The NBA handed down a $40,000 fine to Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards for “repeatedly publicly criticizing the officiating.”

Edwards unloaded on the officials in postgame comments spanning multiple interviews after Minnesota’s win over Oklahoma City on Monday. It was likely the multiple interviews that raised the fine above what most players usually get for criticizing officiating.

In an on-court interview with Bally Sports North, Edwards said, “I’m going to take the fine, because the refs did not give us no calls tonight. We had to play through every bump, every grab. I don’t know how we won tonight.”

Speaking later with ESPN, Edwards came out even stronger against the officiating.

“The refs was bad tonight. Yeah, they was terrible,” Edwards told ESPN. “We was playing 8-on-5. … The cat got their tongue tonight, so it’s all good. It’s not fair, but it’s all good.”

Edwards went on to say he hasn’t earned the respect of the officials yet, which he believes is why he doesn’t get certain calls.

“And then soon somebody come down from their team and get bumped, it’s a foul,” Edwards told ESPN. “So I just feel like it wasn’t a fair game tonight from the jump. And so that’s why I’m super happy we won the game.”

Edwards is also 10th in the NBA this season in technical fouls, having already accrued seven. Finch told Paul Allen on KFXN-100.3 Tuesday that he spoke to Edwards briefly after the game about his comments.

“If that’s how he feels, and I think he feels strongly about it and doing it after a win, he feels that maybe it grabs a little more attention,” Finch said.

Prime time

Minnesota’s home game on Feb. 23 against Milwaukee has been flexed to ESPN, with the tip-off moved to 9 p.m. as the game is the second of a doubleheader on the national network.

As a result of the moving of that tip time, Minnesota’s home game on Feb. 24 against Brooklyn was also bumped back to an 8 p.m. local tipoff.

When the schedule was first released in the offseason, the Timberwolves had just five true national TV games — contests aired by ESPN or TNT. But their strong season is leading to more eyeballs.

This is the second game that ESPN has added to its package, along with a contest earlier this season against San Antonio.

Conley returns

Mike Conley returned to action against Dallas on Wednesday after the starting guard missed four of Minnesota’s previous five games with hamstring soreness.

The Lynx bolstered their guard depth via a couple of different avenues Wednesday.

Minnesota traded for Natisha Hiedeman and reportedly agreed to a two-year deal with Courtney Williams.

The Lynx acquired Hiedeman from Connecticut in exchange for Tiffany Mitchell and Minnesota’s 2024 second-round pick.

Hiedeman, whom the Lynx first drafted with the 18th pick in 2019, has 37 career playoff appearances and was a starting guard for Connecticut during its run to the 2022 WNBA Finals.

Hiedeman averaged 8.5 points, 2.7 assists and 2.1 rebounds per game last season.

Williams gives Minnesota a legitimate option at point guard, a position where the Wolves have been thin in recent years. Williams was also on Connecticut’s finals team. Last year in Chicago, Williams averaged 10.4 points, 6.3 assists and six rebounds. The former first-round pick was an all-star in 2021 for Atlanta.

Khristina Williams of Girls Talk Sports TV first reported the Williams’ signing.

The Lynx also announced forward Jessica Shepard will miss all of the upcoming season. Shepard, who averaged 10.9 points, 9.4 rebounds and 4.2 assists for Minnesota in 2023, plans to remain in Italy to fulfill her contract commitment with her club team. That decision means she cannot play in the WNBA in 2024 due to the league’s collectively bargained prioritization rules.

Minnesota retains Shepard’s exclusive negotiating rights for future contract talks.

The loss of Shepard makes Minnesota’s free-agent acquisition last week of forward Alanna Smith all the more important, as Smith will play a major role in the Lynx’s forward rotation.

MOBILE, Ala. — In the last 25 years, the Chicago Bears have drafted two edge rushers who went on to have a double-digit-sack season for the team.

Mark Anderson, a fifth-round pick in 2006, had a career-high 12 during his rookie season. Rosevelt Colvin, a fourth-round pick in 1999, had 10 1/2 sacks in 2001 and 2002 before departing leaving as a free agent.

