Lawmakers call for progress on marijuana law before end of Biden administration
NoneSeattle Seahawks receiver is DK Metcalf is just fine when he doesn't have the the ball because it means he gets to showcase his blocking skills. “I just look at it as a sign of respect that I’ve gained from other defensive coordinators and just continue to do my job with it as blocking or being a decoy,” the two-time Pro Bowler said. While opposing defenses have keyed in on Metcalf, other aspects of Seattle's offense have surfaced during its four-game winning streak. The run has the Seahawks (8-5) sitting atop the NFC West heading into Sunday night's game against the visiting Green Bay Packers (9-4). Geno Smith's new top target is second-year receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who needs 89 receiving yards for his first career 1,000-yard season. Smith-Njigba has 75 catches for 911 yards and five touchdowns, while Metcalf, often dealing with double coverage, has 54 catches for 812 yards and two scores. Metcalf says he feels the pride of a “proud parent or a big brother” when it comes to Smith-Njigba's success. Seattle's offense also got a boost from the ground game in a 30-18 victory over the Arizona Cardinals last weekend . Zach Charbonnet, filling in for the injured Kenneth Walker III, ran for a career-best 134 yards and two touchdowns. The Seahawks face another hot team in the Packers (9-4), who have won seven of nine. Green Bay's two losses over that stretch have come against NFC-best Detroit (12-1), including a 34-31 victory by the Lions on Dec. 5, which means the NFC North title is likely out of reach for the Packers. The Packers are well-positioned for a playoff berth, but that almost certainly won't come this weekend. They would need a win, a loss or tie by the Atlanta Falcons and a tie between the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers. Metcalf, who learned to block from his father, former Chicago Bears offensive lineman Terrence Metcalf, says he tries to take blocking seriously to set himself apart from other receivers. His priorities are simple when he's getting double-teamed and the ball goes elsewhere. “Trying to block my (butt) off and trying to get pancakes on defensive backs,” he said. When the Packers surged their way into the playoffs last season, quarterback Jordan Love was a major reason why. He had 18 touchdown passes and one interception during Green Bay's final eight games. During the last four games of this season, Love ranks third in the NFL with a 118.9 passer rating with six touchdowns, one interception and a league-best 10.3 yards per attempt. “I always feel like I can put the ball where I want to — and that’s part of it, too, having that confidence to be able to throw those passes,” Love said. “There’s always like I said a handful of plays that might not come off or be in the exact spot that you wanted it to or the throw might be a little bit off. So, that’s where you’ve just got to try to be at your best every play, be consistent and accurate as possible.” Green Bay’s pass defense has been picked apart the last two weeks. First, it was torched by Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins in a Packers win. Next, it allowed Jared Goff to complete his final 13 passes as the Lions rallied to victory. It won’t get any easier this week. Smith is second in the NFL in attempts, completions and passing yards and is fifth in completion percentage. “It’s been a remarkable turnaround for him in terms of just where he started,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said. “It’s not always where you start, but where you finish. And it tells me a lot about the person in terms of his resiliency and ability to fight through some adversity. He’s a dangerous quarterback.” The potential return of former All-Pro cornerback Jaire Alexander (knee) could help the Packers. Will the Packers break out their head-to-toe white uniforms? The last time Green Bay wore the winter white look was in a 24-22 win over Houston in October. The Packers asked fans to weigh in on social media . As for the Seahawks, they'll be sporting their “Action Green” uniforms. Metcalf is a fan. “I would say this about the Action Green, I love them personally in my opinion, but the big guys hate them. I don’t know why, don’t ask me," he said. “Hopefully, the Packers wear all white, so it’ll be a fun-looking game.” AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nflAnalyst Scoreboard: 17 Ratings For Shift4 PaymentsSomewhere on the path out of Africa, our ancestors encountered Neanderthals, and their joint children would beget all non-African humans alive today. Now two new research papers have shed startling new light on how this happened. The papers, " Earliest modern human genomes constrain timing of Neanderthal admixture " in Nature led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and " Neanderthal ancestry through time: Insights from genomes of ancient and present-day humans " in Science were published Thursday. The Nature paper by Arev Sümer, Johannes Krause and colleagues analyzes seven modern humans who lived in two different Europe 49,000 to 42,000 years ago – the earliest humans in Europe to be studied to date. The Science paper by Leonardo Iasi, Priya Moorjani and colleagues analyzed 300 current and ancient individuals to study the timing and the duration of the intermixing. Previous research showed three major Homo sapiens-Neanderthal admixture events : over 200,000 years ago, 120,000 to 105,000 years ago and then after 60,000 years ago. But the new work implies that all non-Africans today result from a lineage of modern humans that mixed with Neanderthals 49,000 to 45,000 years ago in a single event. By single event we don't mean one coupling on one starry night, but a process of gene flow that may have lasted centuries or even a few thousand years when the two species overlapped, the researchers say. The other mixing events did happen. They resulted in hybrid human-Neanderthals. We have found traces of these hybrids. The other lineages went extinct. Ours didn't. Caught knapping The genetic material for the new work was recovered from seven people who lived 49,000 to 42,000 years ago in Ranis, Germany and Zlatý kůň in the Czech Republic. Though the two towns are 230 kilometers distant, the seven were related, Sumer said in a press conference. The Zlatý kůň people were cousins of the Ranis people, fifth or sixth degree. The team also identified the earliest modern family at Ranis: a mother and daughter, found with a second- (or third-) degree cousin. The people at Zlatý kůň and Ranis were not our ancestors: their line died out. But they had the same Neanderthal background that we do. Which means? About 50,000 years ago a band of modern humans left Africa. Possibly while crossing through the Middle East, they mated with Neanderthals about 49,000 to 45,000 years ago. Reaching Europe, the descendants of the band split up, with one branch forming the Zlatý kůň and Ranis family, which died out. Another branch became our ancestors. The humans and Neanderthals may have lived in proximity for thousands of years, the researchers say. That doesn't necessarily mean they were having relations for 5,000 years. We have no idea how "it" went down, the archaeologists clarified in the press conference. There is no archaeological or cultural evidence whatsoever to temper our fancies in this context. We can't even point at clear cultural transfer. Note the heartbreak of the Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician cultural complex from about 45,000 years ago, Krause says. LRJ artifacts characterized by sophisticated leaf-shaped stone blades have been found stretching from Britain to Poland in Europe. Note that even in that space, the LRJ sites are very rare, yet they badly muddied the waters because, based on the timing and geography, it was assumed to be a very late and highly skilled Neanderthal culture. It turned out that modern humans had reached northern Europe by 45,000 years ago. The suggestion arose that the blades were so advanced, the Neanderthals encountered modern humans who graciously taught them extreme knapping. Recently analysis in an LRJ site in Thuringia deduced that after all, the LRJ makers were modern humans who had penetrated northern Europe that long ago. Ditto regarding the gorgeous Châtelperronian technology; we don't know who made it – Neanderthals, modern humans, hybrids. So we have no evidence of transfers between Neanderthals and modern humans but do have solid evidence for sex, leading Priya Moorjani to observe that we were all one species. "The differences we imagine between these groups weren't very big," she says. "They could mix and did so for a long period of time and lived side by side over time, so I think that shows we were far more similar than different. I would expect exchange of ideas and cultures." X marks the missing spot Maybe. The new analyses suggest our Neanderthal ancestry component took shape very fast after that single putative gene flow event, within 100 generations, Krause says, thanks to strong selection of Neanderthal genes. In other words, some Neanderthal heredity strongly supported our occupation of Europe and other genes could have been deadly for us. Think of it this way. You are an early modern human venturing into prehistoric Europe, which was colder, and the pathogens were different. Neanderthals had been there for hundreds of thousands of years and had adapted to it, developing immunities to the pathogens. Your hybrid children could gain immunity from the Neanderthal parent, conferring a great advantage. But some genes would not work well for us. Some parts of our genome have heavy Neanderthal signals and others have none (and such was the case already in the earliest hybrids, Krause explains). Such as, we ladies have almost no Neanderthal or Denisovan signals in our X chromosome. Does that imply the sex was confined to human women with Neanderthal men? It does not. "There are regions in our genome that don't tolerate Neanderthal DNA," Krause explains. Perhaps human fetuses with a Neanderthal X chromosome weren't viable. Neanderthal women with human men may not have been a match made in heaven. A 'success story' So what have we? Seven people at two spots in Central Europe who lived about 49,000 to 42,000 years ago and had the same Neanderthal sequences we do, but who are not our ancestors. Their line died out. But they stemmed from the same group that was ancestral to us, which had met Neanderthals 80 to 50 generations earlier – likely in the Near East and possibly in Israel. We know Homo sapiens and Neanderthals co-occupied our region. In fact Israeli researchers suspect that the Levant was a land where Homo sapiens and Neanderthals struggled over eons. So possibly a small group of humans venturing out of Africa ran into Neanderthals in the Middle East, and their children