Timberwolves coach Chris Finch noted the 2024-25 campaign was not always fun for him, nor his players. But it was rewarding, particularly in how Minnesota rebounded through numerous rough patches to find its stride in the end and reach a second consecutive conference finals.

And the fact it didn’t end well won’t weigh too heavily on the coach. Because, as he noted, the season ends well for only one team each season: the champion.

That’s a target at which the franchise continues to aim, and it has a method for eventually checking the box — kick at the door enough, and it will eventually fall down.

The Timberwolves became the first Western Conference team to reach the conference finals in consecutive seasons since 2019 when they got back to the NBA semifinals this season before falling in five games to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Minnesota considers that another “bite at the apple.” President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly has been clear about this. In his mind, each year you aim to be a top-four seed in your conference to net yourself home-court advantage in Round 1. You win that series, and see where the chips fall from there.

That’s a plan Minnesota executed a year ago. This season, the Wolves finished sixth in the West but, through good fortune, ended up with home-court advantage in the conference semifinals against Golden State.

The idea is that if you keep giving yourself chances in the later rounds of the postseason, then it can come down to health and matchups and, eventually, the stars will likely align in your favor.

It sounds good, but is there validity to the approach?

Minnesota was “close” to winning a championship this season in that it was one of the final four teams in contention to do so. But little about its West finals matchup with Oklahoma City felt competitive. The Wolves’ three road losses in the series came by an average of 24 points.

The Thunder are now four wins away from the title, and have the true look of a title contender.

What, exactly, does that look like? Well, it usually involves regular-season domination.

Whoever claims this year’s crown — Oklahoma City, New York or Indiana — will be the seventh different NBA champion over the past seven seasons. That screams “parity” within the league. And that’s true in the fact that all teams seemingly have the opportunity to build a winner.

But parity doesn’t mean the NBA playoffs are some crapshoot carousel in which any of the 16 teams involved could hoist a trophy come mid-June.

Quite the opposite. Should the Thunder win this year’s title — as they’re heavily favored to do — that would mark the 13th time in the past 14 seasons that the eventual champion posted a regular-season net rating of plus-5.5 or better.

The Thunder’s net rating this season was a gaudy plus-12.7, meaning they outscored opponents by 12.7 points per 100 possessions over the course of the 82-game campaign.

Boston took the title a year ago after tallying a regular season net rating of plus-11.7.

That’s not to say you have to reach those levels of dominance during the season to ultimately be the last team standing. But recent history suggests you need to exhibit your high-level excellence prior to the postseason.

The only champion to not eclipse the 5.5 mark in net rating and still win the title was 2022-23 Denver, who tallied a 3.3 net rating. But that season was sans a dominant team. And the Nuggets were the No. 1 seed in the West, though only with a 53-29 record.

All of the other champs dating back to 2012 strutted their stuff at a high level throughout the season.

It’s why, while it’s fun to see lower seeds making deeper runs into the postseason — the sixth-seeded Wolves were in this year’s West finals, the fifth-seeded Mavericks and eighth-seeded Heat populated the two previous NBA Finals — it’s nearly impossible to actually win it all if you weren’t all that for the six months prior.

Wolves guard Donte DiVincenzo said a series like the one Minnesota just endured “gives you perspective that you’re not far off and you’re right there. We just have to be ready to try to get another bite at the apple.”

Was that a bite? It felt more like a nibble. Like, Minnesota tasted a smidge of the peel and thought maybe there was a drop of juice on there. That’s not to belittle this year’s team. Minnesota did post a net rating of plus-5.0, just below the title-winning threshold. Post Jan. 1, that number was plus-7.0.

A year ago, the Wolves were plus-6.3. That’s title-contending stuff. And Minnesota certainly looked like more of a championship-caliber team last season, armed with its top-tier defense. That felt more like a legitimate bite, like a crack at the crown that just didn’t go the Wolves’ way for matchup and injury reasons.

This did not. A few things lined up in the Wolves’ favor by season’s end, and it simply didn’t matter. It rarely will when you simply aren’t in the same caliber as the conference’s top contender.

Finch lauded the franchise’s “consistency of approach” and the idea of “putting yourself in a place, time and again, to get enough chances to do it.”

“How many times did Boston have to get there before they got one?” Finch said. “That’s what the league is about.”

