The buildup to the Timberwolves brawl that led to 7 ejections

NINA MOINI: The Timberwolves got two wins out of this weekend, but not without a fight. A literal fight. A foul that turned into a brawl in the second quarter last night's game against the Detroit Pistons. Referees ejected multiple players and coaches from the game. Joining me now to talk about what this means for the Wolves and other sports headlines are our contributors, Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson. Thanks for being here as always, guys.

ERIC NELSON: Happy Monday, Nina.

NINA MOINI: Well, you know I'm always late to the party. So I just pulled up the video of the Wolves game before the show, and wow. I mean, Wally, what was going on there?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Well, I mean, it was intense from the get-go. Former Timberwolf Malik Beasley was literally lighting up the Timberwolves. He had like a half dozen 3-pointers early on in the game, and the intensity started building up in the game. There was some pushing and shoving. And then there was a hard foul. Naz Reid got fouled. This was, like, midway through the second quarter. Timberwolves trailing at the time by 10 points.

He gets fouled. Takes exception to it. He was fouled by Ron Holland. They started pushing and shoving. Another Timberwolf, Donte DiVincenzo, jumps into it and starts pushing and shoving as well. And then the fracas moved into the crowd. And so that's when things get ugly. If you watch the video carefully, you could see there's kids sitting in the front row there. They're looking at what's going on.

Coaches get involved. In all, seven players were ejected, including both Timberwolves that I mentioned, DiVincenzo and Naz Reid. Head coach of the Detroit Pistons, Former Gopher JB Bickerstaff, he got thrown out of the game as well. The good news, as you mentioned, the Timberwolves win the game. They go on to win 123 to 104. They're now only a half game out of sixth place in the West.

And you want to be in sixth or higher to avoid this little play-in tournament in order to continue in the playoffs. So they're close. They're still not there. They got a huge game out of Rudy Gobert. 19 points, 25 rebounds out of Rudy. But they're going to have to keep winning, and it's not going to get any easier. They go to Denver on Tuesday night.

And they could potentially be playing without DiVincenzo and Naz Reid for a while because there are going to be some suspensions from this. The NBA does not look kindly on fights, nor do they look kindly on those fights going into the crowd. That's a big deal in the National Basketball Association, so we'll see how it plays out. But they got the win. That's the good news. And they're right in the mix here in the playoffs as they go forward.

NINA MOINI: And it was the coach involvement, right, that was so strange too. I mean, have you ever seen anything like that?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Well, they try to get in and break things up. I think that that's usually what happens. And then when you're in there getting it broke-- trying to break things up, and then you get pushed or you get hit, then you respond, I guess. I don't know. That tends to be what happens in these situations like this. It's not unprecedented, but it does happen for sure.

NINA MOINI: OK. So moving over to college basketball, Paige Bueckers. Our hero Paige broke a personal record, right, in the Sweet 16 game against Oklahoma. That was on Saturday. Can you catch me up on what that game was all about and what's next, Eric?

ERIC NELSON: Yeah, exactly. And Paige Bueckers-- I hate to say generational talent because we've got Caitlin Clark, we've got Angel Reese. They've certainly made a splash in the WNBA coming out of college. But she's just that. She's a generational talent. She played at Hopkins High School, and she did score a career high 40 points in UConn's win over Oklahoma on Saturday, as you mentioned.

So the Huskies have won 13 straight games, and they have a monstrous Elite Eight match-up tonight. The winner will go to the Final Four in Tampa. So they're going to face top seed USC. UConn is the second seed, so it doesn't get any better than this as far as writing a script for television for women's college basketball. The only blemish is the USC Trojans are minus JuJu Watkins, and she's the next generational player.

She's just a sophomore. She's brilliant but unfortunately suffered a serious leg injury last week in one of the Trojans' tournament wins. But that said, USC is still very good. And so the winner, as I said, will have a chance to go down to Florida and get to the semifinals. But Bueckers probably will be the top pick in the upcoming WNBA draft, and you might even see teams trade up to get her.

I think she's that good. And as far as a teammate goes, she is a fantastic team player. One of her teammates last week, who is Muslim, was going through the Ramadan situation, and she was cooking her breakfast and giving her dinner because that sunup to sundown thing where you can't eat, you can't drink. So Paige Bueckers is universally loved by her UConn fan base.