continued onto Europe, where the lineage of Ranis and Zlatý kůň would die out. But ours would stride on. It bears adding: If they mixed over centuries or a few thousand years – geologically that's an eyeblink but in terms of human history, consider how much has happened in the last 7,000 years, such as the rise of civilization, Benjamin Peter points out. "I think it reasonable to assume lots of different things were happening in that time period – not one event or one culture or one group that interacted with Neanderthals but a lot of population structures, people different from each other that all interacted with Neanderthals," he speculates. The teams note that other early human lines who died out in Europe, for instance in Bulgaria and Romania, evinced signs of additional admixture. But in the group that survived, maybe all in all there were a couple of hundred Neanderthals interacting with a group of humans numbering maybe 5,000 and the result is We. Can all this genetic analysis tell us what the early Europeans and Neanderthals looked like? No. Krause points out that dozens of genes at a minimum affect skin color and at this point in the science, we can't even tell based on genetics what our own species looks like at a distance. "If we apply methods developed in Europe [to deduce skin color based on genetic analysis], they don't work in South Africa. These methods are population-specific. So if the European methods don't work there, how would they work for Neanderthals?" he says. He suspects that being fairly freshly out of Africa, the early modern humans in Europe all had dark skin and eyes. As for Neanderthal appearance, most of the skin color variants we can identify in Neanderthal genomes aren't present in Homo sapiens, so we don't know what they do. And we have gene variants that Neanderthals don't have, and all this means exactly nothing. So we can't say our ancestors saw blond Neanderthals and swooned. Or vice versa. Anyway, about 39,500 years ago all human lineages in Europe died out – Neanderthals and early modern humans alike, including the small modern human bands at Ranis and Zlatý kůň. Except for our ancestors, who had reached Europe about 43,500 years ago, according to the latest analysis, and somehow weathered whatever happened, and were fruitful and multiplied and peopled the continents, eventually walking over the Bering Bridge to the Americas and sometimes, with dogs in tow . Separate work implies that Denisovans, a sister species to Neanderthals (or are we all one?), survived in Southeast Asia, mixing with humans, until perhaps 15,000 years ago. Maybe they did, but we won. We won? A little humility might be in order. The human story isn't just a story of success. "We also went extinct several times," points out Science coauthor Benjamin Peter. In fact we always went extinct in Europe, and all other modern humans in Europe joined the Neanderthals in that final void, except for one little band that didn't. The end.
OTTAWA—Three key premiers whose provinces generate energy exports dismissed Premier Doug Ford’s suggestion that Canada should slap punitive tariffs on America or shut off electricity, gas and oil shipments to the U.S. in retaliation for Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs on Canadian products, as Trump shrugged off Ford’s warning. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, Quebec Premier François Legault, and Newfoundland and Labrador’s Andrew Furey said bluntly they do not support Ford’s threat to “cut off their energy” which he said would make Americans “feel the pain.” Ford made the threat after all 13 premiers met the night before with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Canada’s response, and he reiterated it Thursday. However Trump, the incoming U.S. president appeared unmoved by Ford’s tough talk when speaking with a CNBC reporter Thursday on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. “That’s OK if he that does that. That’s fine,” Trump told CNBC, repeating his view about the Canada-U.S. trade deficit. “The United States is subsidizing Canada and we shouldn’t have to do that,” Trump said. “And we have a great relationship. I have so many friends in Canada, but we shouldn’t have to subsidize a country. We’re subsidizing more than a $100 billion a year. We shouldn’t have to be doing that.” Alberta’s Smith dismissed throttling Canadian energy shipments as she unveiled Alberta’s own plan to beef up border security with new provincial sheriff patrol teams to allay Trump’s border concerns. “Under no circumstances will Alberta agree to cut off oil and gas exports,” Smith said. “We don’t support tariffs. I don’t support tariffs on Canadian goods, and I don’t support tariffs on U.S. goods, because all it does is make life more expensive for everyday Canadians and everyday Americans,” Smith said. “Instead, we’re taking a diplomatic approach, and we’re meeting with our allies in the U.S. We’re making the case for Alberta oil and gas to be part of the solution to energy affordability, to energy security and to, generally speaking, North American defence security as well,” she said. Ford reiterated the notion of cutting off Canadian energy exports to the U.S. right before Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador unveiled a blockbuster new $225-billion hydroelectricity deal , one those two provinces touted as key to Canada’s renewable energy commitments. The deal replaces a scorned decades-old