The NBA's final 4 is set: Thunder, Knicks, Wolves and Pacers remain, and parity reigns again

The parity era continues in the NBA.

The New York Knicks haven't won an NBA championship since 1973. The Indiana Pacers won their most recent title that year — in the ABA. The Oklahoma City Thunder franchise has one title in its history, that coming in 1979 when the team called Seattle home. And the Minnesota Timberwolves have never even been to the NBA Finals.

Meet the NBA's final four.

When Commissioner Adam Silver hands one of those teams the Larry O'Brien Trophy next month, it'll mark a league first — seven championship franchises in a seven-year span.

There hasn't been a back-to-back NBA champion since Golden State in 2017 and 2018. From there, the list of champions goes like this: Toronto in 2019, the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020, Milwaukee in 2021, Golden State in 2022, Denver in 2023 and Boston last season.

It's the longest such run of different champions in NBA history; Major League Baseball, the NHL and the NFL have all had longer ones, and not too long ago, either.

But for the NBA, this is different. The league wanted unpredictability, especially after four consecutive Cleveland-vs.-Golden State title matchups from 2015 through 2018.

And things have been highly unpredictable since. No matter what the Finals matchup is this year, the NBA will be seeing 11 conference-champion franchises in the span of seven seasons.

“We've still got eight more wins to achieve our ultimate goal,” Minnesota coach Chris Finch said. “We've still got two more series. We're only halfway there.”

The season is over for 26 of the NBA's 30 clubs. But the fun stuff is just starting.

The Western Conference finals — No. 6 seed Minnesota vs. No. 1 seed Oklahoma City — begin Tuesday night in Oklahoma. The Eastern Conference finals — No. 4 seed Indiana vs. No. 3 seed New York — begin Wednesday night in Manhattan. The Wolves lost the West finals last year; the Pacers lost the East finals a year ago.

“You've got to have big dreams,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “You don't know how often you're going to be in this position.”

Indeed, the championship window for teams doesn't seem to be staying open as long as it did in the past.

Boston was a huge favorite to win its second straight title; the Celtics didn't get out of Round 2, in part because they couldn't hold onto big leads and in part because Jayson Tatum ruptured his right Achilles tendon in that series with the Knicks.

“Upset or not, whatever it is, we beat a great team,” Knicks guard Jalen Brunson said. “They obviously lost a huge piece ... but they're still a great team.”

Damian Lillard tore an Achilles tendon in Round 1, ending Milwaukee's hopes. Cleveland, the top seed in the East, bowed out in Round 2 against Indiana after a slew of Cavs were dealing with health issues. Stephen Curry strained his hamstring; that was all it took to doom Golden State's chances in Round 2 against Minnesota.

“He's our sun,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said. “This is a solar system. He's our sun.”

And now, the NBA solar system is about to see new star holding the trophy.

There is nobody left in these playoffs who has been an NBA Finals MVP. Not even close.

In fact, there are only seven players left — Indiana’s Pascal Siakam, Aaron Nesmith and Thomas Bryant; Knicks teammates P.J. Tucker, Cam Payne and Mikal Bridges; and Oklahoma City’s Alex Caruso — who have appeared in a Finals game. And most of those appearances didn't add up to much; Siakam is the only player left in these playoffs with more than 100 Finals points.

So, who will the next Finals MVP be? Maybe Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the Canadian guard and likely MVP from the Thunder? The “Mr. Clutch” award winner, Brunson from the Knicks? Anthony Edwards, the presumed next face of the league from the Timberwolves? Tyrese Haliburton, the dazzling guard and Olympic gold medalist who keeps getting overlooked by everyone outside of Indiana?

None of them would be surprise choices.

“Our ultimate goal isn't just the Western Conference finals," Gilgeous-Alexander said. “You've got to go through there to get there.”

If the NBA’s final four was its own league this season, taking just the head-to-head results between those four clubs would suggest the Thunder are the clear favorite.

Oklahoma City went 6-2 against the other three conference finalists, while New York and Indiana both went 3-4 and Minnesota went 3-5.

The Thunder swept the Pacers and Knicks, and the Pacers swept the Timberwolves.

As far as the head-to-heads going into the conference finals, Oklahoma City and Minnesota split four meetings — with the Timberwolves outscoring the Thunder 475-472 — while the Knicks went 2-1 against Indiana, with all three games decided by at least 11 points.

“You can feel good about it, feel however you want to feel about it,” Haliburton said of getting to this point. “But at the end of the day, we’re not done. We know we all have a bigger goal at mind. Our goal wasn’t just to get to the Eastern Conference finals and be done. Our goal is to win a championship.”

