Numerous members of Minnesota’s coaching staff and front office have positioned themselves to potentially get promotions elsewhere this offseason.

Those are obviously decisions to come in future weeks, but the Timberwolves’ organizational success should shine a brighter light on the others who’ve been integral to Minnesota’s rise, though maybe not always as publicly highlighted.

Micah Nori’s name obviously jumps off the list. The Wolves’ assistant coach specializes in game management, a useful skill set for a potential head coach. Nori has quite literally been center stage in the Western Conference semifinals against Denver, stalking the sidelines as Wolves head coach Chris Finch sits courtside to protect his injured knee.

Nori has been a reported candidate for the Los Angeles Lakers’ open coaching position, could be interviewed for that opening, as well. The Washington Wizards’ position is also open.

But coaching vacancies are strangely scarce. Other coaches on staff, though, could be in line for promotions. Finch has previously said Kevin Hanson should be in line to run a defense of his own. He has played a key role working alongside Wolves defensive coordinator Elston Turner to help run the NBA’s clear-cut No. 1 defensive unit.

Wolves assistant coach Pablo Prigi helps Finch run Minnesota’s offense. Perhaps he could be in play to be a lead assistant elsewhere.

On the front office side, Timberwolves senior vice president of basketball operations Matt Lloyd was recently a finalist to run Charlotte’s basketball operations. He and Sachin Gupta, the executive vice president of basketball operations, have played major roles in establishing one of the NBA’s deepest, most-talented rosters in the NBA in Minnesota.

Then there’s current president of basketball operations Tim Connelly – Minnesota’s basketball boss. Connelly has an opt out in his current contract that he’d likely be wise to take, likely to renegotiate to work his current gig at an even bigger salary figure. But other teams – like Detroit – are already reportedly expected to do their best to pry Connelly away from Minnesota, just as the Wolves did to Denver two offseasons ago.

Minnesota is cap-strapped and could feature little roster movement this summer, but there could be some reshuffling at other levels.

Wacky series

Ahead of Game 7, Denver coach Michael Malone called this Western Conference semifinals “one of the strangest series I’ve ever been a part of” because of the lack of close contests.

Game 1 featured the only truly competitive fourth quarter out of the first six games.

“I’ve noticed in the playoffs over the last four or five years there have been a lot of those larger swings between game to game,” Finch said. “I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s just some of the volatility of the game, in general, these days. Familiarity plays, certainly, a role. … Sometimes, you just kind of play in a really good vein and get super comfortable. But no, I can’t explain it, either.”

Briefly

Sunday’s Game 7 marked the 20th time Minnesota and Denver squared off over the past two seasons.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Xander Schauffele cashed in at just the right time Sunday by making a 6-foot birdie putt on the final hole to win the PGA Championship for his first major with the lowest score in major championship history.

The Olympic gold medalist got something even more valuable in silver — that enormous Wanamaker Trophy after a wild week at Valhalla.

Schauffele closed with a 6-under 65 to beat Bryson DeChambeau, entertaining to the very end with a 10-foot birdie of his own on the par-5 18th for a 64.

Schauffele became the first player since Phil Mickelson in 2005 at Baltusrol to win the PGA Championship with a birdie on the last hole to win by one. And this took all he had. His drive on the par-5 18th rolled close enough to the bunker that he had to stand in the sand. He hit it beautifully down the left side, some 35 yards short, and pitched to 6 feet.

DeChambeau was on the range, staying loose for a potential playoff, watching Schauffele from a large video board. He walked all the way back to the 18th to join in with so many other players wanting to congratulate the 30-year-old Californian.

Schauffele, who began this championship with a 62 to tie the major championship record, finished at 21-under 263 with that winning birdie. That beats by one shot the major record previously shared by Brooks Koepka in the 2018 PGA Championship at Bellerive and Henrik Stenson in the 2016 British Open at Royal Troon.

CLEVELAND — In a long season where the Twins attempt to keep themselves from getting too high when things are going well or too low when things are going poorly, they’ve certainly experienced both through their first 46 games.

Heck, they experienced both during just the ninth inning on Sunday afternoon in Cleveland.

After Byron Buxton, with some help from the Cleveland defense, used his legs to help tie up the game with two outs in the ninth inning, the Twins quickly saw things unravel in the bottom of the ninth — after they appeared to be out of the inning.

Will Brennan’s three-run home run off Jhoan Duran made walk-off winners of the Cleveland Guardians, who sent the Twins to a 5-2 loss on Sunday at Progressive Field. It’s their sixth straight loss as their longest losing streak of their season stretched on.

“There’s no losses that are going to be easy when you’re not playing at your best, when things aren’t working out,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “I even said it to the team: it can feel like you’re underneath something and nothing that you do is going to get you out of it. There’s a lot that we can do to get out of it, and I want our guys to know that.”

The Twins (24-22), held quiet offensively for most of the day, came close to climbing out of it on Sunday — or at least were in a position where they could have walked away with a win over Cleveland (30-17).

With two outs in the ninth, catcher Ryan Jeffers, the league-leader in hit by pitches, was nicked, keeping their chances alive. Buxton, called upon to pinch run for him, beat out a bang-bang play at second base on Willi Castro’s fielder’s choice, a play that video review confirmed.

Had Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase not then dropped Alex Kirilloff’s easy groundball fed to him by first baseman Josh Naylor, the game would have been over. Instead, Clase couldn’t hang on. Naylor grabbed the ball and Buxton, caught between third and home, took a step back towards third, perhaps what prompted Naylor to throw there.

