Fresh out of the all-star game in which their top two stars played — one scoring 50 points — and their staff coached the Western Conference side, the Timberwolves had a chance to strut their stuff in front of the nation Friday at Target Center.

Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo goes to the basket and draws a foul against the Minnesota Timberwolves during the first half of an NBA basketball game Friday, Feb. 23, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn)

Their bout with Milwaukee was nationally televised. Throughout the day, in the leadup to the game, ESPN went “all access” with Minnesota, featuring a number of Timberwolves-centric interviews and segments to highlight the top team in the Western Conference.

Three days without NBA action this week led to a number of national pundits spouting off their list of conference and title contenders as the Association transitioned into the final third of the regular season. Minnesota was repeatedly dismissed by many.

No matter, Friday would provide an easy opportunity to remind every just how dominant the Wolves have been this season, particularly at Target Center.

Instead, Minnesota laid one giant egg in the third quarter en route to a 112-107 home defeat.

Milwaukee blitzed the Timberwolves in the frame that has proven so kind to Minnesota this season, outscoring the Wolves 36-13 in the quarter. Minnesota had more turnovers (7) than made shots (5) in the frame where the Wolves shot 5 for 19 from the field.

Milwaukee Bucks forward Danilo Gallinari (12) works around Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kyle Anderson (1) during the first half of an NBA basketball game Friday, Feb. 23, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn)

Minnesota rallied to make it interesting in the fourth, cutting the Bucks’ lead to six with five minutes to play thanks to a pair of Karl-Anthony Towns triples. An Anthony Edwards triple with 31 seconds to play to trim the deficit to three.

But Damian Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo made enough plays down the stretch — whether it be difficult shots or clutch offensive rebounds — to seal the deal. Lillard finished with 21 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds, while Antetokounmpo had 33 points and 13 rebounds.

Lillard’s final highly-contested jumper with nine seconds to play put the Bucks up five to put the game away for good.

Meanwhile, ahead of those late-game threes, Towns and Edwards largely struggled on the offensive end against a previously struggling Milwaukee defense.

The loss ended Minnesota’s four-game winning streak and tightened up the picture atop the West standings.

The Gophers’ 2-1 win over the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs in a shootout on Friday night at Ridder Arena was not as dramatic as so many of the previous meetings in the storied rivalry.
With one game to play in the regular season, the Gophers are locked in as the third seed for the WCHA playoffs, and will begin a best-of-three series with Minnesota State-Mankato next Friday at Ridder.

But Friday’s game was not without meaning.

“There were not WCHA points on the line, so the shootout meant absolutely nothing,” Gophers coach Brad Frost said. “But it makes you feel better when the crowd goes crazy and you win. But there’s still so much on the line in the national picture, so we want to keep winning as much as we can to solidify our spot there.”

It was a big night for Gophers leading scorer Abbey Murphy, who scored the teams only goal, and in doing so reached the 30-goal mark on the season.

Murphy became the 12th player in Gophers history to reach 30 goals in a season. Five players have done it twice.

Nadine Muzerall set the team record with 49 goals in 1999-2000. Murphy’s 30 goals match Taylor Heise’s team-high from last season. Prior to Heise, the last Gophers player to reach the 30-goal mark was Dani Cameranisi, who scored 33 in the 2015-16 season.

The redshirt junior from the suburbs of Chicago took the milestone in stride.

“I just want to keep scoring goals and help my team any way I can,” Murphy said. “It’s a fun position to be in, but I’m not focused on that. I just want to win.”
Murphy leads the nation in goals, and to achieve that as season’s end would have special meeting to her. “It would — 100 percent,” Murphy said. “It’s fun to be in that spot, and I’m going to try to hold that down.”

The Bulldogs scored the only goal of the first period. Taking advantage of a turnover in the Gophers’ zone, Mary Kate O’Brien beat Gophers goalie Skylar Vetter on a wrist shot from high in the slot.

Murphy tied the game with a power-play goal at 9:19 of the second period, beating Bulldogs goalie Hailey MacLeod on a rebound.

Neither team could get the upper hand from that point on, and battled it out right through the overtime and into the shootout.

The Gophers shot first in the shootout, and Ella Huber tucked the puck in on a deke. Vetter stopped all three UMD attempts to seal the win.

“We do a lot of shootout work on Thursday,” Vetter said. “It’s a lot of fun to be able to stop all three.”

Vetter, who has shared goaltending duties with Lucy Morgan all season, felt that Friday’s effort has been one of her best of the season.

