It’s difficult to explain the atmosphere at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City to someone who hasn’t been there. But the sights on the television screen do it a sort of justice.

Ninety-nine percent of the patrons wear the complimentary t-shirt provided to create a monotone wall of fandom that surrounds the court. It’s a good visual representation of the crowd’s unity throughout the game.

Sure, it’s loud. The screams are deafening. The music blasts through the speakers. But it extends beyond that.

You’d swear the fans showed up hours prior to the contest to practice the rhythm of the chants, and in which situations they’d be used. Seemingly every person in the building knows exactly when to shout “De-fense!” Or, “O-K-C!” And does so without reservation.

Target Center has become a house of chaos for opponents in recent years as the Wolves have ascended the NBA ranks, but Oklahoma City is a different animal.

Fans waited outside the fence of a local airfield past 3 a.m. Tuesday in the pouring rain to greet the Thunder upon their return from not winning an NBA title or even securing a conference championship, just winning Game 4 of a best-of-seven series. It all gives off the vibes of high-level college sports, fitting given Oklahoma is a college sports state.

The Thunder are the state’s only top-tier men’s professional sports franchise, yet they’re treated with the same love and adoration as the Sooners. An invocation is delivered at center court just prior to the national anthem as part of the Oklahoma City pre-game festivities. It makes sense, because Thunder basketball feels like a religion of sorts in that part of the country.

“It’s a tough place. It really is a tough place to play,” Wolves guard Mike Conley said. “They’ve got a great fan base. Their home games are some of the loudest you’ll ever play in. They feed off of that. They’re already a team that plays hard and plays together and plays with momentum and confidence with that momentum, and they feed off of it. So, it makes it a tough environment.”

The Thunder went 32-8 at home during the regular season. They’re 7-1 in Oklahoma City in these playoffs, with six of the victories coming by 15 or more points. Minnesota was housed in Games 1 and 2 of this series.

The Thunder’s only home loss in these playoffs came in Game 1 of the conference semifinals to Denver. That felt like a miracle for the Nuggets, who trailed by 11 in the final five minutes, and were still down by nine with three minutes to play. Minnesota’s win in the Sooner State this season came via a 24-point fourth quarter comeback.

It feels like that’s what is required to beat the Thunder in their house. Now, in order to win this series, the Wolves will have to do so twice, starting with Game 5 on Wednesday. The odds are greatly stacked against them.

But Conley noted that Wolves players recognize how competitive this series has been, especially over the past two games played in Minneapolis. He said guys were already chatting in the locker room after a difficult Game 4 defeat about the next contest.

“I don’t think there’s a challenge of muscling up any kind of urgency now. It’s a one-game series for us. We’ve got to go in and win. We’ve got to figure it out,” Conley said. “So, we feel like when we play our best, hopefully our best can be better than their best.”

Wolves guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker said Minnesota cannot “concede to the situation.” They have no choice but to find a way. He cited the Timberwolves’ resilience — which has been exemplified all season as the group has responded well to being backed into a corner — as reason for optimism.

“Gotta play desperate. Gotta play like there’s no tomorrow because there isn’t,” Alexander-Walker said. “Right now, if we want to win, it’s not about how much we can score. It’s about can we get the stops? Can we rebound? Can we find a way to make winning plays relentlessly and consistently? For us, that’s the focus. For me, whatever that’s going to look like.

“… The only thing I care about is seeing another day. Donte (DiVincenzo) and I have a great relationship. We talk all the time about how we can help each other and the team. As long as that’s our focus, I have confidence that we can be OK.”

Winning two games in Oklahoma City is a monumental task. But DiVincenzo noted the only mission at the moment is to win there once and secure another opportunity to play on Minnesota’s home floor.

“Everybody has counted us out all year. We’ve been through a lot. We’re together as a locker room,” DiVincenzo said. “We don’t care what the media is going to say. We don’t care what TV is going to say. We’re focused on one game at a time and giving ourselves a chance on Wednesday.”