contract due to expire in 2041, and requires Quebec to pay 30 times more for thousands of kilowatt hours of power generated from the Churchill Falls plant. It will also see the two provinces develop new hydro power projects along the Churchill River, and generate 2,400 more megawatts for Quebec. Legault called it an “extraordinary” deal for Quebec that means Labrador hydroelectricity will ramp up from a 17 per cent share of Quebec’s supply to 50 per cent. Furey said the agreement “changes everything.” “It is a fair deal for both parties. It’s a good commercial deal that recognizes the ills of the past and creates a new path forward for Newfoundland and Labrador, while allowing Quebec some certainty moving forward. So Premier Legault did show us the money,” Furey quipped. So it was no surprise when both premiers immediately dismissed any call to shut off energy exports to U.S. markets. “These tariffs will have significant impact on families and macro economies on both sides of the border. We hope it is just bluster. We’re preparing as if it is not. There will be no winners in a trade war,” Furey said, echoing Smith’s pledge. “Certainly from Newfoundland and Labrador’s perspective, we have no interest in stopping the flow of oil and gas, our incredibly valuable and now well-sought-after-world-class oil and gas to the United States. Nor do we now have any interest in stopping export of any electrons that could be produced in Labrador to the Northeastern seaboard.” Legault said he met Trump in Paris last weekend, “and he told me very clearly that we can avoid those tariffs if we do what needs to be done with the borders.” “He doesn’t want to see any more illegal immigrants coming from Canada to U.S. So I think the best choice right now for Mr. Trudeau is to very fast table a plan with money, with the number of people, to better secure the border. I think we have to do that. It’s a lot better than getting 25-per-cent tariffs starting on Jan. 21. So I prefer that than starting a war and stopping sending energy to (the) United States.” The Alberta premier said her new measures, which include sheriff patrol teams, and a “red zone” within two kilometres of the Alberta-Montana border, had been in the works since 2023 and would have been implemented even without Trump’s tariff threat. Steve Verheul, Canada’s former top trade negotiator, has suggested that Canada could put export levies on key Canadian goods like oil and agricultural commodities, saying it would quickly drive up the cost of fuel and food to American consumers, and could be used as leverage to negotiate a “broader exemption across all the sectors” that may be hit by Trump’s tariffs. Smith dismissed that, too, as a “terrible idea.” Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said Thursday he also intends to beef up border security using provincial conservation officers and spend more on overtime for RCMP officers at the border. Kinew did not directly answer whether he would restrict electricity exports, but Kinew said Manitoba is drafting a list of potential retaliatory tariffs in order to protect Canadian jobs at risk from Trump’s tariffs. He said Canada must show “how are we going to stand up for the ag industry? How are we going to stand up for our energy industry and the manufacturing industry here in Manitoba? So we have to make sure that our response is comprehensive,” he said. But at Queen’s Park, Ford did not walk anything back. He said he’s “sending a message to the U.S.” not to impose tariffs on Canadian goods or else — as a “last resort” — Ontario will strike back. “We power 1.5 million homes,” Ford said Thursday, referring to the electricity Ontario supplies Michigan, New York and Minnesota. “If they put on tariffs, it’s going to be unaffordable for Americans to buy electricity,” the premier said, noting his province alone does about $500 billion in annual two-way trade with the U.S. and nine million American jobs depend on trading with Ontario. “Just like if they put tariffs on the 4.3 million barrels of oil that Alberta is shipping down to the U.S. — if you put 25 per cent increases, every barrel of oil, every gallon of gasoline (goes up) by $1,” he said at Queen’s Park. Ford said that “along with the federal government, all the premiers are putting a list together” of American goods that could be targeted with counter-tariffs. “We can’t just roll over as we’re being under attack and hurting our families and our jobs.” Trudeau on Monday said Canada would respond to Trump’s threat to impose a 25-percent surcharge on all Canadian and Mexican products on his first day in office to force the two border countries to “stop” illegal immigration and fentanyl from entering the U.S. But it is far from clear what American products the Liberal government would levy counter-tariffs on. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said only that several premiers said critical minerals and metals needed by the U.S. should be on any “robust” Canadian retaliatory tariff list. With files from Susan DelacourtHundreds of people have been affected by power cuts as Storm Darragh moves across the region. Northern Powergrid released a statement just after 2pm today which said 10,480 customers had been affected as the storm moves across the North East, Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire. A live map on the Northern Powergrid website shows clusters of power cuts in Wakefield , Rotherham , Leeds , Sherburn in Elmet, South Elmsall, and parts of North Yorkshire . It said that power had so far been reconnected to more than 9,300 customers. A spokesman said: "Conditions are challenging, but our teams are ready to go when it is safe, and our Network Control teams are using remote technology to get the lights back on where we can." Steve McDonald, Northern Powergrid’s Director of Field Operations, said: “We are closely tracking the storm – especially wind speeds - so that our teams can be ready to climb electricity poles as soon as it is safe to do so and repair damage to get people’s lights back on. Our main priorities are to deal with emergency situations as quickly as possible, supporting our customers and ensuring our people can work safely as soon as the conditions allow." Updates will appear below
