“I probably missed the net three times leading up to that, but just the belief in my teammates, every time I came back to the bench, I had three or four teammates tapping me on the back, saying, ‘You’ve got this,’” Heise said. “The last one, I just waited it out a little bit and like I said, we had so many good screens, so many good passes today, I wanted to do it for the team.”

Minnesota will open the championship series on the road, facing the winner of the Ottawa-Montreal series, likely early next week.

As opposed to Game 3, which featured a league-record 12 goals scored, neither team had a shot on goal in the first five minutes on Wednesday.

But Toronto made its first shot count, when Julia Gosling got open behind the Frost defense, and after a set-up pass from Emma Woods, was in alone on Hensley. Gosling’s low shot beat the Frost goalie on the glove side for an early lead.

It was the only goal of the opening period, in which Minnesota gained the offensive zone with some quick rushes up ice, but could only get six shots on the Toronto net. That number did not include Michaela Cava’s wrist shot that clanked off the goalpost with less than 30 seconds left in the opening period.

Outshot 7-0 in the first half of the middle frame, the Frost trailed 2-0 when Hannah Miller got a shot through a crowd to beat Hensley from 20 feet out.

But the Frost had an answer, quickly.

Just 14 seconds after the Toronto goal, Heise fired a shot from the top of the circle with Coyne Schofield causing trouble in front of the Sceptres’ net. Heise’s shot got through after a redirection from Coyne Schofield for her first goal of the playoffs, and it put momentum squarely on Minnesota’s side.

With under 90 seconds to play in the period, Minnesota hemmed the Sceptres into the defensive zone for an extended shift that ended with the game tied. This time it was Brooke McQuigge shooting from the top of the circle, and getting a deflection off Pannek’s stick, sending the game to the final 20 minutes tied 2-2.

The Frost had just four shots in the second period, but made two of them count.

“Tonight I thought we battled hard. Minnesota’s a difficult offensive team to play against,” said Toronto coach Troy Ryan. “I thought we found ways to contribute offensively and I thought we were relatively good defensively…There were a few opportunities for us to put it away and we just didn’t.”

Toronto immediately got the momentum, and the lead, back at the start of the third when Emma Maltais slipped a low shot past Hensley’s glove less than a minute into the period.

But the Frost forged another deadlock when Sophie Jaques got a deflected shot through to the net. The Toronto goalie made the save, but Coyne Schofield backhanded the rebound home for a 3-3 tie midway through the third.

Minnesota had a golden opportunity for the game-winner with 1:08 left in regulation, when a scramble in front of the Toronto net ended with Sceptres defender Allie Munroe on top of the puck in the crease. The Frost argued that Munroe had covered the puck with her hand, which would have resulted in a penalty shot. But there was no call, and the game went to overtime. Both teams said they were generally OK with the penalty-free game, but Klee said the covered puck should have been called.

“Obviously I got upset with the covering the puck in the crease…that just can’t happen,” Klee said. “But the refs are doing their best to let the players decide, so I let it go. I didn’t say another word about it.”

After Maddie Rooney had backstopped wins in Game 2 and Game 3, Klee went back to Hensley for Game 4. Toronto made a corresponding move, starting Carly Jackson in goal after Kristen Campbell had played the first three games of the series, and 21 of the Sceptres’ 30 regular-season contests.

Jackson had 22 saves for Toronto.

After trending upward for two decades, hitting a record high in 2022, suicide deaths in Minnesota have remained flat for the past two years, state health officials say.

According to preliminary data, the number of Minnesota suicides in 2024 — 813 — was the same as in 2023, ending a 20-year upward trend.

This marks two years of suicides below the state high set in 2022, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.

Until 2023, “deaths by suicide in Minnesota have been trending up for the past 20 years with some slight fluctuations each year, mirroring patterns” across the country.

“The overall increase in deaths by suicide over the last couple of decades continues to be concerning,” Health Commissioner Brooke Cunningham said in a statement. “Every death by suicide is a tragedy and can have an ongoing impact on families and communities. Our aim is to help make sure people know suicide is preventable and recovery is possible.”

Some key points in the 2024 data:

• The suicide rate in entirely rural counties was twice that of Twin Cities metro counties. State health officials say contributing factors that make rural residents more at risk could include higher rates of firearm ownership, less access to health and mental health care, and higher poverty rates.

• More males died by suicide than females, with males making up nearly 80% of the deaths.

• Nearly 51% of the deaths were caused by firearms, a higher percentage than in recent years.

State officials are “closely watching initial proposed federal funding cuts that could significantly undermine this work to protect Minnesotans. Specifically, it calls for the elimination of both the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at CDC and key SAMHSA Mental Health Programs, as well as possible cuts to some 988 funding.”

If you need immediate emotional or mental health support, or are worried about someone else, call or text 988 or visit the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988lifeline.org to connect with a trained specialist.

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