The Timberwolves entered halftime of Game 7 on Sunday in Denver down 15 points after playing what Karl-Anthony Towns referred to as “park basketball.”

Not competitive.

Minnesota was getting worked on the glass, wasn’t imposing its will defensively and wasn’t playing with any kind of plan on offense.

All of it bugged Wolves coach Chris Finch, but the latter irked him most of all.

“We were getting crushed. They had 14 second-chance points. That was where our defense was letting us down the most — 14 second-chance points in the first half; we had to get a handle on that more than anything,” Finch said. “But I was really pissed about the offense. I thought the offense degenerated completely, for no real reason. So we addressed both those things.”

Indeed they did. The Wolves outrebounded Denver 29-15 over the final two quarters. They suffocated the Nuggets’ offense while scoring 60 points of their own in the second half, roaring back from a 20-point deficit to reach the NBA’s Western Conference Finals, which start Wednesday night at Target Center against the Dallas Mavericks.

Whatever was said at halftime certainly did the job. So what exactly does a ticked-off head coach look like?

Minnesota Timberwolves coach Chris Finch argues for a call during the second half of Game 5 of the team’s NBA basketball second-round playoff series against the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in Denver (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

“Pissed?” Finch asked.

Yes.

“Pissed,” Finch answered.

Can you please elaborate?

“A lot of F bombs,” Finch said. “A lot of right to the point. A lot of anger.”

“He looks like an angry old man yelling and slamming his crutches down,” Wolves guard Mike Conley described with a smile. “You would love to see it.”

Wolves assistant coach Micah Nori noted there are two different types of ticked off. One is coming in and tossing things around and making a scene. Worse, though, he said, is when your dad or another authority figure expresses their disappointment in your actions.

“That is worse than being in trouble,” Nori said. “He’s done it where he’s like, ‘I’m not going to come in here and yell and scream and break (stuff), it’s just you guys are doing a disservice to yourselves.’ ”

Nori noted marching in and screaming often just compounds issues. Players want solutions. Any anger, Wolves assistant coach Elston Turner said, has to also be “correctional.”

“You’ve got to have a message in our pissedness,” Turner said.

Finch said he was more outwardly upset when reviewing the film with the coaching staff. By the time the coaches went in to speak with the players, it was less of a tantrum and more of an agitated message — or a healthy balance between the two.

“It was just more like, ‘We’ve got to get our head out of our (butts), make the simple play,’” Finch recalled. “We watched clips, and I was angrily narrating the clips.”

“It was more like, ‘I know we going to win this game, we’ve just got to do this to win the game,’ ” star guard Anthony Edwards said. “He wasn’t really mad. It was just like his clips on the screen were, ‘This is what we’ve got to do to win this game. And if we do it, we’ll win. And if we don’t, we’ll lose.’ ”

Frankly, Finch was annoyed. The Timberwolves had done so much good in Game 6, which led to a 45-point blowout victory.

Turner made sure to give the Nuggets credit for their first-half effort — “It wasn’t just us. They were playing well on both ends. … They were all over the place.” — but the Timberwolves clearly weren’t sharp.

There was no decision or aggression. The corrections made between Game 5 and Game 6 were nowhere to be found.

Nori said Finch reminded players they had talked about being the more physical, harder-playing team. They had talked about getting into Jamal Murray. They had talked about doing the same things well over and over again on offense.

And none of it showed up over the first 24 minutes of play.

“I wanted us to pick up our play, pick up everything,” Finch said. “But yeah, I was angry. I said, ‘This is a major regression.’ ”

Even as he was describing it after the game, the emotions came flooding back. His voice loudened.

“We just went through this!” he recalled. “What are we doing?””

“So you’re loud, you’re firm,” Turner said. “Especially with stuff that you’ve already covered. If you’re blowing something that you’ve already covered — in Game 7 — there should be no mistakes.”

Dad was disappointed, and his kids felt it.

“We respond to anything Finchy says,” Conley said. “But you know he wants it so much that it just kind of gets your attention a little more than normal.”