Buxton broke home, sliding in without a throw.

“My biggest thing there was, like, just battle and compete. It’s just one of those. You don’t want to be the last out at third. You don’t want to be the last out at home,” Buxton said. “So mentality-wise, it was a pickle, but mentality, it was like, ‘He’s got to throw the ball one way, and whatever way he throws it, just take off the other way.’”

But the highs of that play, of tying the game were quickly wiped away. The Twins appeared to have gotten the third out when Christian Vázquez corralled a wild pitch and threw to Carlos Correa at second, but the call was overturned upon review.

Minnesota Twins’ Byron Buxton, left, slides safely home as Cleveland Guardians’ Austin Hedges, right, waits for a throw during the ninth inning of a baseball game in Cleveland, Sunday, May 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Phil Long)

After an intentional walk, Duran threw a first-pitch curveball that Brennan hammered. The closer said he would have preferred to have thrown a fastball.

“It’s not my decision. I thought that he wasn’t good with fastballs,” Duran said. “And I’m an employee here, so whatever I need to throw, I need to throw.”

That home run sent the Twins to a loss on a day where Chris Paddack was nearly untouchable for eight innings, the longest start of his career. Two batters into the game, he was already down after Andrés Giménez hit a two-run blast to center.

But after that, he sent down 12 straight batters. A double in the fifth inning disrupted his streak — so he started another one. He sent down the next 11 batters in order to finish off his outing.

“I wanted to be a stopper today of this bad juju and we’re putting pressure on ourselves again, like we did early on in the season,” Paddack said. “That’s why you play 162, man. It’s a roller coaster of events.”

But though he certainly did his job, he got little run support — the only run the Twins scored before the ninth came on Jose Miranda’s third homer of the season. The Twins were stifled by Guardians starter Tanner Bibee, who dueled Paddack for seven innings.

While they finished with just four hits, they also ran into some bad luck, like when Jeffers hit a ball up the middle that appeared as if it were going to sneak through. Instead, shortstop Bryan Rocchio dove and shoveled a throw to second to get Correa and spark a double play.

And so the Twins left Cleveland empty-handed, in search of answers as they attempt to recapture the success they were having just a week earlier.

“The whole game, just hit after hit, they catch a line drive, or make a good play, a double play. The series was a tough one offensively,” Buxton said. “Pitching staff, they go out there and they keep us in the game and give us every opportunity. We’ve just got to settle back down and get back to being us and doing what we do best.”

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CLEVELAND — When the 2023 season concluded, the Twins were the lone team in their division to finish above .500. The next closest team, the Detroit Tigers, finished six games under that mark as the American League Central finished as one of the worst divisions in history.

No longer.

If the Twins are to defend their title — they’re currently in third place and were just swept by the Cleveland Guardians on the road — they’ll have a much harder go of it. The AL Central has four teams at or above .500 — Cleveland, Kansas City, Minnesota and Detroit — the most of any division in baseball.

“The first month and a half, I don’t know how it  could be much more competitive,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “There’s some clubs playing really good. Pitching exceptionally well. … It’s like every game you’re running into now in this division, you’re going to have to do some really good work offensively and have a tremendous plan and have tremendous at-bats in order to win the game.”

Cleveland tailed off last year, but is atop the division this year, now 5 1/2 games ahead of the Twins.

Kansas City, led by the youngster, Bobby Witt Jr., and the veteran, Salvador Perez, currently sits in second place, 1 1/2 games out, after finishing with the second-worst record in the American League last year. They won their 28th game on Saturday, a mark they didn’t hit until mid-July last season.

And the Tigers, at .500 after a loss on Sunday, have been among the best pitching teams in the majors, led by ace Tarik Skubal.

“We saw the Royals last year and how young they were, and they obviously weren’t in it. But they were very competitive,” center fielder Byron Buxton said. “There was a good, young group, and they just let them go out and play. And you could tell the confidence and just the experience of them playing last year. You can tell it shows a little bit more this year by how well they’re playing. … Detroit is young. Cleveland, they’re always good. It’s just changing.”

Only the Chicago White Sox are out of contention — and while the Twins are 7-0 against them, they’ve provided some challenges for other division foes.

All that has made things much more challenging for the Twins, who came into the season projected to win the division for the second straight year but have been a streaky team — in both directions — for the first month and a half of the season.

“I still don’t know how it’s all going (to come) together for us or any other club this year,” Baldelli said. “What I do know is that you better be ready to show up to work when you’re playing these teams right now.”

Jackson DFA’d

A day after he gave up four runs against the Guardians, ballooning his earned-run average to 6.85, the Twins officially designated veteran reliever Jay Jackson for assignment.

The Twins signed Jackson, 36, to a major league deal this offseason. It was the first time in his career he had landed a major league deal after a long journey that has taken him through multiple major league organizations and to Japan.

“If he can find a way to keep throwing to get his velocity back up to where it was last year, I think he has a chance to be really successful,” Baldelli said. “He came in this year, and the stuff so far has been a little bit down compared to where it was last year. I think that does matter. That’s definitely part of it.”

While Baldelli expressed hope that he would clear waivers and remain in the organization, Jackson was out of options, which meant they had to designate him for assignment to remove him from the 26-man roster.

In his place, the Twins called up Caleb Boushley to add to the bullpen.

Briefly

The Twins will head to Washington’s Nationals Park for the first time since the 2016 season for a series beginning on Monday. They’ll face off against multiple former Twins, including Eddie Rosario and Joey Gallo. … Pablo López, Joe Ryan and Simeon Woods Richardson will take on the Nationals.

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