NINA MOINI: That's a sweet story. Yeah, she does seem like a good leader.

ERIC NELSON: She sure is.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. So for the Twins, they got off to a rough start, Wally. What happened in their opener? It was against the Cardinals.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Kind of a rough start? You're being kind. Yeah, they lost all three in Saint Louis. The opener on Thursday, they had the day off Friday they lost Saturday. And then actually it got worse. They lost yesterday by a score of 9 to 2. Starting pitcher Bailey Ober got rocked. He gave up eight runs in a little over two innings of pitching. So he comes out of the game. Randy Dobnak comes in. And Dobnak finished the last five plus innings, giving up just two hits and one run.

But then the Twins released him today. So go figure. Dobnak, kind of at the bottom of their pitching staff, but he came in and pitched really well. He still has a chance to come back to the team. Technically he was what they called designated for assignment, so any team in the League can pick him up, and if they don't, then he'll come back to the Twins. But it's kind of ironic.

So the Twins, off to their worst starts in 2016. They have not lost an opening series like this in nine years, and so that's how they start this year. Today, they're back at it-- actually, in about 15 minutes. They play in Chicago against the lowly White Sox, who had the worst team in modern baseball history last year.

So a chance for the Twins to right the ship begins today in about 15 minutes on the South Side of Chicago against the Sox. And the Sox just won one of their first three games this past weekend against the Angels, which is actually good for them, because they were only winning one out of four last year. So one out of three is pretty good for the White Sox.

NINA MOINI: Man. And so, Eric, do you think that they would have better luck in their home opener that's coming up on Thursday? My notes just say fans apathetic. Ticket prices low.

ERIC NELSON: Well, those are good notes, and I can expound on that.

NINA MOINI: Please do.

ERIC NELSON: There's not much buzz surrounding the Twins right now in what I call the sports saturated Twin Cities. And the Minnesota Twins haven't helped themselves much. They made no splashy moves in the offseason, and I think there is some apathy in Twins territory. And I've always believed the longer I follow sports, apathy is worse than anger. At least an angry fan base cares. Right?

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

ERIC NELSON: That means they care. They're invested. An apathetic one, they don't care. They've checked out. The Twins have television issues as far as how do you get the product at home. And last year, they averaged about 23,000 fans a game. That was near the bottom of Major League Baseball Stadium attendance.

Now, this home opener traditionally here in the Twin Cities is a huge deal. I think we're going to possibly see 49, 50 degrees, so they're going to play it. Unless it rains. They're taking on the Houston Astros, who are a solid team, a playoff team year in, year out. Cheapest ticket, though-- this includes fees-- $15. So if you want to go and get into the ballpark, it's affordable.

For game two on Saturday, cheapest ticket, $11. Game three on Sunday, $15. And I just think this team right now is in a holding pattern. There was some excitement that, hey, maybe the Pohlads are going to sell it and a new group will come in and pump some money in and sign players. But right now, we don't know what's going to happen with the Minnesota Twins. They need a win today in Chicago. That's what they need.

NINA MOINI: All right. Well, we got about a minute left. Wally, do you want to tell me the latest with the Minnesota Frost?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Well, finally some good news because they had lost three in a row, and they had fallen out of playoff position. We're talking about the defending champions in the PWHL, the Professional Women's Hockey League. But they got a win over Toronto yesterday in front of a season high crowd of 9,536 at the X. Taylor Heise had a couple of goals. First and fifth goals in that 5-2 win, so that puts them back into fourth place. And it snapped the Toronto winning streak at three games.

So it was a big win. It was an important win for them. And they move, like I said, back into a playoff position. They still have a ways to go here with a couple weeks left in the season. But winning yesterday over Toronto helped them immensely, and as I said, a big crowd on hand to watch them. They actually led that game 3-0 at one point, but they win it 5 to 2.

NINA MOINI: All right. Eric and Wally, thank you so much for the lowdown that you bring us on sports news every Monday.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: All right.

ERIC NELSON: Have a good one, Nina.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Thank you.

NINA MOINI: Have a good week. That's sports contributors Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson. Tomorrow, we're going to hear about five women who turned their love of reading into a business. Tune in for that. Thank you so much for listening to Minnesota Now. I'm Nina Moini. Have a great rest of your Monday.