Turner could tell the message was sinking in. There was feedback in the forms of head nods.

“Like, ‘Yeah, yeah, you right,’ ” Turner said. “But there’s still a time when you’ve got to do it — from the film to the practice court to out there in front of the fans. Most of our guys, this is the first time in a Game 7, so I didn’t really know what to expect, but I’m proud of them.”

Because they answered the bell. Nori thinks the “heightened awareness” of the stage likely increased the team’s response to the message.

“Fear is a helluva motivator — and I’m not saying we were scared of them, I’m saying fear of your season being over. Fear of just not performing and going out the way that you would want to,” Nori said. “I think it was a reality check of, ‘You know what, he’s absolutely right. We’re not doing this. And we’ve got to do these things in order to win the game.’ I think the big thing that helped was it was Game 7. … We knew what gave us success, and just trying to repeat that. Especially being the best version of ourselves for 24 minutes. In my opinion, that’s kind of what he was telling them.”

Message received, as it so often is with Finch and his staff. Much of it stems from the delivery. Nori noted Finch treats the players like “grown men.” There’s evident respect. There’s also accountability, for everyone. Edwards noted as much in his postgame press conference.

“He don’t sugarcoat anything. If KAT (messing) up, he going to get on KAT. If I’m (messing) up, he going to get on me. If Rudy (messing) up, he going to get on anybody that’s messing up throughout the game, and I think that’s what makes him the best coach in the NBA, to me,” Edwards said. “Because, no matter who it is, no matter how high up on the pole, he’s going to get on you from start to finish.”

Nori noted Finch at times may hold players to higher standards than they hold themselves. That’s required, he said. Because if you don’t put players on film, you won’t see progress. But the bad is well balanced with the good. The coach is just as quick to praise as he is to criticize.

“He does a very good job of that, so that he can get on ‘em. And then, after the course of 93 games this year and being there for three years, his voice never gets old,” Nori said. “Because it’s not like it’s just ranting and raving.”

And there’s never an intent to embarrass anyone.

“It’s merely just for the team, and you have to be better for us to be better. And that’s why he tells the guys and it’s why they appreciate his coaching, and then they’re cool with it. It doesn’t linger,” Nori said. “It’s like, ‘Here’s what we talked about doing, here’s what you’re not doing, we need you to do what we talked about, and do it with more effort and execute it to the best of your ability.’”

Simply: Go out and do better.

“He has a good message behind everything,” Conley said. “The message (Sunday) was, ‘Make the small plays, and that’ll win us the game.’

The Timberwolves carried out the marching orders to perfection.

“It starts with the head of the snake, and (Finch is) the head of our snake,” Edwards said. “We all look up to him, listen to him, and he do a great job of making sure we’re ready to go every night.”

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A Black Panther revolutionary and a Hollywood insider walk into a bar … and plan a caper that has the latter helping to smuggle the former out of the country.

That story — about political activist Huey P. Newton and movie producer Bert Schneider, who made counterculture classics such as “Easy Rider” — forms the basis of the six-episode Apple TV+ series “The Big Cigar,”  which attempts to be many things at once, weaving in serious themes amid the jaunty energy of a heist.

Developed by Jim Hecht (and based on a 2012 article by Joshuah Bearman), the series makes its intentions clear at the outset, with the voice of Newton, played by André Holland, offering a disclaimer: “The story I’m about to tell you is true. At least, mostly true. Or at least how I remember it. But it is coming through the lens of Hollywood, so let’s see how much of my story they’re really willing to show.”

It’s the summer of 1974 and Newton is arrested on charges of assaulting a tailor and fatally shooting a teenage prostitute. Is it a frame up? Newton says yes, and tensions with the local police and the FBI suggest this isn’t out of the realm of possibility. Out on bail, Newton needs someone who can move mountains, so he turns to Schneider (Alessandro Nivola), with whom he had been developing a biopic. “You’re the hotshot producer,” he says. “You want to produce something? Produce this.”

