Julius Randle will make his third career playoff appearance Saturday in Los Angeles when Minnesota meets the Lakers for Game 1 of the first-round series.

He noted it’s one of “the few times” over the course of his career where he feels like “I have a chance to really play for something.”

And he’s excited – not just for the stage, but also the circumstances surrounding him heading into it.

“I’m excited in just my comfort level with coach (Chris Finch), the coaching staff, with the team, with everybody,” Randle said. “It’s special there, so I’m excited.”

Indeed, Randle has settled in nicely with the Wolves after some up and down play over the first half of the season. He played a key role in the Wolves’ final 21 games, in which the team went 17-4. It was a process, but he and the team struck a balance of when the forward should be aggressive looking to score and when he should drive pace and spread the ball around.

“It’s been great, honestly. For me, I feel like the biggest growth in my game is understanding different ways to impact the game and impact winning (other) than scoring the ball,” Randle said. “I know if I need to go get 30, then I can do that. But I don’t have to force that, and I can let the game dictate what it needs from me, what the team needs from me.

“That’s the thing that I’ve fought and enjoyed the most throughout the season. As the season progressed and went on, I took a lot of pride in that and a lot of joy in that because the results usually ended up in wins. At this point in my career, that’s all I care about.”

That’s especially true at this point in the season. Come postseason, wins and losses are all that will define a player’s resume.

“At this point in the season, it don’t matter who gets 20 points, 30 points,” Anthony Edwards said. “It don’t matter if I have five points. It don’t matter if Julius has five points.”

On some teams, it might. But not with Minnesota, a deep squad with a number of guys who can have a large offensive impact on any given evening. Randle has gotten better and better at taking advantage of those around him as the season progressed. His efforts have been aided by teammates gaining a better understanding of where to go and what to do to open themselves up for the forward.

But the general realization that Randle doesn’t need to be “the guy” every night for Minnesota to succeed seems to have opened up his game and helped the Wolves’ entire offense flow. It’s a different role than the one he held in New York for five seasons, where his job was to be a primary scorer.

“It was more of a mindset shift than anything. Feeling like, ‘Alright man, I’m not getting 30 so I’m not doing my job,’” Randle said. “When it’s like there’s different ways to impact the game other than just scoring the basketball. I don’t think I have to prove that I can score the basketball. I’ve shown that throughout my career. I think that’s been fun and it’s allowed me to have a lot more balance, be more unpredictable, taking a lot of pressure off my shoulders.

“Then the trust in the guys. We’ve got a lot of guys who are very capable on this team. Being able to trust them, it’s taken a lot off my shoulders and I can be the best version of myself every night.”

Will that help Randle be his best self in the playoffs? That’s a code the 30-year-old, two-time All-NBA player has yet to crack. His consistent regular season production has yet to translate to the most important time of the season. In 15 career playoff games, Randle is shooting just 34% from the field and 28% from 3-point range, while tallying more turnovers (58) than assists (56).

There are many reasons playoff experience postseason struggles. Oftentimes, you simply run into a bad matchup, where you’re forced to play four-plus games against an opponent that simply has the personnel and/or scheme to make life difficult on you.

The lack of instant success causes players to press, which leads to more missed shots and more turnovers. The struggles snowball.

The Lakers could be another case of a matchup problem. With Rui Hachimura, LeBron James and Dorian Finney-Smith, the Lakers are flush with long, sturdy wings that could make Randle’s “bully ball” brand difficult to execute.

In the past, that could’ve potentially signaled a long series for the forward, particularly on teams where he was so heavily leaned upon for production. But now, if he does run into heavy resistance, there’s a sense that Randle will find other ways to be a positive for Minnesota on the floor.

“He’s not panicked by the fact if he only gets 10 shots in a night. He’s at the point now for us, and we’ve actually spoken about a multitude of times, he doesn’t feel the pressure that he’s got to go out and score 30 every night for us to win,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said. “He trusts his teammates. He’s finding them now at a higher rate. He’s always been a really good passer, so I just feel like he’s unburdened from that responsibility and just knows that one night it might be 10, 11 shots, but the next night, he can still go for 30 and have a massive game like we saw in Memphis. That’s kind of a rhythm that has repeated itself. I think he’s at peace with that.”

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By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal panel of experts on Wednesday recommended an expansion of RSV vaccinations for adults and a new combination shot as another option to protect teens against meningitis.

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The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices also voted to recommend a shot to protect travelers from a mosquito-borne illness called chikungunya.

But it’s not clear who will decide whether to accept those recommendations.

The 15-member expert panel makes recommendations to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how regulator-cleared vaccines should be used. CDC directors almost always approve the recommendations.

