Minnesota got off to another slow start, which has been a constant in its previous five victories. But the Timberwolves had always been able to dig themselves out of holes with strong second-half performances.

Yet the Wolves flew too close to the Suns on Monday, as Phoenix held on for a 108-105 victory at Target Center to snap Minnesota’s winning streak.

Minnesota trailed by three with the ball and six seconds to play, but Jaden McDaniels’ potential game-tying attempt clanked off the iron.

Anthony Edwards was questionable entering the evening with an illness, but he played and delivered one of his most efficient offensive performances of the season. He finished with 40 points on 15 for 21 shooting to go with nine boards.

But the rest of Minnesota’s offense struggled. All Wolves not named Edwards and Julius Randle combined to shoot 33% from the floor.

“We’ve got to shoot the ball better,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said. “I thought a lot of them were decent looks.”

Jaden McDaniels, Donte DiVincenzo and Naz Reid were a combined 4 for 26 from the field.

Rudy Gobert was having a nice night, dominating Phoenix’s smaller frontcourt. He had 15 points and eight rebounds in 21 minutes before he was ejected in the third quarter for a flagrant-2 foul after shoving an airborne Mark Williams in the back on his dunk attempt.

Gobert is now one flagrant foul away from a one-game suspension.

Bones Hyland gave Minnesota a nice offensive spark. He played in favor of Rob Dillingham and produced for 14 points and three assists in 16 minutes.

“We were 24 games in and I thought it was time to try something different,” Finch said. “He’s been patient, doing really well in practice, doing everything we asked him to do.”

All five of Phoenix’s starters scored in double figures, led by Williams, who tallied 22 points and seven rebounds. The Wolves are now 0-2 this season against Phoenix.

ORLANDO — The Twins are planning on hanging onto their stars at this time. Now, the question for the remainder of the offseason is how they can best build around them and bring the team back to a competitive level.

This, Twins president of baseball and business operations Derek Falvey had maintained all along, was his hope, though he admitted he didn’t always know if it was path the team would take.

Given the team’s financial situation and on the heels of last July’s sell off, rumors had swirled about starting pitchers Joe Ryan and Pablo López. Even Byron Buxton, who holds a no-trade clause, had been the subject of speculation, with a report suggesting he might waive it if the team was headed into a rebuild.  López and Buxton are the team’s highest-paid players and if rebuilding was the path the Twins opted for, they would be logical trade candidates.

Ultimately, they chose otherwise.

“I was hopeful … that we’d get to this place, but I always knew there could be different paths that we could choose,” Falvey said Monday at MLB’s Winter Meetings. “I think, at this stage, figuring a way to add to this group was clearly the best fit for all what we aligned around.”

New Twins manager Derek Shelton said his assumption when he took the job in late October was that the trio would be part of the team. But still, he thought it was important that they heard it from him and wanted to reinforce that in his conversations with them this offseason.

With that settled, the question turns to how the Twins are going to improve the team around them and what areas they need to upgrade after stripping down the roster at the trade deadline and shipping away 10 major leaguers.

Five of the traded players were relievers, and adding to the bullpen is the team’s most obvious need at this point. The rebuilt bullpen will likely be a mix of players already on the roster, starters converted to relievers and external additions. On the position player side, general manager Jeremy Zoll referenced their desire to add “another bat or two with some thump, with some impact.” First base seems like a natural place to add.

Their ability to add to the roster, of course, comes back to payroll and the Twins have made no indication publicly about the payroll flexibility they might have, though they’re certainly not expected to be big spenders. The addition of two limited partners joining the Pohlad family in ownership was announced in August, and there’s still a question of how those two groups might affect the team’s payroll.

Falvey did indicate that there should be news on the limited partners in “the near term.” He also mentioned presenting options for the direction of the team to a larger ownership group with a “few more people that we get to talk to about it.”

“Jeremy and I had a number of conversations internally with our group and then ultimately with ownership to discuss what that could look like going forward and we’ll continue to work closely with them through the offseason in terms of navigating what  comes next,” Falvey said. “But my job, our collective job, is to figure out ways that we can add some pieces to the group that we have now.”

The Twins finished last season in fourth place, leading to the firing of Rocco Baldelli and the dismissal of some of his coaching staff. But some of the players they got in return — like Taj Bradley and Mick Abel and Alan Roden — are major-league ready and Falvey said it was always on his mind that the Twins would “find a way to retool,” the group on the fly and add to a group that they thought could compete.

“It’s going to take some creative work in trying to figure out how to plug some holes,” Falvey said. “Ultimately we’re going to need some guys to step up, but that’s probably always going to be our situation to some degree.”

