PHOENIX — The Timberwolves were en route to their first series sweep in franchise history Sunday in Phoenix. But the closing minutes — which ended in celebration — weren’t without a major bump in the road for the Wolves.

Or, rather, a collision.

Mike Conley was dribbling up the floor late when Suns guard Devin Booker gave him a bump and sent Conley flying toward the Wolves’ bench. Conley fell directly into Timberwolves coach Chris Finch.

Finch fell to the floor and grabbed at his leg. He eventually was helped away from the court. The team said Finch ruptured his right patellar tendon.

Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch, right, tries to avoid Timberwolves guard Mike Conley, back left, after Conley was fouled by Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker, left, during the second half of Game 4 of an NBA basketball first-round playoff series Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Phoenix. The Timberwolves won 122-116, taking the series 4-0. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

“I didn’t see him, honestly, at first,” Conley said. “I was just trying to push the ball up the floor and Book hip checked me out of bounds and when I saw him it was too late. I was trying to grab him. Knocked over, hit his head, and I think his foot got stuck. So it was just bad timing. … Prayers up for him, I’m sure he’ll be fine. We’ll do it for him and we’ll keep moving.”

After the game ended, players made their way into the medical room to see their coach.

“And he’s obviously in great spirits and so are the guys,” said Wolves assistant coach Micah Nori, who served as acting head coach in Finch’s absence.

“He didn’t wanna see me at first,” Conley joked. “I walked in and he started to run away. He just tried to shoo me away.”

Anthony Edwards was clearly upset by the injury — perhaps because it was a product of a Booker bump.

“I was mad as hell. I was mad. Because it’s not even something I want to talk about. I was (ticked) off,” Edwards said. “But we had to finish the game, win the game. But for sure I was mad as hell.”

And Minnesota did finish the game off with a win with Nori steering the ship. The assistant coach successfully executed end-of-game scenarios that included an inbounds play resulting in a bucket, offense-defense substitutions and key timeouts.

“At the end of the day, everything, the way Finchy does things and the way we’ve done things all season long, everybody has their roles and everybody just has each other’s backs, if you will,” Nori said. “I know it sounds cliche and corny, but it’s next man up, even with the coaching staff – Pablo (Prigioni), Kevin Hansen, (Elston Turner), all those guys were great. … It was kind of – I would never say business as usual, because Finchy does a phenomenal job, but we’re just trying to carry over what he’s been doing.”

That could be the case moving forward, as well. No treatment plans have been announced yet for Finch, but it’s logical to assume he’ll need surgery. Minnesota’s next series will start Saturday or next Monday. Will Finch be able to start that series on the front row of the bench? It feels unlikely. But he’ll certainly have a heavy hand in any schematic and rotational decisions.

PHOENIX — Suns stars Devin Booker and Kevin Durant showed up in Game 4 on Friday in Phoenix, clearly determined to not get swept.

Booker poured in 49 points on 13 for 21 shooting. Durant had 33 points, nine rebounds and five assists. The Suns’ best players brought their best effort and delivered their best fight of the series.

And yet they were still knocked out by the best player on the floor over the last week. That was Anthony Edwards, who’s been brilliant all week, and saved his best for last.

The result?

The Timberwolves beat Phoenix 122-116 on Sunday to sweep the first-round playoff series in four games.

Edwards was spectacular in every sense Sunday, not only putting the Suns to bed, but tucking them in and reading them a bedtime story. He hit dagger shots, delivered a critical block to deter a Booker layup and threw down a thunderous slam that sent social media ablaze.

Each big play served as another dagger to Phoenix’s season. The decisive blow came with 20 seconds to play, when Edwards ran the length of the floor to put Minnesota up six.

Game, series.

Edwards scored 16 points in the final frame to secure Minnesota’s victory and deliver the team’s first sweep in franchise history. Edwards finished the game with 40 points, nine boards and six assists.

Minnesota advances to the Western Conference semifinals for the second time in franchise history, where it will meet the Lakers or Nuggets. The earliest that series can start is Saturday.

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch was injured in the final two minutes of the game, as Mike Conley crashed into the coach after he was fouled. Finch was down on the floor for awhile after suffering an apparent leg injury and had to be helped off the floor.

That was about the only hiccup for Minnesota down the stretch. The Wolves have struggled with late-game execution all season, sporting one of the worst clutch-time net ratings in the NBA post-Christmas.

But the plan Sunday was clear and and decisive — allow Edwards to control the game. That’s much easier done now that Edwards has grown such a knack for reading defenses and making the proper decisions.

It’s a near lock for Minnesota that, with the ball in Edwards’ hands, the Wolves will either generate an open look for someone or Edwards will impose his will.

The latter was often effective in Game 4. Edwards scored 29 points in the second half to bring Minnesota back from a five-point halftime deficit and close the Suns out.

