LOS ANGELES: The Minnesota Timberwolves overwhelmed the Denver Nuggets 115-70 on Thursday to force the defending NBA champions to a decisive Game 7 in their Western Conference semifinal series.

Anthony Edwards shook off an injury scare to finish with 27 points, four rebounds, four assists and three steals as the young, hungry Timberwolves fended off elimination against Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets, who had won the previous three games to take charge of the best-of-seven series.

Jaden McDaniels scored 21 points and Karl-Anthony Towns had 10 points and 13 rebounds. Minnesota finished with a 62-43 advantage in rebounds and the Timberwolves reserves outscored the Nuggets bench 36-9.

The Nuggets will host the winner-take-all Game 7 on Sunday.

“I’m super-pumped for it,” 22-year-old Edwards said of the chance to eliminate the Nuggets on their home floor.

But McDaniels cautioned that the Nuggets would be ready as well.

“It’s not over,” McDaniels said. “We’re just going to try to keep this intensity for the next game.”

With their backs against the wall, the Timberwolves absorbed an early punch, falling behind 9-2 before exploding for a 20-0 scoring run.

They outscored the Nuggets 31-14 in the first quarter, dominating in the paint and winning the rebounding battle 19-9.

Denver went nearly six minutes without scoring, the crowd at the Target Center in Minneapolis growing more frenzied as the Timberwolves’ lead grew.

Another surge by Denver to open the second quarter was quickly repelled with a 13-0 Minnesota run that featured back-to-back baskets from Naz Reid and a three-pointer from Edwards.

Every time the Nuggets looked to be gaining momentum Minnesota responded — their energy rewarded once again as McDaniels grabbed the rebound from a Reid miss for a second-chance basket at the halftime buzzer, giving the Timberwolves a 59-40 lead at the break.

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch was pleased with a bounce-back performance from his team.

“There were two responses,” Finch said. “There was the response to the last three games, but the most important response was when we got down 9-2. And we did a really good job of focusing and coming back with the right energy.”

It was more of the same in the third, with Minnesota taking a 66-42 lead when Edwards came up with a steal and threw down a dunk.

Moments later, however, he took a frightening fall under the basket, landing hard and rolling to face the floor before gesturing to his lower back.

Edwards said he banged his tailbone, but would be ready for Sunday.

A step-back three-pointer by Mike Conley — back after missing Game 5 with a calf injury — pushed the Timberwolves’ lead to 29 late in the third quarter.

When Minnesota pushed the lead to 30 on Rudy Gobert’s layup early in the fourth, Denver coach Michael Malone pulled his starters, the Nuggets falling behind by as many as 50 before it was over.

Denver coach Michael Malone said he told his team at halftime “the reason we’re getting our ass kicked is we’re not taking care of the ball, you’re not rebounding, we’re playing with no physicality and no toughness.

“They hit us first, they hit us second, they hit us third. They did what they needed to do to keep this series alive,” added Malone.

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Tourism Authority said on Friday a spring festival celebrated by the minority Kalash people living in the country’s northern Chitral District had concluded with the practice of community rituals and song and dance. 
The Kalash are a group of about 4,000 people, possibly Pakistan’s smallest minority, who live in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, where they practice an ancient polytheistic faith. Each year in May, they come together for Chilam Joshi, a festival that coincides with the coming of spring and is marked by dance, animal sacrifice and highly prescribed roles for men and women. The community’s religion incorporates animiztic traditions of worshiping nature as well as a pantheon of gods and its people live mainly on the three Kalash valleys of Bumburet, Birir and Rumbur.
“A large number of domestic and foreign tourists had arrived for the religious festival celebrated on the arrival of spring,” Mohammad Saad, the spokesperson of the tourism authority said in a statement. “Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Tourism Authority’s tourist facilities in Dir Upper and Chitral Lower remained open during the festival.”
He said the Kalash tribe celebrated the festival with song and dance as well as the rituals of distributing milk, performing traditional dances for newborns and praying for the safety of livestock and crops.
On the first day, boys and girls go to the higher pastures to pluck wildflowers and walnut leaves to the beat of drums, while the second day, when milk is distributed, goat stables are decorated with wildflowers and walnut leaves, and songs and ceremonies take place in every village.
On the third day, villagers get together and distribute dried mulberries and walnuts in ceremonies for new born babies. On the fourth day, during the Ghona ceremony, villagers of the Kalash community gather at one main venue and different rituals and ceremonies are performed. 
Throughout the festival, women usually dress up in vibrantly colored traditional clothes, wear gold and silver jewelry and elaborate headgear, while men wear traditional shalwar kameez with a woolen waistcoat.