So Schneider concocts a non-existent movie that will shoot on location in Cuba called “The Big Cigar.” (If the fake-movie-as-subterfuge premise sounds familiar, a similar scheme was cooked up to help American hostages escape from Iran in 1979, a story depicted in the Ben Affleck-directed best picture winner “Argo,” also based on a Bearman article.) Not mentioned here? This wasn’t Schneider’s first fugitive rodeo; he had also recently funded Abbie Hoffman’s escape, stemming from drug charges.

But his plan this time becomes a comedy of errors. Dire circumstances, both logistical and psychological, ensue. But the series is committed to keeping things fairly light and palatable, even as it contends with the brutality of racist police and internal schisms (some of them baited by the feds) that would splinter the Black Panther party.

Regardless of the role, Holland is the kind of actor who holds the screen with a quiet charisma. In Newton, he has also found the character’s roiling intensity fueled by his justified paranoia and a tendency to hold grudges. Sometimes his temper gets the best of him, but he has a clear-headed assessment of how rigged systems function.

Temperamentally, Schneider (and by extension, Nivola) is his opposite — a creature of Hollywood with a movie star girlfriend (Candice Bergen) and a reputation as a renegade despite his nepo-baby origins (his father is president of Columbia Pictures). In flashback, we see Newton begrudgingly attend a party at Schneider’s invitation. When Newton spots Richard Pryor, he asks his opinion of the white crowd: “Deep in their genes,” says the comedian, “they got a lot of guilt and they’re willing to pay a steep price for absolution.”

Newton is skeptical. Revolution is survival to me, he tells Schneider, it’s optional for you. “That’s exactly why I gotta do it,” comes the reply. “I want to finance the revolution!’ To punctuate the moment, Schneider turns and does a line of coke. I mean, I laughed! (Schneider did in fact funnel considerable funds to the Black Panthers, so his words weren’t just Hollywood hokum.)

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Like so many projects of this type, it was initially developed as a movie. Nothing came of that and now here we are, with the story stretched out into a multi-part series from showrunner Janine Sherman Barrois that is enjoyably watchable if occasionally tonally uncertain. (One of Barrois’ previous credits is “Claws,” which had a similar approach, both exuberantly outsized but with substance.) Tiffany Boone (as Gwen Fontaine, Newton’s girlfriend and the stabilizing force in his life), P.J. Byrne (as Schneider’s childhood friend and producing partner Stephen Blauner) and Jordane Christie (as Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale) are terrific in supporting roles. The FBI are portrayed as clowns rather than heroes, which makes “The Big Cigar” a rarity in Hollywood at the moment, and the series itself is enjoyable despite the self-congratulatory speeches for Schneider and Blauner each, explaining why they’re good white people. Schneider in particular keeps stressing his close friendship with Newton, but nothing on screen backs that up, leaving it unclear how Newton actually felt about Schneider.

A reason to watch is simply for a terrific exchange that transpires after Blauner has just escaped with his life while trying to coordinate some of the logistics of their plan.

“You were in a shootout in a Jewish deli?” Newton asks incredulously.

Blauner is numb. “All delis are Jewish. I think.”

“Nah, the Italians got ’em,” Schneider chimes in. “The Greeks, too.

Bottom line, he tells Newton: “The mob’s got a hit out on you.” That’s only one of the many problems he will have to contend with. “The Big Cigar” turns all of it into big entertainment.

“The Big Cigar” — 2.5 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: Apple TV+

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

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By Spencer Tierney | NerdWallet

Certificates of deposit work as a short-term savings vehicle for goals such as upcoming home or car purchases. If you’re near or in retirement, you might wonder if CDs fit there too.

For risk-averse folks, CDs can be appealing. Safety is central to them: CDs offer predictable returns, federal deposit insurance and no volatility in value such as in the stock market.

“CDs are like that big, comfortable hug in the investing world,” says Noah Damsky, chartered financial analyst and founder of Marina Wealth Advisors in Los Angeles.

But CDs aren’t the most flexible among low-risk savings options. Here are some quick tips for what to do and not do when using CDs for retirement.

