The Timberwolves look like a team in desperate need of the all-star break, and still two games to go to get there.

The impact of Julius Randle and Anthony Edwards is null and void. Minnesota’s shot-making has fallen off a cliff, and the defense looks like that of a tanking team.

The Timberwolves are now 12-12 since Christmas, just .500, and every game that looks more and more like who they may be. Though even an average team shouldn’t have been embarrassed to the degree Minnesota was at home in a nationally-televised affair Sunday against what’s left of the post-trade deadline Los Angeles Clippers, who ran away with a 115-96 victory.

It’s Minnesota’s third straight loss in games against sub-.500 teams, with a wild comeback in Toronto serving as the team’s only win in its last four contests.

“We don’t have a great spirit about us right now,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said. “We’ve got to pick it up. … Yeah, it’s apparent.”

The Timberwolves’ debut of Ayo Dosunmu wasn’t the spark Minnesota (32-22) likely hoped it would be. The Wolves lost his 26 minutes by 33 points. In fairness, no one else’s playing time went well, either, as Kawhi Leonard dominated the game for Los Angeles (25-27) from start to finish.

The all-star forward had 41 points and eight rebounds as he dictated the game’s terms.

Edwards scored 23 points, but his defensive effort left much to be desired while he struggled to shoot and committed five of Minnesota’s 21 turnovers. Randle was similarly ineffective, as the struggles with his jumper are proving prohibitive.

Only 17 of Minnesota’s 37 made buckets were assisted. The lack of connectivity on both ends is alarming.

Finch cited potential offensive fixes, noting the Wolves aren’t playing with the pace, which is impacting the ball movement that produces ample opportunities for all.

“We’ve lost our structure on offense,” Finch said. “We’re trying to play into a crowd the last few games.”

Rudy Gobert sounded the alarms after Minnesota’s loss to New Orleans on Friday, suggesting guys who don’t deliver the proper effort be benched by Finch.

Finch didn’t take a liking to those comments, noting the Wolves’ culture is steeped in accountability while noting he’d prefer such thoughts be kept in house while adding teams who achieve things of note don’t substitute their way out of issues.

But it’s difficult to blame anyone who’s frustrated and looking for answers at the moment. Because nothing Minnesota is doing looks like that of a championship-caliber team. The Timberwolves currently don’t defend, don’t share the ball and don’t execute at the level required of high-end teams.

They were thoroughly outplayed Sunday by a team that just decimated its roster in the past week, sending James Harden to Cleveland and Ivica Zubac to Indiana.

Something might need to change, whether it be rotations or approach. The all-star break will be a good time to re-evaluate it all. Until then, Minnesota must hunt for ways to scratch out a pair of home victories — Monday against Atlanta and Wednesday against Portland — to keep pace in a crowded Western Conference playoff picture.

“We’ve just got to stay positive. We know we’re a good team, we’ve just got to get back to playing good basketball,” Finch said. “I’m a big believer that you’ve got to bring good energy every day no matter what. But you’ve got to play well to prove it to yourself and get the juices flowing again.”

Minnesota Timberwolves guard Ayo Dosunmu (13) goes up to shoot while Los Angeles Clippers center Yanic Konan Niederhauser (14) and guard Cam Christie (12) defend during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Bailey Hillesheim)

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In the Land of 10,000 Sports Heartaches, who left to win a championship?

A weekend trip out east did little to slow the Minnesota women’s basketball team’s roll.

After trailing host Rutgers by three points at halftime, the Gophers exploded out of the break to triumph 63-52 on Sunday afternoon in Piscataway, N.J., running the team’s winning streak to six games.

Minnesota had three players score in double figures, led by Sophie Hart, who notched a double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds. Tori McKinney added 16 points and Mara Braun helped out with 12 points.

The Gophers forced the Scarlet Knights (9-15 overall, 1-12 Big Ten) into 15 turnovers while committing only five themselves. Minnesota turned those takeaways into 15 points on the offensive end of the floor. Grace Grocholski led the way individually with three steals.

With the victory, the Gophers (18-6, 9-4) moved back into a fifth-place tie with No. 12 Michigan State (20-4, 9-4) in the Big Ten standings after the Spartans topped Penn State on Saturday.

Minnesota returns home on Thursday to take on Nebraska (16-8, 5-8) with tip-off set for 7 p.m. at Williams Arena. The game will be broadcast on Big Ten Network.

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The Gophers men’s basketball team produced its best 3-point-shooting Big Ten game this season, but Maryland leading scorer David Coit hit the go-ahead trey to help down Minnesota 67-62 on Sunday at Williams Arena.

The Gophers (11-13, 4-9 Big Ten) didn’t score a basket in the final three minutes and were outscored 9-2 to end the game against a Terrapins (9-14, 2-10) which had lost four straight.

Minnesota wasn’t able to build on its upset of No. 10 Michigan State on Wednesday.

