MON SIX

Taylor Frankie Paul didn't become a reality TV star in spite of controversy. She became one because of it.

OnThe Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, her messy, highly public personal life wasn't a backstory;it was the premise. The show leaned into it, audiences responded and the formula of taking someone already generating attention online and giving that attention a bigger stage worked. Then,The Bachelorettetried to follow the same playbook.

When Paul wasannounced as the leadfor the long-running ABC franchise last September, both the public and the network were aware of her past. The mom of three was known for a"soft-swinging" scandalthat led to the dissolution of her marriage to Tate Paul and was introduced to television screensthrough the lens of her 2023 arrestfollowing analtercation with her then-boyfriendDakota Mortensen.

What viewers knew about Paul — the good, the bad and the ugly — only fed their curiosity. Reality TV has long depended on that dynamic: controversy as a draw, not a deterrent. But the past week exposed the limit of that logic, whenTMZ released videoof the 2023 incident.

The swift shift in public opinion of Paul and the unprecedentedcancellationof herBacheloretteseason, days before it was set to premiere, wasn't about new information. It was about how that information was experienced. What had been a watchable drama suddenly became unwatchable. Now media experts say it's not aboutwherethe line is, but when viewers decide it's been crossed.

The appeal of messy TV

Paul's selection as theBacheloretteinitially raised eyebrows. She was a single mother of three with no prior ties to the franchise, known largely for the volatility of her past relationships. But for a series struggling to maintain relevance, the choice was strategic. Reality TV has increasingly trained audiences to see controversy not as a liability, but as a compelling narrative.

"There is something to the controversy that draws people in,"Vassilis Dalakas, a marketing professor at Point Loma Nazarene University who has studiedthis phenomenon, tells Yahoo. "There is something to their behavior or their personality that automatically makes them more interesting to watch."

The pull isn't always easy to articulate, but Dalakas points to schadenfreude — the pleasure derived from someone else's misfortune — as a key part of it.

[Paul] was fascinating to people because she was putting it all out there, and TV bought into that.Jasmine Weg

"We're watching with the hope that justice is restored," he says. That can mean wanting to see a controversial figure face consequences. But it can also mean hoping for the opposite: a redemption arc. Reality TV thrives on both impulses at once — the desire to see someone struggle and the possibility that they might change.

"There are people who are truly wishing this is a chance for them to get everything together," Dalakas says.

Paul fit neatly into that framework. Her online presence was built on openness about a chaotic personal life, andThe Secret Lives of Mormon Wivesturned that into something that viewers could actively interpret — was she driving the chaos or caught in it? That ambiguity didn't deter audiences; it gave them a reason to keep watching.

Jasmine Weg, a New York-based attorney and host of the podcastExhibit A-List,says that kind of visibility is exactly what reality TV looks for. "[Paul] was fascinating to people because she was putting it all out there, and TV bought into that," Weg tells Yahoo.

Shows aren't just willing to include that mess; they're structured around it. FromReal HousewivestoVanderpump Rules, questionable, even ugly behavior has become part of the draw.

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In that context, casting Paul wasn't a departure, even if she felt outside ofThe Bachelorette's realm. It was a continuation of a formula that works. But this time, it came with real-life consequences.

When it becomes problematic

The rapid unraveling of Paul's casting reveals what's uncomfortable about reality TV: The line between messy and problematic isn't set at the start. It's discovered in real time by audiences and producers alike, often only after it's been crossed.

Paul's past has existed as public information that viewers could process at a distance. Viewers had previously seen bodycam footage of the 2023 incident, which was aired in the debut episode ofThe Secret Lives of Mormon Wivesin September 2024, followed by Paul's own expression of remorse. But therecent release of footagefrom the physical dispute itself, which shows Paul throwing a chair at Mortensen with her young daughter seemingly nearby, shifted the conversation.

"There's this notion of visually undeniable evidence," Dalakas says. "The moment we have that, for most people, that's when it's crossed the line."

That distinction between knowing and seeing matters. As Weg put it, people can sit with something that exists in a document, even if it's uncomfortable. But "when you actually see it in front of your own eyes, you can't really look away." What might have been framed as a storyline or backstory no longer feels contained within the show.

"At that point, you're not watching for schadenfreude anymore. You're just upset that the show is even happening," Dalakas says. That shift forces producers to respond. "Controversy translates into engagement, but producers are hoping it never reaches the point where it's gone too far."

"They will tolerate certain behavior, whether it's erratic or outrageous," adds Weg, "but if it comes to the line where the person doesn't look like they're doing well on TV, it's just no longer good TV."

It's no longer about buzz or ratings, but about risk to the show, to its advertisers and to its network's image. "It's not necessarily a moral line," Weg says. "It's thinking about how this will play out for the show."

