The Minnesota Timberwolves updated their injury report for Game 5 against the Denver Nuggets, listing Mike Conley as questionable with right achilles soreness. This would be a huge blow for Minnesota if Conley is unable to go, as he is a true stabilizing force for what they do on the offensive end. 

Injuries have been a huge factor throughout the entire postseason for several different teams, and it would be very unfortunate to see this series be impacted by an injury to Conley, especially at this stage of the series. 

Minnesota and Denver are currently tied 2-2, with Game 5 set to be played in Denver. The road team has won every game in this series, which is certainly abnormal, but a trend Timberwolves will look to continue in this game.

Denver has done incredibly well to even this series after dropping their first two games at home, and the pressure is now on Minnesota to shift the momentum back to their side. It will not be easy, as the passionate Denver fanbase will be backing their group in this pivotal game, but Minnesota has been impressive all year and will look to take a 3-2 series lead back home.

Game 5 will tip-off 7:30 PM PT, as one team will move just one a win away from the Western Conference Finals when this game concludes.

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Gov. Jared Polis joined lawmakers on the steps of the Colorado Capitol earlier this year to herald what they called the “fully funded era” for schools, pledging to eliminate a Great Recession-era maneuver that for years has diverted billions of education dollars to other budget priorities.

But despite Colorado now set to funnel more money into K-12 schools, Denver Public Schools officials say that won’t be enough to fully fund teacher raises for the 2024-25 academic year — prompting a contract dispute between the state’s largest school district and its teachers union.

On Monday, more than 100 educators and members of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association protested in front of DPS headquarters downtown. They carried signs that said “Keep your promises” and “Our students deserve teachers who can afford to live here.” Their chants could be heard inside the building, where the Board of Education was meeting to take public comment.

“Denver Public Schools is backtracking on the agreement we fought to secure,” union president Rob Gould said during the rally, adding, “We’re calling on Denver Public Schools to uphold our financial agreement.”

The union also filed a grievance with DPS over the matter in April and has a hearing set for Tuesday, Gould said in an interview.

“We love our teachers. They do an amazing job for our students,” DPS spokesman Bill Good said. “This is a contract dispute. This has nothing to do with our feelings to our teachers, who are amazing.”

The crux of the dispute is whether DPS will receive enough money from the elimination of what’s known as the budget stabilization factor — which withheld funds from schools — to trigger the maximum 8.34% increase in teacher pay detailed in the 2022 contract. That would include a 5.2% cost-of-living increase.

But DPS officials said the full raise won’t be triggered because the district will receive about $11 million from the “buy down” of the budget stabilization factor for the 2024-25 school year, which is less than the $16.9 million it will cost for the district to fully fund an increase in “steps and lane” compensation, which is pay based on teachers’ experience and education level.

As a result, DPS officials said teachers will get an overall raise of 5.2%, which includes an increase in “steps and lane” pay, but a smaller cost-of-living raise, at 2.06%. The district will also pay teachers a $1,000 bonus as is required in the 2022 contract if DPS doesn’t pay the full cost-of-living raise.

But Gould argued that the actual cost of the “steps and lane” salary cost is smaller than $16.9 million — and less than the $11 million needed to trigger the full raise — because each year the district receives what is called “turnover savings,” which include the savings the district gets when teachers, especially those with more experience and education, leave DPS.

For example, the “turnover savings” between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years was $10.8 million and the “steps and lanes” salary costs were $16.3 million, Gould said. This means the actual expense was $5.5 million because the “turnover savings” offset the “steps and lanes” cost, he said.

DPS officials dispute that.

“That’s not what the contract says and that’s never been discussed in the contract. That was not part of the calculation when teachers got the full (raise) amount,” DPS Chief Financial Officer Chuck Carpenter said when asked about “turnover savings.”

The clash between DPS and its teacher union over the raise amount comes as school districts across metro Denver have sought to increase educators’ pay in recent years to combat persistent staffing shortages and rising home prices.

“Housing costs have gone up,” Gould said. “Food costs have gone up and we’re just trying to stay on top of it just like everybody else.”

Joshua Duran, a teacher at Skinner Middle School, said during the rally that property taxes on his home have increased as have other bills in recent years — leading him to work a second job.

“It’s not crazy to want to live in the communities you serve,” he said.

Mollie Siweck, a kindergarten teacher at Escalante-Biggs Academy, said she’s worried teachers will leave DPS if the district doesn’t pay the full raise detailed in the contract because other metro Denver districts have higher wages.