Do: Focus on short-term excess funds for CDs

Whether you’re near retirement or not, an emergency fund is a primary goal for short-term savings. Having three to six months’ worth of living expenses, or more, in a regular savings account tends to be a common recommendation.

CDs aren’t best for emergency cash because they require locking up a fixed sum for a period, typically ranging from three months to five years. But preserving extra cash reserves, beyond savings for emergencies, in CDs can make sense, especially since their yields are traditionally higher than in other bank accounts.

“CDs play an important role as an emergency fund supplement in retirement,” says Daniel Masuda Lehrman, certified financial planner and founder of Masuda Lehrman Wealth in Honolulu.

Do: Consider a CD ladder

Having a CD’s fixed rate during a high-rate environment can mean steady, solid returns for years. But in exchange, you lose access to funds for the term.

One workaround to preserve some access is a CD ladder. Instead of one CD, you divide an investment into equal amounts and put them into CDs of staggered term lengths, such as one year, two years and three years. Shorter terms work, too: three months, six months and nine months. The idea is that you can access some cash each time a CD matures, while letting the rest of an investment grow.

Do: Compare rates at banks or a brokerage

Your bank’s CDs might be convenient but not always the best deal. Online banks and credit unions tend to have some of the best CD rates, and their opening minimum deposits are often low, such as $1,000 or less. Current high-yield rates remain near or above 5% annual percentage yield for six-month and one-year terms, while longer-term rates such as for three and five years are closer to 4%, according to NerdWallet analysis in April.

You can also find competitive yields with brokered CDs, which are issued by banks and available at a brokerage. You need a brokerage account and some understanding of how these CDs work, though.

“A brokered CD is going to be most valuable to somebody who has a substantial amount of assets,” says David John, senior strategic policy advisor at the AARP Public Policy Institute. John cites a brokerage’s ability to spread funds across multiple financial institutions to ensure customers don’t hit the $250,000 cap for federal deposit insurance, which protects your money if a bank fails.

Don’t: Withdraw early

You generally can’t redeem CDs early without hassle or cost. At banks, CDs’ early withdrawals often come with a penalty, such as months to years’ worth of interest earned. A bank may let you withdraw interest early from a CD, but you’d lose out on the full amount a CD can earn from compounding interest.

At brokerages, you can leave a CD early by selling, but you risk losing some of the original value if current rates are higher than your CD’s rate.

Once a CD ends, there’s a grace period, typically seven to 10 days long, when you can withdraw the full amount without a penalty. Alternatively, you can consider a no-penalty CD, though rates tend to be lower than high-yield CDs at the same bank.

Don’t: Forget to pay taxes on interest

For most of the last decade or so, CD rates were at rock-bottom lows and the tax burden for CD interest was minimal. But that’s changed with higher rates in recent years.

“Sometimes folks forget that you can have a meaningful tax impact having this money in a CD,” Damsky says.

CD interest gets taxed at the same rate as regular income for the year you earned that interest. Having $10,000 in a one-year CD at 5% APY, for example, means you’re taxed on that $500 in interest. However, you can reduce your tax burden with IRA CDs, which are tax-advantaged accounts invested in CDs.

Don’t: Put too much money in CDs

One of the biggest mistakes Damsky sees for retirees is getting too averse to risk when investing, especially by overusing CDs. Sometimes the pitfalls with CDs, such as the lack of flexibility and access to funds compared with other low-risk alternatives, can outweigh the pros, he says.

Low-risk investment alternatives to CDs, such as money market funds, can have comparable returns with easier access to cash for brokerage customers. And within an investment portfolio, stocks and bonds play bigger roles than cash investments such as CDs do over time. Stocks historically have provided the greatest likelihood for strong returns while bonds balance out stocks’ volatility with more stability. As John points out, CDs often can’t completely protect against inflation the way other investments can.

Don’t rule out CDs for retirement savings — just know when to use them.

Spencer Tierney writes for NerdWallet. Email: spencer.tierney@nerdwallet.com.

The article 6 Do’s and Don’ts When Using CDs for Retirement originally appeared on NerdWallet.