Minnesota struggled to shoot in the first half. Karl-Anthony Towns hit all three of his 3-point tries over the first two quarters, while the rest of the Wolves went 1 for 17.

Minnesota found its stroke in the third quarter, though. The Wolves went 6 for 9 from deep in the frame in a major show of offensive burst behind Edwards’ excellence.

Still, Phoenix stuck with Minnesota, as the Wolves weren’t as sharp defensively as they’d been in prior contests throughout the series. Booker and Durant finally looked like All-Stars and found their way to the rim more often than Minnesota would’ve liked as Rudy Gobert struggled with foul trouble.

But, in the end, they were out-dueled.

At 22 years old, Anthony Edwards has now won a playoff series, and he’s in search for more.

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North Oaks product Frankie Capan III shot a 3-under 68 in the final round Sunday to finish 24-under on the week — good for fourth in the Veritex Bank Championship in Arlington, Texas.

Tom Widing shot an 8-under 63 on Sunday to get to 31-under and win the event — his second-straight victory — by four strokes.

The finish moves Capan up from 30th to 22nd on the Korn Ferry Tour’s season-long points list. The top 30 on the list at year’s end earn PGA Tour cards.

Capan has now logged three consecutive top-10 finishes.

He led this week’s event after the first round Thursday, when he shot a 13-under 58 to set a new Texas Rangers Golf Club course record, besting the previous record of 59 set by Scottie Scheffler.

Capan was in solo second, two back of Widing entering Sunday’s final round. He carded a 3-under 32 on the front-nine Sunday before sputtering a bit on his final nine.

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Before Christina Bogojevic joined the Minnesota State Patrol, the Hayfield native tried her hand at jobs that never seemed to stick: a phlebotomist, a school paraprofessional and an administrative specialist in a real estate office.

At 27, Bogojevic made another career move after earning a two-year degree in law enforcement from Rochester Community and Technical College. It became a launching pad into a two-decade career that is now about to enter a new chapter: On Thursday, Bogojevic will become only the second woman to run the Minnesota State Patrol in its 95-year history.

For Bogojevic, what made State Patrol so much more fulfilling than anything she had previously tried was the “ability to do something different every day, and talk to people every day.”

“I hadn’t found that in any of the other jobs that I had held,” she said.

The question is whether the feeling is mutual. Most people’s interactions with the State Patrol come from peeking in the rearview mirror and experiencing an adrenaline rush from seeing flashing red lights. It’s not viewed as a pleasant thing by most drivers.

Christina Bogojevic begins her role as Minnesota State Patrol’s colonel on May 2. (Courtesy of the Minnesota State Patrol)

“You say it’s not a positive thing,” but the agency gets feedback — letters and social media posts — “thanking our troops for the work they do,” she said. Just recently, a woman driver took to Facebook to thank a trooper for pulling her over twice for erratic driving “that could have ended very differently.”

“It changed her driver behavior,” Bogojevic said.

Bogojevic, 48, will head a 900-person agency that includes 625 state troopers whose primary mission is enforcing traffic safety on the state’s highways and interstates. She takes over at a time when those roads have become markedly more dangerous. People are driving faster and more carelessly, pushing up the fatality rate 35% higher this year than last year at this time.

Bogojevic says a number of factors have contributed to that spike in road deaths: speeding, drinking and driving, lack of seat belt use, and a big counterintuitive factor has been the state’s relatively mild winter.

Snowy and ice-covered roads tend to induce more cautious driving. So even though there are more crashes during a typical Minnesota winter, they tend not to lead to serious injury or death because people drive slower. Now drivers are popping the clutch on the state’s snow-free roads and paying a deadly price. It’s among her priorities to reduce that number.

Bogojevic started her law enforcement career as a part-time police officer in Grand Meadow, Minnesota. Given the choice between working full time at an all-male police department or a State Patrol led by the first woman colonel, Anna Beers, she chose the latter because of the agency’s trailblazing role in elevating a woman to the top job.

After a brief stint in the east metro district, Bogojevic transferred to the Rochester district and rose through the ranks until being named colonel this month.

Like law enforcement nationwide, the Minnesota State Patrol is seeing sagging numbers in terms of applications and recruitment. But last week, she noted, the patrol graduated a new class of 35 troopers — a hopeful sign.

“Although our recruitment numbers are down, the applicants that we are getting are very qualified,” she said.

She hopes her elevation will have the same effect on job seekers as Beers had on her. Bogojevic co-leads the State Patrol 30×30 project, an initiative that seeks to have 30% of its State Patrol workforce made up of women by 2030. It’s an ambitious target. Only 8% of its workforce is currently made up of women.

“I’m hopeful that other females see this as an opportunity,” Bogojevic said. “The people of this agency are extraordinary. So to be able to lead them is a great honor.”

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