Jeff Johnson raised seven kids in the West Seventh Street neighborhood, moving houses four times across 42 years, but never relocating much more than a mile from the century-old pharmacy he purchased with his wife and a business partner in 1999.

The business partner was bought out more than a decade ago, and with the Johnsons — husband-and-wife pharmacists — looking to retire this year, the couple put the West Seventh Pharmacy up for sale, including its inventory of greeting cards, angel-themed curios, toiletries and small household supplies. But facing industry headwinds that have shuttered some 44% of pharmacies in Minnesota since 2013, the Johnsons could not find a buyer.

When the doors close on the West Seventh Pharmacy on June 30, it will be for the final time. The pharmacy, in continuous operation since 1915, will cease to exist in a neighborhood that once was dotted by a number of street corner shops where a familiar face would fill a prescription while selling a customer a soda.

A sign in the West Seventh Pharmacy in St. Paul on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. Owner Jeff Johnson will retire at the end of June and shutter the 110-year-old neighborhood pharmacy. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“It’s been a good run,” said Johnson, who has welcomed 19 grandkids into the world. “It was like ‘Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.’ We knew the mailman. We knew the bar owners. We knew the people who worked in the gas station.”

While lacking the same street corner visibility, a clinic-based pharmacy opened last year two blocks away in the Riverland Community Clinic, the former United Family Medicine center, a federally-qualified health center off West Seventh Street and Osceola and Randolph avenues. Johnson spoke with them by phone and was assured they had capacity to absorb his customers.

“I talked to them yesterday and they said they can take anybody,” Johnson said Friday.

After that, options are limited.

Fewer drug stores

There’s Etel Pharmacy within Sibley Plaza, almost three miles to the southwest, or the pharmacy within United Hospital, nearly two miles in the opposite direction, toward the outskirts of downtown St. Paul. Within downtown, there’s a pharmacy at the two-level Walgreens on Wabasha Street, which has been plagued by shoplifting.

Since 2013, 61% of independently-owned and 39% of chain pharmacies have closed, according to the Minnesota Pharmacists Association.

Some point fingers at pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) that work for managed care organizations (MCOs), who reimburse pharmacies well below their costs while instituting fees, contract terms and other market practices that leave small pharmacies at a disadvantage, according to the association.

Pharmacist Jeff Johnson, left, talks with a customer in his West Seventh Pharmacy in St. Paul on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. Johnson will retire at the end of June and shutter the 110-year-old neighborhood pharmacy. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

A handful of companies such as United Health’s Optum Rx, Cigna, CVS Caremark, and Prime Therapeutics — which works with Express Scripts — have been able to effectively dictate prices for prescription drugs using take-it-or-leave-it policies that would lock shops out if they don’t accept their terms, according to independent pharmacists.

In the past, when PBMs dictated lower prices for prescription drugs, stores could make up the difference by selling greeting cards and other items.

“Pharmacies have very little control over the pricing of the drugs themselves. (PBMs) have ratcheted everything down, so it’s gotten to the point where there’s no place to make up the losses,” said Deborah Keaveny, a Winsted, Minn. pharmacist who founded Minnesota Independent Pharmacists. “We are all at the tipping point.”

Changing landscape

Johnson noted there are other industry players who aren’t exactly skipping meals, either. “Everyone talks about the PBMs,” he said. “It could be the manufacturers. It could be the wholesalers. Larger chains could be treated differently than smaller chains. It’s as competitive as the restaurant business. It’s as competitive as the grocery business.”

A labor shortage hasn’t helped. Connie Weber, one of the two pharmacists on staff at West Seventh Pharmacy, worked for an independent pharmacy for 22 years until that shop closed. She landed at West Seventh Pharmacy five years ago. Now, another pharmacy is closing around her, which is one of several reasons younger industry peers have opted to avoid the retail sector.