It’s true the Celtics made the East finals in six out of eight seasons before finally parlaying their run of success into a title last June.

But it wasn’t until each of the last three seasons that the Celtics began reeling off the regular seasons truly befitting of potential champions. In many of their previous runs, it would’ve been miraculous had Boston broken through. Miracles aren’t a method of success in the NBA playoffs.

You’re either better than the team lining up across from you, or you aren’t.

It’s on Connelly and Co. to decide this offseason if this current collection of Wolves can be that for four consecutive rounds in the near future, or if further roster adjustments are required to help Minnesota climb the final couple rungs of the ladder.

“I like where we’re placed,” Finch said, “but we’ve got to keep pushing.”

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By MICHAEL CASEY

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — A day after her emotional speech at Harvard University’s commencement, Yurong “Luanna” Jiang kept running into classmates who praised her message that people should see everyone’s common humanity rather than demonize others for their differences.

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“We’re starting to believe those who think differently, vote differently or pray differently — whether they’re across the ocean or sitting right next to us — are not just wrong. We mistakenly see them as evil. But it doesn’t have to be this way,” she said in her address, which drew wide applause.

“The message itself, if I have to put it into one sentence, will be humanity rises and falls as one,” Jiang told The Associated Press on Friday. “We are living in a very difficult time. There’s a lot of divisions in terms of ideas, ethnicities, identities. This is a time where we can use a little bit more moral imagination and imagine ourselves being connected with one another.”

The 25-year-old Jiang’s speech never directly mentioned the Trump administration nor its multi-pronged attack on the nation’s oldest and richest university. But she said the turmoil beyond their campus and its impact on her classmates was on her mind as she delivered her speech.

“Students can be very emotionally charged because they care deeply about a lot of issues,” said Jiang, who comes from China and graduated with a masters degree in public administration in international development. “When you are emotionally charged and activated, it’s very easy to demonize another person.”

She said the relentless attacks from the Trump administration on the school’s funding and threats to detain and deport people studying in the U.S. on student visas have left her unsettled, adding huge uncertainty to her future plans.

“In terms of the plan going forward, I would say everything is up in the air at this point,” Jiang said, who had hoped to remain in the United States for a few years but now is open to working in international development overseas. “At this point, it’s difficult to say what will happen.”

This week, the Trump administration asked federal agencies to cancel about $100 million in contracts with the university. The government already canceled more than $2.6 billion in federal research grants, moved to cut off Harvard’s enrollment of international students and threatened its tax-exempt status. Then it widened the pressure campaign, suspending visa applications worldwide and threatening to deny U.S. visas to thousands of Chinese students nationwide.

These actions resonate with Jiang and her classmates — about 30% of Harvard’s students are international, and China has among the highest numbers.

“The anxiety is real,” said Jiang, who knows two international students from China who are weighing whether to travel for work in Kenya and Rwanda.

“Because of the uncertainty of their visas, they are facing a very tricky situation,” she said. “They can either go abroad, go to Kenya and Rwanda to do their internship and work on poverty alleviation and public health but risking not being able to make it back to campus safely. Or they can stay on campus and do their internships remote.”

“It’s pretty heartbreaking,” she continued. “They wanted to help humanity and, to see them entangled in politics they didn’t choose, is hard.”

Jiang, who went to high school in the United Kingdom and earned her undergraduate degree at Duke University, said there should be more, not fewer, academic exchanges between China and the United States.

“Humanity is facing a lot of crisis,” she said. “There are conflicts. There is climate. There are a lot things that not only one country can tackle. China and the U.S. are the two most powerful economies or countries in the world. They have to work with each other to be able to combat the problems or the issues that affect every single human being.”

Jiang also defended the importance of international students at Harvard, recalling how 60% of the students stood up at the Kennedy School of Government commencement when the dean, Jeremy Weinstein, asked how many came from outside the United States. Then he asked if they had learned something from their international classmates, and most everyone stood.

“A lot of us clapped and cheered. A lot of us were in tears,” she said, as Weinstein told them to “look around, this is your school.”

Without international students, it would be a challenge for Harvard to achieve its mission, Jiang said. Campus culture depends on its globally diverse student body, studying and hanging out together.

“Harvard wants its students to go and change the world and you can’t change the world without understanding the world,” she said. “You can’t understand the world without truly having a personal connection with people from all sorts of countries.”