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Freddy Gaudreau had family in town on Sunday night, so the Seattle Kraken forward didn’t make it over to the Minnesota Wild’s team hotel to see some old friends.

He figured he would be seeing enough of them on Monday night at the rink anyway.

Gaudreau, 32, is in his first season with the Kraken, and Monday night’s game was his first in his new uniform versus his former team. He had spent the previous four years with the Wild, playing all 88 regular season and playoff games for Minnesota last season.

“A lot of people I love over there, and a lot of really good memories. That never changes,” Gaudreau said following the Kraken’s morning skate. “But it’s just another game and my only focus is on my job and what I can do to help my team win.”

He was traded to Seattle in late June and entered Monday’s game having played in 13 contests with the Kraken, posting a goal and two assists. He missed the second half of October and the first half of November due to a stint on injured reserve, dealing with an upper body injury. Injuries were a rarity for Gaudreau in Minnesota, where he was a regular season iron man in two of his four years with the Wild.

“First-class human being. He’s a great, great kid, great teammate, was awesome to coach, very smart player, cares about the team,” Wild coach John Hynes told reporters in Seattle following the team’s morning skate at Climate Pledge Arena. “Kind of a jack-of-all-trades, he did so much for us. He could play wing, center, power play, penalty kill. Great person and a really good player.”

Having spent so much time in Minnesota, Gaudreau offered a Wild scouting report without revealing many secrets. It was already fairly well-known that stopping Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello is a key to success for Wild foes.

“When they’re on the ice, you’ve got to make sure you’re D-side,” said Gaudreau, who originally signed a free agent contract with the Wild in the summer of 2021. “They’ve got some good chemistry too. They know where the other guys are. It kind of feels especially like Zuccy and Kirill know where the other guy is. You can’t take a moment to zone out. You always have to be dialed in and focused.”

Known as one of the truly nice guys on the roster during his time in Minnesota, Gaudreau had nothing but good things to say about his former employer.

“They’ve got some superpower, for sure They’ve got some guys you’ve got to make sure you know when they’re on the ice,” he said. “They’re a strong team. They’re deep. Good goaltending, those games are always good matchups. We have to get ready for 60 (minutes) for sure.”

The Wild entered Monday’s game with a 5-1-0 all-time record versus the Kraken in Seattle.

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The cause of a middle-of-the-night fire at a Prior Lake mosque and school is still unknown, but Islamic community leaders have asked mosques across the state to be alert.

A neighbor called Scott County 911 dispatchers at 2:22 a.m. Monday alerting them to a fire at 5995 Timber Trail S.E. in Prior Lake, according to a news release from the Prior Lake Fire Department. Prior Lake fire crews responded and were on the scene at 2:29 a.m. and met with “visible flames coming through the roof,” according to the fire department.

The department said that firefighters were pushed outside the building “due to the extent of the fire,” and that a portion of the roof subsequently collapsed. The fire department reported that no one was in the building upon arrival and no injuries to the public or firefighters. The structure formerly housed a Christian church.

The Masjid Hamza Al-Mahmood Foundation doubles as the Baitul Hikmah Academy. Community leaders at a news conference outside the mosque on Monday afternoon said the school serves more than 200 children.

Because it is a religious institution, a full investigation will be completed by the state fire marshal and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the fire department said.

The Prior Lake blaze followed President Donald Trump’s recent immigration crackdown against Minnesota’s large Somali community. The president has linked the enforcement action to a series of fraud cases involving state government social services programs in which many defendants have roots in the East African country.

Trump last week labeled Minnesota Somalis as “garbage” and said he didn’t want them in the United States.

The president’s actions come as Republicans have stepped up their criticism of Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate, for his alleged failures in preventing the fraud. It’s already a major issue in the 2026 gubernatorial race as Walz seeks a third term.

Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) for Minnesota, said at the Monday news conference that alerts have been sent to mosques throughout the state as a safety precaution, “even though we still do not know the nature of this.”

“We do not know exactly what happened here, but the state of Minnesota continues to lead in the nation in attacks against mosques. Over 40-plus incidents and arsons,” Hussein said. “Like I said, we don’t know exactly what happened here. We hope that it’s just an accident.”

Hussein said CAIR estimates roughly 40 attacks on mosques in Minnesota over the past four years, with 16 of those in 2024 alone. He added that while there is a lot unknown about Monday’s fire, what he does know is that there’s “elevated fear and anxiety” for the Muslim community in Minnesota.

“And that’s not new, but that’s been part of the main story that we’ve been dealing with for the past week and a half,” Hussein said.

This report includes information from the Associated Press.

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