“This is not about educator greed,” said Dez Baldonado, a math and science teacher at West High School. “This is about quality of life. This is about equity.”

DPS teachers have on average seen their pay jump more than 26% as a result of the union’s 2022 contract, Carpenter said.

The district announced Friday that it has reached a tentative 3-year contract with the Denver School Leaders Association, which includes a 4.5% cost-of-living raise in the first year for principals and other school administrators.

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SAN DIEGO — The Rockies walked the high-wire Monday night at Petco Park.

Their pitchers teetered and tottered. They walked 11 Padres batters. Count ’em, 11.

But somehow, someway, the Rockies held on to win 5-4, notching their fifth consecutive victory.

The Padres loaded the bases in the ninth against Jalen Beeks on three walks, but Beeks got Manny Machado to ground into a 5-4-3 double play to end the game.

“That was exhilarating, for sure,”  a frazzled but happy Rockies manager Bud Black said. “The term ‘hang on tight’ came into play. We had to hang on tight, for sure. But it felt good. The guys in the dugout and the guys on the field erupted. But you don’t draw them up like that.”

No, you don’t.

Monday marked just the third time in franchise history that Colorado walked 11 or more and managed to win the game. In a May 12, 1995 game at Florida, Rockies pitchers walked 12 but beat the Marlins. On June 5, 1999, they walked 12 Brewers at Coors Field but managed a victory.

Black took a risk in the ninth. He visited the mound and instructed the infield to play back, looking for the double play. The strategy paid off.

“We thought there was a double-play chance with Manny, and I thought that was our best chance to win the game,” Black explained. “Even though Beeks is a high-fastball pitcher, he has a chance to get a grounder by choking off a swing with a good fastball, and that’s what he did.”

Perhaps lost in the moras of walks was an outstanding play by veteran right fielder Jake Cave. He raced in on Luis Arraez’s dying line drive and made a diving catch for the first out of the ninth.

“I was just trying to cover as much ground as possible,” Cave said. “Then I saw that I was ‘closing in, closing in,’ so then, I thought, ‘Now I’ve got try for it.’  When I’m healthy, and I’m out on the field, I’m going to go as hard as I can.”

In the final 3 1/3 innings, the Rockies relievers gave up eight walks: three by Beeks, three by Justin Lawrence and two by Jake Bird.

“Bird, Lawrence and Beeks will tell you that’s not good,” Black said.

San Diego crept to within one run, at 5-4, in the seventh on Jackson Merrill’s leadoff homer off Bird. When Bird issued back-to-back walks to Luis Campusano and Ha-Seong Kim, Colorado’s lead appeared to be disintegrating until Justin Lawrence relieved Bird and got Arraez to ground into a 6-4-3 double play. Then Lawrence got the dangerous Fernando Tatis to ground out to third baseman Ryan McMahon.

But the Rockies’ walk-fest continued in the eighth inning when Lawrence walked three to jam the bases but pulled a Houdini escape act when Campusano popped out to center.

Elehuris Montero powered Colorado to an early lead. The first baseman drove in Brenton Doyle with a single up the middle in the second. Doyle reached on a walk, stole second and advanced to third on Cave’s groundout to first.

Montero’s two-run double to left-center off starter Randy Vasquez sparked the Rockies’ four-run fourth. Back-to-back bloop singles by Charlie Blackmon and Ezequiel Tovar drove in the other two runs to put Colorado ahead, 5-1.

Rockies starter Dakota Hudson pitched his best game in a Rockies uniform, got the win and snapped a streak of eight consecutive losing decisions dating back to Sept. 11 of last season when he pitched for St. Louis.

“I felt like we had a good plan going in,” Hudson said. ‘It felt good to get than win.”

The right-hander mowed down the Padres with his bowling ball sinker for 5 2/3 innings until he threw a few gutterballs in the sixth. He issued a two-out walk to Machado and then served up a two-run homer to Jurickson Profar, who crushed his seventh bomb of the season to cut Colorado’s lead to 5-3. The switch-hitting Profar, who played with Colorado last season, hit Hudson’s first-pitch changeup deep into the right-field seats. Profar has already driven in 29 runs.

Hudson, who also mixed in an effective curveball, induced 10 outs via groundballs, struck out three, walked three and gave up just three hits. However, two of the three hits were homers, including Xander Bogaerts’ two-out solo shot in the second.

“I thought the fastball played tonight, and he had a good breaking ball,” Black said. “He threw more curveballs than he had in previous starts, so there was a little more separation of velocity. I thought that was key.”

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