Minnesota was averaging 33% from deep on the season, which ranked 11th in the Big Ten on the season. But they shot 42% from deep Sunday, their previous best performance in conference games was 41% in the 67-63 loss at Wisconsin on Jan. 28.

Cade Tyson made two free throws to give the U a 62-60 lead with 53 seconds left. But David Coit used a step-back move to to open for a go-ahead trey with 26 seconds left.

Coit then added four throws to give him a game-high 29 points

Jaylen Crocker-Johnson missed a crucial layup with 12 seconds remaining.

Isaac Asuma made a career-high six trees and had a team high 18 points.  Asuma sank his opening four 3-pointers, including two with the shot clock expiring, to give Minnesota an early 20-17 lead with eight minutes left in the first half. He had 12 points in the first half.

Midway through the second half, Maryland’s Solomon Washington goaltended Langston Reynolds’ layup and it appeared members of both teams engaged in trash talk. Reynolds smirked as he tried to pump up the crowd at The Barn. Solomon and Crocker-Johnsonn were issued double technical fouls.

As a team, Minnesota shot 50% from deep in the first half, but Maryland was better overall from the field (50-43%) and finished with a 6-0 run to cut the U lead to 33-32 at the break.

Former Gophers and Texas A&M big man Pharell Payne of Park of Cottage Grove hasn’t played for the Terrapins since Dec. 13 due to injury.

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CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy  — Lindsey Vonn knows the Olympic downhill course better than anyone.

She’s won a record 12 World Cup races on the Olympia delle Tofane track — split evenly between six downhills and six super-Gs — and has a total of 20 podium results there, stretching back to her very first year on the entire circuit in 2004.

So how did the 41-year-old American standout lose control just 12.5 seconds into her run and crash so spectacularly at the Milan Cortina Winter Games on Sunday?

Here’s what happened and why:

Critical early section
The highlight of the downhill course is the Tofana schuss, a narrow chute between two walls of Dolomite rock where the skiers accelerate to 80 mph (130 kph).

But the real key to the Olympia delle Tofane track comes above the schuss, where there’s a key right turn that includes an uphill stretch. That’s where Vonn went down.

“It’s incredibly reverse banked,” said Kristian Ghedina, the Cortina native and former racer who grew up in a home just below the finish line. “That’s where your speed for the rest of the course gets determined and if you don’t take the right trajectory it makes a huge difference because you end up going uphill.”

Bumped into the air and clipped a gate
Vonn was fighting that reverse bank and trending slightly uphill when she got rocked into the air by a bump, causing her to clip the fourth gate with her right side.

That’s when the real disaster started to unfold.

Vonn tried to twist and regain her balance in mid-air but landed awkwardly with her skis perpendicular to the fall line, ensuring a brutal fall. She tumbled over, got bounced into the air again and landed on her neck area and slid down a ways before coming to a stop in the middle of the course, away from the safety netting but clearly in serious trouble.

Hours later, Vonn underwent surgery for a broken left leg and was in stable condition.

“It’s super flat after it so the goal is to be as close to that gate as possible and she really nailed the turn but she was too close to it so she got hooked into it,” Norwegian skier Kajsa Vickhoff Lie said of the gate. “But that’s how it is with the Olympics, you really want to be on the limit and she was a little bit over the limit.”

While it’s always bumpy in that section, this year the final bump is “more of a kicker,” Lie noted, which is why Vonn got popped up suddenly into the air.

“I watched the video, and probably like anybody else, saw that she went through that panel, that uphill double, and for sure kicked her in the air and there was a pretty significant fall after that,” head U.S. ski coach Paul Kristofic told The Associated Press.

Organizers defend course preparation in section where Vonn crashed
Women’s race director Peter Gerdol said the section where Vonn lost control was “not really more different than other years.”

“This is the Cortina downhill and this year we’re talking about the Olympics,” he told AP. “It’s awarding Olympic medals so has to be somehow challenging.

Had attention been paid to controlling the size of that bump?

“Not severely,” Gerdol said. “Because actually today, all the athletes went through quite easily. Lindsey made a mistake and it happens. It can happen in any section of the course. It happened there but it could have been in another.”

Mandatory air bag inflated under Vonn’s racing suit
When she came to a stop, Vonn’s skis were facing in opposite directions, still attached to her bindings. She then moved her left arm toward her body and was laying there alone and virtually immobile until help arrived after some tense moments. She received care for long minutes before she was airlifted away by helicopter.

The mandatory safety air bag inflated under her racing suit during the crash, supplier Dainese confirmed to The AP. The air bag, which is triggered by a complicated algorithm when racers lose control, may have softened her landing.

It was evident that the air bag had opened, because Vonn’s chest appeared puffed out when she was lying on the snow.

Marco Pastore, who works on the safety system for Dainese, said the air bag deflates after about 20 seconds, so that likely happened while Vonn was lying on the snow after her crash. Eventually, Dainese will try to retrieve a sort of “black box” sensor that could reveal data on the fall.

“She was wearing it when they took her away in the helicopter,” Pastore said. “So we haven’t gotten the data yet.”

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