The only other edge rusher to reach at least 10 sacks in a season did it elsewhere — Leonard Floyd, selected ninth in 2016, had 10 1/2 sacks this season for the Buffalo Bills and the same number in 2020 for the Los Angeles Rams.

The Bears have fueled their pass rush largely with free agents or trade acquisitions, and general manager Ryan Poles filled a gaping need midseason when he traded for Montez Sweat and then secured the defensive end with a four-year, $98 million extension.

For coach Matt Eberflus’ defense to reach another level — and that’s the goal — the Bears need a pass-rushing threat opposite Sweat. A handful of veterans will be worth consideration in free agency, including Danielle Hunter of the Minnesota Vikings, but in a perfect world the team would be able to pair a rookie with Sweat, who will turn 28 in September.

It’s way too early to project how things will shake out, but if the Bears draft a quarterback with the No. 1 pick in the draft, they could consider a wide receiver, offensive tackle or edge rusher at No. 9. If Poles trades down at No. 9, he still could fish in the same waters for those positions.

UCLA’s Laiatu Latu is the most accomplished pure edge rusher in the draft and projects as a first-round pick after totaling 23 1/2 sacks over the last two seasons. The Pac-12 defensive player of the year also won the Lombardi Award as the best defensive lineman in the nation, and he has looked the part this week at Senior Bowl practices with some silky smooth spin moves on the edge and high-level hand usage.

Latu measured 6-foot-5, 261 pounds, so he has good size, but his arms probably aren’t an ideal length at 32 1/2 inches. For comparison, Sweat was 6-6, 260 at the combine in 2019, and his arms measured 35 3/4 inches. Eberflus puts a big emphasis on length when he’s scouting defensive players.

But the production is there, and the biggest question for Latu beginning next month at the scouting combine will surround medical reports. Latu briefly retired from football after suffering a neck injury at the beginning his college career at Washington. Latu suffered a stinger in practice as the Huskies prepared for the 2020 season.

“Just took a weird hit and got a stinger going down my body that lasted 20 seconds, like a lot of other people feel,” he said.

Latu didn’t feel right afterward, and following an MRI, Washington doctors decided he would need to sit out the season. He eventually required surgery for a slipped disk in March 2021. The Huskies medical team essentially decided it wasn’t safe for him to continue playing and basically medically retired him.

Rehab was supposed to be a grueling nine-month process. But 2 1/2 months removed from surgery, Latu felt no complications. He was still at Washington and had retained his scholarship but wasn’t allowed to play football.

“You can call me stubborn, but I went into playing men’s rugby and really just testing my body, tackling grown men and stuff like that,” he said. “I earned a contract from the Seattle Seawolves to go and play with them for an extended part of time. They’d pay me and give me housing, stuff like that, turned that down. I wanted to chase my passion for football.”

Latu sought another opinion on his neck injury and met with Dr. Robert Watkins in Southern California. Latu was cleared to play football, entered the transfer portal and turned into a heck of a find for the Bruins.

Every team here has asked him about his journey and the medical process, and he can point out he had no injury issues the last two years at UCLA.

“Head, neck and heart, those are the three issues that get really tricky for the medical teams,” a high-ranking personnel man said after practice Tuesday at South Alabama’s Whitney Hancock Stadium. “It could be a deal where half the teams pass him and half fail him.”

Sweat had a heart issue when he came out of Mississippi State. He was reported to be diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which results in thickening of the heart walls. Some later said that diagnosis was incorrect, but the official I spoke to said his team removed Sweat from its draft board. Sweat is a clear example of a player with a medical-related issue who can go on to have a productive and durable career despite the questions of highly trained doctors.

On the field, Latu isn’t great defending the run and has had a few instances in practices in which he has struggled to set the edge.

“He’s not overly strong,” a college scouting director said. “He’s willing and it’s not a lack of effort in the run game. You might want him to add some weight if he’s a three-down player. But there’s so many sub packages, if you’re just drafting him to hunt the quarterback, you’re fine.”

In a draft class that isn’t stocked with elite edge rushers, Latu could have skipped the Senior Bowl and kept his focus strictly on preparing for on-field testing at the combine in Indianapolis.

“I was told I could never play football again,” Latu said. “To me, I can’t get enough of it, especially learning from the best of the best while being out here. Really just gaining knowledge and growing.”

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