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OTTAWA — Hundreds of First Nations chiefs are gathering in Ottawa for three days this week to discuss economic reconciliation, reforming the First Nations child welfare system, the policing system and the carbon price at an Assembly of First Nations' special chiefs assembly. The gathering comes after a testy October assembly that saw chiefs vote down a $47.8-billion child welfare reform deal with Canada after decades of legal fights that found the federal government discriminated against First Nations children. It also comes as chiefs grow increasingly worried about a change in government, with a federal election looming and a gridlocked Parliament that means key pieces of legislation for First Nations people are not moving forward. The assembly's gatherings are often attended by federal politicians, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose address is set for Thursday according to a draft agenda. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is not expected to be in attendance. His wife, Anaida, will speak on a panel about human trafficking on Wednesday. AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said in an interview the organization will continue to invite Poilievre to address chiefs, and that he can hopefully join them for discussions at the next assembly. Poilievre addressed the AFN at its annual general assembly in July, the first time he spoke to the assembly since he was named party leader. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet are scheduled to address the assembly Thursday, followed by Justice Minister Arif Virani, Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree and Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu. More than 1,700 chiefs, proxies and participants registered to attend. Nine resolutions are dedicated to reforming the First Nations child and family services program, with nearly half of Wednesday dedicated to the issue. That includes the $47.8-billion deal the AFN, Chiefs of Ontario and Nishnawbe Aski Nation struck with the federal government in July after a nearly two-decade long legal fight over the federal government’s underfunding of on-reserve child welfare services. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal said Canada's underfunding was discriminatory because it meant kids living on reserve were given fewer services than those living off reserve. The tribunal tasked Canada with reaching an agreement with First Nations to reform the system, and also with compensating children who were torn from their families and put in foster care. The agreement was meant to cover 10 years of funding for First Nations to take control of their own child welfare services from the federal government, create a body to deal with complaints and set aside money for prevention, along with other items. Chiefs voted against the deal at a special assembly in October dedicated to child welfare, and passed resolutions calling for a new negotiation and legal team in hopes it would bring more transparency to the process. "We have to get to that place where we can find a way forward," Woodhouse Nepinak said in an interview. "If there's one thing that everybody can agree on, (it's) that the child welfare system in this country is broken." The AFN urged Canada to return to the negotiation table with a new mandate after the deal was struck down, but Woodhouse Nepinak said the AFN has yet to receive a response. Hajdu said after the October vote that she was disappointed with the outcome, but that the government would be looking at every option to make sure negotiations can continue. She also said the government was waiting for the AFN to come back with a plan. In a statement from her office Monday, that message was reiterated. "We are committed to building a system together where all First Nations children grow up surrounded by their culture, love, and their language," said spokesperson Jennifer Kozelj. The vast majority of resolutions up for debate at this week's assembly focus on First Nations in Canada, but one urges chiefs to bring their attention to the Middle East amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Chief Louis Kwissiwa of Netmizaaggamig Nishnaabeg, formerly Pic Mobert First Nation, put forward a resolution calling on chiefs to "support the rights of Palestinian people to exercise self-determination in their traditional lands and territories, and the rights of Palestinians displaced by the forces of settler colonialism to return to their lands." It also calls on Canada to recognize Palestinian statehood, and for the federal government to sanction the Israeli government and