DENVER (AP) — Timberwolves coach Chris Finch hasn't gotten over the free-throw disparity in his team's series-opening loss to the Denver Nuggets.
“Maybe we ought to start flopping, too,” Finch said before Game 2 on Monday night.
More specifically, he was agitated about Jamal Murray going 16 for 16 from the free-throw line. Finch called Murray's 16 attempts a “head scratcher” after Minnesota's 116-105 loss Saturday, when the Wolves shot 19 free throws.
Murray said after the game he didn't know what the fuss was all about because he was repeatedly fouled by the physical Timberwolves.
“What do you want me to say? They weren't all fouls. Some of them were fouls,” Finch said Monday. “The league's in a place right now where you draw the contact, and you spill away, and you get rewarded. Guys who try to play through contact, that first level of contact, and stay with the drive and all that, they tend not to be rewarded.”
His standout players Julius Randle and Anthony Edwards fit into that category, suggested Finch.
“Julius is not a flopper. Ant is not a flopper,” Finch said. “Those are physical drivers. They play through the first line of contact a lot.”
Asked if players in the league get coached to embellish contact, Finch responded: “We don’t coach it. Certainly guys figure out how to game the game. These guys are smart. They’re incredibly talented, skilled guys, have a ton of body control, ball skill, so they’re just playing to what the officials are allowing them to do.”
Finch added he's “not sure how to answer that to our guys, sometimes, when they get frustrated. But we've got to do a better job.”
Nuggets David Adelman pointed out that some of Murray's trips to the line were because of flagrant and technical fouls by Minnesota in a physical Game 1.
“It’s the playoffs,” Adelman said. “Everybody politicks after games.”
It's a different officiating crew for Game 2.
“That's the cool part about officiating, in all sports, is that every game is kind of unique to itself, and you have to react to what those six eyes see,” Adelman said. “It changes every night.
“I do think sometimes when you watch the film, you just say, ‘Yeah, that guy got fouled.’ There are nights, believe me, we play ... somebody who shoots a lot of free throws, I don’t go back to the clips and say, ‘I can’t believe we got all those calls.’ I go, ‘Why are we fouling them so much?’”
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Minnesota Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels, left, tries to block a shot by Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray in the second half in Game 1 of a first-round NBA playoffs basketball series, Saturday, April 18, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch looks on during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the New Orleans Pelicans Sunday, April 12, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Matt Krohn)
MALE, Maldives (AP) — Divers on Wednesday recovered the last two bodies of four Italians who died deep inside an underwater cave in the Maldives last week.
The Italian divers had been exploring the cave in Vaavu Atoll on Thursday when they disappeared. The body of their Italian diving instructor was recovered outside the cave and the Finnish recovery divers brought the bodies of two of the divers to the surface Tuesday.
Presidential spokesperson Mohameed Hussain Shareef said the last two bodies were recovered by three Finnish divers supported by the Maldives coastguard and police.
The bodies were taken to a morgue and identified as Muriel Oddenino and Giorgia Sommacal. On Tuesday Monica Montefalcone and Federico Gualtieri were brought out, government spokesperson Ahmed Shaam said. The instructor, Gianluca Benedetti, was found near the mouth of the cave on the day the divers disappeared.
Montefalcone and Sommacal were mother and daughter.
“After that we will coordinate with the Italian government and start the procedure to repatriate the bodies,” Shareef said. He thanked the Finnish divers, praising them for their professionalism and leadership.
The four bodies were located Monday at a depth of around 60 meters (200 feet), twice the legal depth for recreational diving in the island nation. The search had been temporarily suspended after a local military diver died during a perilous retrieval attempt.
The Maldives government said the recovery divers spotted the bodies in the cave’s innermost area. Shaam said the four bodies were found “pretty much together.”
The cave has been explored in the past by local experts and foreign divers, presidential spokesperson Shareef told The Associated Press earlier.
While the Italian divers had a permit, authorities didn’t know from their proposal the exact location of the cave they were exploring, and at least two of the dead were not on the list of researchers that had been submitted, “so we didn’t know they were part of the expedition,” Shareef said.
He described the conditions deep in the cave as “challenging” with difficult terrain, strong currents and poor visibility.
An alert had also been issued due to bad weather and investigators must determine whether the divers took adequate precautions, Shareef said.
The Divers’ Alert Network Europe, which deployed the Finnish divers, described them as technical and cave divers with experience in search and recovery missions, including operations in “deep overhead environments, confined spaces and high-risk scenarios.”
The rescue team used closed-circuit rebreathers, a system that recycles exhaled breathing gas and removes carbon dioxide through a chemical scrubber, allowing for “significantly longer dives,” the organization said.
The cause of death of the Maldivian military diver was still under investigation, but colleagues have suggested he may have died from nitrogen narcosis or decompression at depth.
Francis reported from Colombo, Sri Lanka.
In this handout photo release by Maldives President Media Division, a Finnish diver gets ready to attempt to recover the bodies of two of the four Italians who died deep inside an underwater cave in an atoll earlier this month, at Alimathaa Island, in Vaavu Atoll, Maldives, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (Maldives President Media Division via AP)
In this handout photo release by Maldives President Media Division, a Finnish diver, left, gets ready to attempt to recover the bodies of two of the four Italians who died deep inside an underwater cave in an atoll earlier this month, at Alimathaa Island, in Vaavu Atoll, Maldives, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (Maldives President Media Division via AP)