The Trump administration named Susan Monarez as acting CDC director in January, and last month picked her to lead the agency. But while she’s awaiting Senate confirmation, she has essentially recused herself from regular duties because of federal law around vacancies, according to two CDC officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss agency matters and feared being fired.

That means any committee recommendations made Wednesday may move to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading voice in the U.S. anti-vaccine movement.

A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson has told The Associated Press he was looking into how the agency would decide on the panel’s recommendations.

Those recommendations on Wednesday were:

— People 50 to 59 should be able to get vaccinated against respiratory syncytial virus have risks including heart disease, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder.

— Endorsement of a new combination shot made by GSK that protects against five strains of meningococcal bacteria, including a strain that caused a spate of outbreaks on college campuses about 10 years ago. It would join other products that also target the germs.

— Adding a second chikungunya vaccine to the options for Americans age 12 and older who are traveling to countries where outbreaks are occurring. About 100 to 200 cases are reported annually among U.S. travelers.

— Adding a new precaution for the older chikungunya vaccine that uses weakened but live virus: People 65 and older should weigh the risks of benefits of that version of the shot, the panel said. The precaution was added after panel members heard about an investigation into six reports of people 65 and older — most of them with other medical problems — who became ill with heart or brain symptoms less than a week after vaccination. The investigation is continuing.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

For the first seven innings of Wednesday’s game, there was a lot to like for the Twins.

Left fielder Harrison Bader had punished his former teammates with his arm and his bat. Aggressiveness on the basepaths had paid off. David Festa did, for the most part, what he needed to do and Danny Coulombe and Edouard Julien helped the Twins out of a daunting situation.

But since this is the 2025 Twins, nothing has come easy.

And on Wednesday, that meant seeing their three-run lead disappear in the eighth inning with one of their best arms — Griffin Jax — on the mound.

Even still, the Twins prevailed in the series finale, winning 4-3 in 10 innings against the Mets at Target Field. Ty France, last week’s American League Player of the Week, played hero, singling home automatic runner Byron Buxton to make the Twins walk-off winners.

His big moment came after Cole Sands had gotten the Twins out of a tough situation with two runners on and no outs in the top of the inning.

It took contributions from everyone to get the Twins there.

Bader, whose day started by cutting down a runner at home trying to score in the second inning, dove to catch a sinking line drive in the eighth inning, likely saving another run from scoring. After collecting three hits in Tuesday’s win, he added another two in Thursday’s win and scored the team’s second run, driven in by Buxton.

Willi Castro scored on Bader’s first RBI knock in the fifth inning after some aggressive baserunning landed him on second to start the inning. The Mets challenged the play, which was unsuccessful.

That failed challenge came up big later, when Castro was ruled safe on an infield single in the sixth inning. Upon review, he would have been out, but the Mets had already lost their challenge.

While the play was unfolding at first base — first baseman Pete Alonso threw the ball to reliever José Buttó, who then briefly tried to plead his case before turning around and throwing home — Ryan Jeffers just kept running, getting in safely while attention was directed away from him.

That play became especially important because later in the game when Jax gave up the lead, allowing four hits in the three-run inning.

The Twins had been clinging to that lead since the fifth inning, one which they grabbed after a big double play extracted them from Festa’s jam unscathed.

Coulombe, called upon to face lefty superstar Juan Soto with the bases loaded, needed just one pitch. Soto grounded it to Julien at second, who tagged Francisco Lindor, who was just off of first base, and then beat Soto to the bag, keeping the tie intact at the time.

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — An island-wide blackout hit Puerto Rico on Wednesday as the largely Catholic residents of the U.S. territory prepared to celebrate the Easter weekend, a power company spokesman said.

All 1.4 million clients on the island were without power, Hugo Sorrentini, spokesman for Luma Energy, which oversees the transmission and distribution of power, told The Associated Press. “The entire island is without generation,” he said.

It was not immediately clear what caused the shutdown, the latest in a string of major blackouts on the island in recent years. Gov. Jenniffer González, who was traveling, said officials were “working diligently” to address the outage.

Dozens of people were forced to walk next to the rails of the rapid transit system that serves the capital, San Juan, while scores of businesses including the biggest mall in the Caribbean were forced to close. Professional baseball and basketball games were cancelled as the hum of generators and smell of smoke filled the air.

The last island-wide blackout occurred on New Year’s Eve. Puerto Rico has struggled with chronic outages since September 2017 when Hurricane Maria pummeled the island as a powerful Category 4 storm, razing a power grid that crews are still struggling to rebuild.

The grid already had been deteriorating as a result of decades of a lack of maintenance and investment.