monitor or take action against Canadian citizens or charities that are involved in "illegal settlement activities in occupied Palestine." Another resolution calls for chiefs to support a legal challenge against the consumer carbon price. Woodhouse Nepinak said legislation to ensure First Nations have clean drinking water will likely be a main topic of discussion, along with First Nations policing. An emergency resolution slated for discussion on Tuesday calls for a national inquiry into systemic racism in policing and the deaths of First Nations people at the hands of police. That comes after six people were killed in September after interactions with police forces, in separate incidents across the country. "One thing that we need to get moving on is policing and public safety in our First Nations communities," Woodhouse Nepinak said. "First Nations are always an afterthought, and yet we have to deal with these issues every week." This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 2, 2024. Alessia Passafiume, The Canadian PressVictim in shocking pickleball attack 'lost memory for three hours'
From the season’s outset, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said Minnesota would leave itself the flexibility to close games with whatever lineup the coaching staff felt was needed to secure a victory. ADVERTISEMENT Sometimes, he noted, he’d get the choice right. Surely, there would be other times when he wouldn’t. “Hopefully, I do way more than I don’t,” Finch said this week. Sunday evening, however, was a checkmark in the “not right” column, at least based off the result. The Timberwolves didn’t score in the final 4:47 of their loss to Golden State. Finch said this week that Mike Conley’s inclusion in the closing lineup would’ve added organization to the equation. But he was quick to add that, with the ill-advised shots Anthony Edwards was taking, may not have mattered. ADVERTISEMENT Finch also reiterated what he said after the game, that Nickeil Alexander-Walker was playing “so well,” so he was hesitant to take him off the floor. “Maybe the other thing I could’ve done was go small,” Finch said, “but we’ve not really done that a ton.” That was the cry of many Wolves’ followers on social media on Sunday. Minnesota has proven rather inept at late-game offense when Conley isn’t on the floor. But all recognized Alexander-Walker had also earned the opportunity to close. You certainly won’t take Edwards off the floor in those situations, and the Wolves wanted Jaden McDaniels on the floor to guard Steph Curry. That left Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert as the only options to take off the court in favor of Conley, and that would’ve left Minnesota small. And, as Finch noted, the Wolves simply haven’t gone small this season. Like, at all. None of Naz Reid, Randle or Gobert have played more than 17 minutes this season without another big man next to him. ADVERTISEMENT It’s not something the Wolves practice, either. McDaniels said he’s only repped minutes at the four in practice when one of the bigs have been unavailable. Still, Finch said it wasn’t that he was “uncomfortable” rolling out a small-ball look Sunday. “But I worry a lot about rebounding. We struggle to rebound with our bigger lineups, at times. So, I know our smaller lineups have really struggled,” Finch said. “That’s some of the reason not to go small is really rebounding issues. But I think our guys are comfortable playing in all different combinations. But I haven’t really thought about going small, necessarily.” ADVERTISEMENT Indeed, Minnesota is just 12th in the NBA this season in defensive rebounding rate, grabbing 71.3% of opposing missed shots. The glass was especially an issue Sunday, as Golden State grabbed 14 offensive rebounds that led to 19 second-chance points. But it’s worth noting many of those came by guards in situations in which size was no factor on the play. McDaniels said he’s comfortable playing any position, including the power forward slot. And Minnesota certainly has the wing depth to roll out more small ball lineups if the situation ever called for it. There could be a playoff matchup that does just that, though Finch noted it could also go the other direction where the Wolves’ advantage would be to lean bigger. Versatility rules come April and May. But the Wolves don’t seem overly urgent to trot out any small-ball looks just to see how they perform at this juncture in the campaign. ADVERTISEMENT “Usually, it’s better with Naz at the four (than me),” McDaniels said. There is, however, at least one proponent of doing a little experimenting: Conley. “I think (small ball) kind of promotes a different level of spacing and speed to the game. You’re going to have to rely on guard-guard situations, guard pick and rolls,” Conley said. “Maybe me setting the screen and roll, Just creating different advantages for ourselves, as opposed to our typical offense or typical flow of things. I would love to see it, maybe — see how it works.” ADVERTISEMENT ______________________________________________________ This story was written by one of our partner news agencies. Forum Communications Company uses content from agencies such as Reuters, Kaiser Health News, Tribune News Service and others to provide a wider range of news to our readers. Learn more about the news services FCC uses here .
Real Madrid want £50m Man Utd defender – Paper Round
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