“You have to pay workers a fair share, but we’re paying our workers the bare minimum,” Johnson said. “It’s a nice place to work so they accept that, but they can make more money at bigger companies.”

At West Seventh Pharmacy, what was once a dozen retail workers has now dwindled to seven part-timers, several of whom have reached retirement age themselves. Johnson’s wife, who will retire this fall from Children’s Hospital in St. Paul, jokingly refers to the West Seventh Pharmacy as the “nonprofit pharmacy.”

A customer walks into the West Seventh Pharmacy in St. Paul on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. When owner Jeff Johnson retires on June 30, the pharmacy, in continuous operation since 1915, will close for the final time. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

In addition to industry changes, customers have also changed. A younger clientele expects on-demand service akin to Amazon.com. “People treat us like McDonald’s,” Johnson said. “We have great customers, but there’s some who want things right away. That’s a hard one. There’s a difference in generations. The new customers need a little more attention.”

And to get that attention, they’ll soon have to look elsewhere.

“It’s been a good gig,” said Johnson, who is ending an era for himself and for his store. “We’ve been trying to sell it, but no one is interested in buying it.”

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NEW YORK (AP) — Twice a year, New Yorkers and visitors are treated to a phenomenon known as Manhattanhenge, when the setting sun aligns with the Manhattan street grid and sinks below the horizon framed in a canyon of skyscrapers.

The event is a favorite of photographers and often brings people out onto sidewalks on spring and summer evenings to watch this unique sunset.

The first Manhattanhenge of the year takes place Wednesday at 8:13 p.m., with a slight variation happening again Thursday at 8:12 p.m. It will occur again on July 11 and 12.

Some background on the phenomenon:

Where does the name Manhattanhenge come from?

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson coined the term in a 1997 article in the magazine Natural History. Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, said he was inspired by a visit to Stonehenge as a teenager.

The future host of TV shows such as PBS’ “Nova ScienceNow” was part of an expedition led by Gerald Hawkins, the scientist who first theorized that Stonehenge’s mysterious megaliths were an ancient astronomical observatory.

It struck Tyson, a native New Yorker, that the setting sun framed by Manhattan’s high-rises could be compared to the sun’s rays striking the center of the Stonehenge circle on the solstice.

Unlike the Neolithic Stonehenge builders, the planners who laid out Manhattan did not mean to channel the sun. It just worked out that way.

When is Manhattanhenge?

Manhattanhenge does not take place on the summer solstice itself, which is June 20 this year. Instead, it happens about three weeks before and after the solstice. That’s when the sun aligns itself perfectly with the Manhattan grid’s east-west streets.

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Viewers get two different versions of the phenomenon to choose from.

On May 28 and July 12, half the sun will be above the horizon and half below it at the moment of alignment with Manhattan’s streets, according to the Hayden Planetarium.

On May 29 and July 11, the whole sun will appear to hover between buildings just before sinking into the New Jersey horizon across the Hudson River.

Where can you see Manhattanhenge?

The traditional viewing spots are along the city’s broad east-west thoroughfares: 14th Street, 23rd Street, 34th Street, 42nd Street and 57th Street.

The farther east you go, the more dramatic the vista as the sun’s rays hit building facades on either side. It is also possible to see Manhattanhenge across the East River in the Long Island City section of Queens.

Is Manhattanhenge an organized event?

Manhattanhenge viewing parties are not unknown, but it is mostly a DIY affair. People gather on east-west streets a half-hour or so before sunset and snap photo after photo as dusk approaches. That’s if the weather is fine. There’s no visible Manhattanhenge on rainy or cloudy days, and both are unfortunately in the forecast this week.

Do other cities have ‘henges’?

Similar effects occur in other cities with uniform street grids. Chicagohenge and Baltimorehenge happen when the setting sun lines up with the grid systems in those cities in March and September, around the spring and fall equinoxes. Torontohenge occurs in February and October.

But Manhattanhenge is particularly striking because of the height of the buildings and the unobstructed path to the Hudson.