“I feel like I’ve been pretty consistent all year,” Vetter said. “So now, just building on that for the playoffs. I’m definitely happy with what I did tonight.”
Frost said the same about the team as a whole.

“It’s playoff-type hockey,” he said. “They’re obviously a very good team; There’s a reason they are top five in the country in goals against — great goaltending, they’re very structured, they block a lot of shots.”

In that sense, this weekend provides a good look at what likely is ahead.

“Our coach talked about it being a true effort,” Murphy said. “It doesn’t always show on the scoreboard. But we played well defensively. Offensively, we just need to find more ways to put the puck in the net.

“But we played a very disciplined game, and that’s what we need to do moving on.”

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An imprisoned man’s long legal fight for a lighter sentence in the 2008 stabbing deaths of a mother and her young son in south Minneapolis has ended with the now-32-year-old resentenced Friday to two concurrent life sentences with the possibility of parole.

The resentencing of Brian Lee Flowers follows an agreement he reached with prosecutors this week and means he is now eligible for parole because of changes to federal and state law regarding juvenile sentences.

Flowers, who was 16 at the time of the killings, and his 17-year-old accomplice, Stafon Edward Thompson, were convicted in 2009 of two counts of first-degree murder for the brutal slayings of 36-year-old Katricia Daniels and her 10-year-old son, Robert Shepard.

The Minneapolis teens were sentenced to two consecutive life terms, without the possibility of parole.

Katricia Daniels (left) and Robert Shepard

The murders were particularly gruesome: Daniels had been stabbed or cut at least 193 times, a pathologist testified at Thompson’s jury trial. The child was stabbed and cut more than 30 times, his head bashed with a television set.

Flowers first challenged the sentence shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that it is unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to mandatory life sentences without the possibility of release.

Flowers sought to be resentenced retroactively by the state district court.

2008 jail booking photo of Brian Lee Flowers (Courtesy of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office)

What ensued was a decade-long fight by Flowers and his attorneys, who’ve argued he had a lesser role in the killings than Thompson. They also cited several changes to federal and Minnesota law, and got favorable decisions in his case by the state’s highest court in 2010 and 2018.

Agreement with prosecutors

Flowers and prosecutors reached the agreement on Wednesday. Hennepin County District Judge William Koch accepted it on Friday and resentenced Flowers to the two concurrent sentences of life in prison with the possibility of supervised release.

In turn, Flowers agreed to dismiss his motion for a new trial and to cease his post-conviction litigation.

The agreement means Flowers will be eligible for parole about four years earlier than under the consecutive life sentences, according to prosecutors.

That’s because state legislators changed the law regarding juvenile sentences. Now, someone serving one or more concurrent life sentences for a crime committed as a juvenile is eligible for supervised release after 15 years. For someone serving consecutive life sentences, eligibility begins after 20 years. The law applies retroactively to all individuals sentenced for crimes committed as a juvenile.

2008 jail booking photo of Stafon Edward Thompson (Courtesy of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office)

Because Flowers has already served more than 15 years, he is eligible for a parole hearing now. Scheduling is up to the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

Flowers’ legal team, which includes Perry Moriearty, a University of Minnesota Law School professor, and Brad Colbert, a professor at Mitchell-Hamline School of Law, issued a statement Friday on behalf of their client.

“(Flowers) is grateful that both the State and the Court have recognized his youth and — as did the Minnesota Supreme Court — his lesser culpability in these events,” the statement read, in part.

Ramsey County’s role

Due to a potential conflict of interest, the Hennepin County attorney’s office asked the Ramsey County attorney’s office in April to assume representation of the state.

The state Supreme Court determined in 2010 that Flowers’ role in the murders was “far less” than his co-defendant, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said in a Friday statement.

“We came to the same conclusion after reviewing this case for the past ten months,” Choi said, “and therefore resolved this case in a manner that reflected his lesser culpability, achieved an end to the litigation, and recognized the reality that the distinction between consecutive and concurrent sentences for Mr. Flowers was small due to retroactive changes in the law made by the Minnesota Legislature in 2023.”

According to the agreement, the attorney’s office spoke with several surviving family members of the victims and told them how the the new law applies Flowers. The family members told prosecutors they do not support Flowers’ concurrent sentences.

“It is impossible to overstate the gravity of the trauma, grief, and loss caused by the murders of Katricia Daniels and Robert Shephard,” the statement by Flowers’ attorneys read. “Brian takes full responsibility for and deeply regrets his role in the events of that night.”

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