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba

Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (5) celebrates a win against the Golden State Warriors after Game 5 of an NBA basketball second-round playoff series, Thursday, May 15, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton, left, celebrates along with forward Pascal Siakam after scoring during the second half in Game 5 of an Eastern Conference semifinal NBA basketball playoff against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Oklahoma City Thunder's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) celebrates after the team's win against the Denver Nuggets in Game 7 in the Western Conference semifinals of the NBA basketball playoffs, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Kyle Phillips)

CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland (AP) — Swiss investigators believe sparkling flares atop Champagne bottles started a fire in a bar at an Alpine ski resort that left 40 people dead and another 119 injured during a New Year’s celebration.

Most injuries, many of them serious, occurred when the blaze swept through the crowded bar in southwestern Switzerland in the early hours of Thursday.

The Crans-Montana resort is best known as an international ski and golf venue. Overnight, the Le Constellation bar morphed from a scene of revelry into the site of one of Switzerland’s worst tragedies.

Here’s what we know:

The blaze broke out around 1:30 a.m. Thursday during a holiday celebration inside the Le Constellation bar.

Two women told French broadcaster BFMTV they were inside when they saw a male bartender lifting a female colleague on his shoulders as she held a lit candle in a bottle. The flames spread, collapsing the wooden ceiling, they told the broadcaster.

People tried to escape from a nightclub area in the basement, up a flight of stairs and through a narrow door, causing a crowd surge, one of the women said.

A young man at the scene said people smashed windows to escape, reported BFMTV. He said he saw about 20 people scrambling to get out of the smoke and flames.

Gianni Campolo, a Swiss 19-year-old who was in Crans-Montana on vacation, rushed to help first responders after receiving a call from a friend who escaped the inferno. He described a scene of people trapped on the ground, severely injured and burned.

“I have seen horror and I don’t know what else would be worse than this,” Campolo told French broadcaster TF1.

Swiss officials described the blaze as a likely flashover, meaning that it triggered the release of combustible gases that can then ignite violently.

The injured suffered from serious burns and smoke inhalation. Some were flown to specialist hospitals across the country and elsewhere in Europe.

Authorities urged people to show caution in the coming days to avoid any incidents that could require the already overwhelmed medical resources.

Out of the 119 injured, 113 have now been identified, officials said Friday.

The severity of the burns has made it very difficult to identify bodies, bringing fresh agony for families who now must hand over DNA samples to authorities. In some cases, wallets and any ID documents inside turned to ash in the flames.

Emanuele Galeppini, a promising 17-year-old Italian golfer who competed internationally, is officially listed as one of Italy’s missing nationals. His uncle Sebastiano Galeppini told Italian news agency ANSA that their family is awaiting the DNA checks, though the Italian Golf Federation on its website announced that he had died.

Italy's foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said that 13 Italian citizens were injured and six remained missing by midday Friday. Galeppini’s name was on the missing persons list.

France's foreign ministry said eight French people are missing and another nine are among the injured. Top-flight French soccer team FC Metz said one of its trainee players, 19-year-old Tahirys Dos Santos, was badly burned and has been transferred by plane to Germany for treatment.

On Instagram, an account filled up with photos of people who remained unaccounted for, with their friends and relatives begging for tips about the whereabouts of the missing.

The injured include 71 Swiss nationals, 14 French and 11 Italians, along with citizens of Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal and Poland, Valais Canton police commander Frédéric Gisler said Friday. The nationalities of 14 people remain unclear.

The nearby regional hospital in Sion took in a flood of victims from the fire. Its general director, Eric Bonvin, recounted how staff scrambled to determine the extent of people’s injuries.

The hospital — in the heart of the Alps and no stranger to winter sports accidents — was well staffed for the end of the year, when crowds flock to the mountains. On top of that, many colleagues who had not been scheduled to work rushed in to lend a hand.

Still the hospital, which is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the resort by air, quickly hit full capacity, authorities said, taking in about 80 seriously injured people in just three hours.

As of Friday, the hospital still had about 30 seriously injured patients in its care.

With high-altitude ski runs rising around 3,000 meters (nearly 9,850 feet) in the heart of the Valais region’s snowy peaks and pine forests, Crans-Montana is one of the top venues on the World Cup circuit.

The resort will host the best men’s and women’s downhill racers, including Lindsey Vonn, for their final events before the Milan Cortina Olympics in February.

The town’s Crans-sur-Sierre golf club, down the street from the bar, stages the European Masters each August on a picturesque course.

Dazio reported from Berlin and Leicester reported from Sion, Switzerland. Geir Moulson in Berlin, Graham Dunbar in Geneva and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.

A police officer helps a boy to light a candle near the sealed off Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026, where a devastating fire left dead and injured during the New Year's celebrations. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)