A sexual assault case against a 50-year-old accused of raping a man in St. Paul he met on a dating app is being dismissed due to a lack of evidence, according to the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office.

The charges against John Henry McCaster allege he sexually assaulted a man at a home in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood on New Year’s Eve 2023 after the two met on the Grindr app. He told police McCaster had insisted that he drink a “blue drink” and after doing so “began to feel drunk,” then passed out and awoke naked, the charges say.

Police had already arrested McCaster about two hours before the man called police on Dec. 31, 2023. He was picked up in Vadnais Heights on suspicion of drug possession (methamphetamine) and possessing a gun (he was prohibited after having been convicted of a crime of violence) and later charged with both offenses. McCaster was found with the man’s driver’s license and debit card and other items at that time. McCaster later told investigators they had consensual sex.

Police carried out a search warrant at the East Side home and found blue liquid in a pitcher, which was sent to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for testing.

On Wednesday, McCaster pleaded guilty to the gun charge. As part of a plea agreement, the sexual assault case will be dismissed at his sentencing “given a lack of evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, including the remaining liquid that the (man) drank testing negative for any controlled substances,” Dennis Gerhardstein, Ramsey County Attorney’s Office spokesman, said in a Friday statement.

The man who reported the assault agreed with the settlement, Gerhardstein said.

McCaster’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

McCaster faces a mandatory five-year prison sentence on the gun charge. Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 15.

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By ISABELLA VOLMERT

MACKINAC ISLAND, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says President Donald Trump would be going back on his word to her if he pardoned two men who are serving prison sentences for leading a 2020 plot to kidnap her.

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Whitmer, a Democrat, told Michigan Public Radio on Thursday that Trump asked her about a month ago how she would feel if he pardoned the two men.

“I said, ‘I think it would be the wrong decision,’” Whitmer recounted. “I would oppose it and he said, ‘OK, I’ll drop it.’”

Whitmer, a possible 2028 presidential candidate, recounted the conversation one day after Trump said he was considering a pardon for the men, saying, “I will take a look at it. It’s been brought to my attention.”

The Republican president said he followed the men’s trial and “it looked to me like somewhat of a railroad job.” He said the men “were drinking and I think they said stupid things.”

The U.S. Justice Department’s new pardon attorney also said this month he would take a “hard look” at pardoning Barry Croft Jr. and Adam Fox.

Croft, 49, and Fox, 42, were portrayed as leaders of the kidnapping scheme. They were convicted of conspiracy in federal court in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 2022. Croft, a trucker from Delaware, was also found guilty of a weapons charge.

Croft was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison, while Fox, a Grand Rapids man, got a 16-year term. They are being held at a prison in Colorado — the most secure in the federal system.

Whitmer later told an audience following a speech at the Detroit Regional Chamber Mackinac Policy Conference that she plans to talk to Trump again about the pardoning matter.

“We have an ongoing dialogue now … very different from the first term,” she said about Trump and turned to smile at the audience.

A spokesperson said the White House cannot confirm nor deny any upcoming actions.

“The White House does not comment on the President’s private meetings, and any speculation about future pardons is just that—speculation,” principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said in a statement.

Whitmer and Trump clashed publicly during his first term, with Trump referring to her as “ that woman from Michigan.” She has blamed Trump for the political anger that motivated the plot to kidnap her right before the 2020 presidential election.

Whitmer also hinted Thursday at anger over the possibility of pardons, saying she was disappointed to hear the news he was considering it.

“No one should hesitate to condemn political violence,” she said, noting the arson attack on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence and the assassination attempt on Donald Trump last year.

Whitmer has faced scrutiny from some Democrats for taking a more collaborative approach to the Trump administration in his second term.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat who has criticized Whitmer for working with and appearing with Trump, said releasing the convicted men is “no laughing matter.”

“The reward you get for cozying up to Trump is him threatening to pardon the terrorists who plotted to kidnap and murder you,” she said on social media.

Whitmer’s collaboration with Trump has come with several awkward moments for her this year, including when she was unexpectedly in the Oval Office during a press conference as Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate two former members of his previous administration who had publicly criticized him.

Their new dynamic also led to some wins for her administration, including securing new jets at a military air base in Michigan and a commitment from Trump to fund a project to protect Lake Michigan from invasive carp.