Much of the national discourse surrounding Anthony Edwards in the aftermath of Minnesota’s Game 4 loss to Oklahoma City centered on the guard’s lack of scoring aggression.

Which feels a little ludicrous.

The Timberwolves scored 126 points — including 41 in the final frame — against a historically good defense on Monday in Minneapolis.

The box score suggests Edwards didn’t contribute much to the offensive cause. The 23-year-old guard finished with 16 points after taking just two shots in the first half. But that was largely a product of the defensive attention the Thunder paid to Edwards, which he parlayed into open shots for his teammates by making the “right play.”

“I thought Ant did a great job of letting the game dictate what he needed to do,” Wolves guard Mike Conley said. “He got downhill, he made the right plays, he shot it when he had opportunities.”

Could there be ways for Edwards to adjust offensively to create more opportunities for himself? Certainly.

Everyone noted postgame that Oklahoma City was eliminating top-of-the-floor actions. So, Conley and Finch suggested Edwards — and, just as important, Julius Randle, who truly provided Minnesota with nothing offensively in Game 4 — need to be intentional about running the court to get deeper into the floor to open up other potential actions in Game 5 on Wednesday.

Minnesota used some of those to get Edwards more chances to be aggressive over the final two frames on Monday, but in general, Edwards’ offensive performance in Game 4 was solid.

It was the other areas of the game where he left much to be desired. Minnesota’s superstar set a distinct tone at the start of Saturday’s game, which the Wolves went on to win by 42 points. He, by himself, outscored the Thunder, 16-14, in the first quarter.

On Monday, Edwards’ start was less impressive. He grabbed one rebound, got blown by on a drive by Jalen Williams and surrendered an open triple to Williams — who finished the game with 34 points — after taking a dumbfounding route around a screen.

In the fourth quarter, Edwards lost Alex Caruso on a cut that resulted in an open layup and paid no mind to a cutting Chet Holmgren off an offensive rebound created another easy finish. Those are the types of plays Conley called the “non-negotiables.”

Yes, Minnesota scored 41 in the fourth quarter, but the Thunder scored 38.

“How we won (Game 3) was everything small, we did,” Conley said. “Tonight it was like everything small, we did not do.”

Minnesota feeds off its best player. Defensive tracking data — which can, admittedly, oftentimes be shaky — had Thunder players shooting 8 for 12 from the field when guarded by Edwards in Game 4 after going 1 for 4 against him two days prior.

It sure felt like the lack of involvement in terms of shooting the ball, which the young guard worked around offensively, affected the luster with which Edwards attacked the other portions of the game. He was a ball-pressuring menace on Saturday who battled for every available board; on Monday, he was more of a bystander for large segments of the contest.

That can’t happen for Minnesota, not against Oklahoma City. Conley noted after Game 3 that Edwards is asked to do a lot for the Wolves. He bears a heavy burden.

“So, it’s really hard for him to give the energy all the time that he can defensively,” Conley said. “But, my God, if he can do it four, five, six straight possessions, we’re a completely different team — and he knows that. So, I think this next couple games is going to be big to find ways to impact the game in the same way.”

The reality is, Edwards didn’t. Not in Game 4, and it has nothing to do with how many points he scored or shots he took. The good news for the guard? He gets a chance to try again Wednesday to be the player he needs to be for Minnesota to slay the Western Conference’s new dragon.

But he has to be that elite two-way guard who impacts the game in every phase. And now, he has to do it in three consecutive games. If not, he’ll have to try again next year.

Head coach Chris Finch and Anthony Edwards #5 of the Minnesota Timberwolves argue with referee Zach Zarba #15 against the Oklahoma City Thunder during the second quarter in Game Four of the Western Conference Finals of the 2025 NBA Playoffs at Target Center on May 26, 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (5) shoots against Oklahoma City Thunder forward Chet Holmgren, bottom right, during the second half of Game 4 of the Western Conference finals of the NBA basketball playoffs Monday, May 26, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

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