You're not watching for schadenfreude anymore. You're just upset that the show is even happening."Vassilis Dalakas

That line is rarely fixed, though cases involving domestic violence raise the stakes in a way that extends beyond entertainment, says Katie Ray-Jones, CEO of theNational Domestic Violence Hotline.

"Domestic violence is not just a plotline or press hook; it's an epidemic. We live in a culture where shock and trauma drive clicks and views. In that skewed version of reality, people may forget that victims and survivors of domestic violence, their families and loved ones, are watching and listening," Ray-Jones says. "I wish it didn't take a public display of crisis and violence to spur a response. … 10 million people experience domestic violence every year. No one should feel as if they are alone, and all those who choose to cause harm should be held accountable — regardless of who they are or how many followers they have."

Moments like this expose a tension at the center of a genre that relies on real people and real experiences, yet packages them for consumption. When those experiences involve undeniable harm, that framing becomes harder to justify.

"There's a question we all have to ask ourselves about whether we're comfortable finding entertainment in someone's real struggles," says Weg. "We all have to decide where to draw that line." For Paul, this was it.

For anyone affected by abuse and needing support, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or if you're unable to speak safely, you can log ontothehotline.orgor text LOVEIS to 22522.

Wind power production will continue to advance, despite the Trump administration's attempts to halt the growing momentum of renewable energy, experts told ABC News.

On Monday, theU.S. Department of the Interiorreached a $928 million deal with French energy company TotalEnergies to end the company's offshore wind development off the East Coast and redirect that investment into domestic fossil fuel initiatives, describing the "landmark agreement" as a way to lower energy costs and strengthen the nation's energy security.

The move continues efforts by President Donald Trump and his administration to stall renewable energy, including theDepartment of Justicesuing the state of California earlier this month over its electric vehicle mandate, signing anexecutive orderlast month directing the Department of Defense to purchase electricity from coal-fired power plants and the Environmental Protection Agency rescinding the landmark "endangerment finding" that has served as the scientific and legal foundation for federal regulations on carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping greenhouse gases or more than 16 years.

Offshore wind is facing the most "headwinds" from the federal government, but is still persevering, Erin Baker, distinguished professor and faculty director at the Energy Transition Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told ABC News. The actions of the Trump administration have had "very little impact" on the global increase in production of renewable energy, Baker added.

MORE: Could a global economy dependent on renewable energy see less war? Experts explain

What the nearly $1 billion deal with TotalEnergies entails

As part of the deal, TotalEnergies will commit $928 million to fossil fuel development in the United States, matching the amount the company previously paid for offshore wind leases. Upon meeting those commitments, the federal government will reimburse the company up to the value of those lease payments, the Interior Department said.

Citing national security concerns, the Interior Department said TotalEnergies has pledged not to develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States.

"This agreement is yet another win for President Trump's commitment to affordable and reliable energy for all Americans," Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a ​statement. "Offshore wind is one of the most expensive, unreliable, environmentally disruptive, and subsidy-dependent schemes ever forced on American ratepayers and taxpayers."

The agreement supports the administration's push for affordable, reliable baseload energy, officials said, arguing that offshore wind projects are costly and less dependable. Ending the projects would reduce unnecessary federal spending while supporting domestic energy production, according to the Interior Department.

North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein described the move as "a terrible deal for the people of North Carolina and our country" in apost on X.

Because offshore wind is installed in federal waters, the power of the federal government over offshore wind projects is higher than in onshore wind projects, Michelle Solomon, senior policy analyst at Energy Innovation, a non-partisan research and analysis nonprofit that supports clean energy, told ABC News.

"I think the really unfortunate thing about this news is that offshore wind is a really, really reliable resource that can really help mitigate spiking fossil fuel prices in the winter," she said.

MORE: What to know about Empire Wind, the wind farm now allowed to resume construction

The momentum for wind energy is too strong to stall, experts said

Wind is the largest and most reliable source of renewable energy. It can also help energy bills stay affordable during extreme weather due to its capacity to produce fuel-free energy, Solomon said.

The power purchase agreements signed by offshore wind companies suppress electricity prices, Baker said. The companies agree to "always buy the wind when it blows," which then brings down the entire cost to purchase electricity, she said, describing it as "good business."

"They're not doing it for environmental reasons," Baker said of renewable energy companies. "They're doing it just for business reasons."

In 2025, wind and solar energygenerated a record 17%of electricity in the U.S., up from less than 1% in 2005, according to data recently released by theEnergy Information Administration(EIA).

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The total net generation from wind and solar together reached 760,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) last year, enough to power tens of millions of average American homes, according to the EIA. Wind power generated 464,000 GWh, a 3% increase over 2024.

The milestone comes amid federal energy policy changes, including the early phase-out of renewable tax incentives and other regulatory changes.

"The momentum is definitely still there," Solomon said.

"Even though [the Trump administration] was actively trying to stop those industries, they still were growing," Baker said.

Another benefit to wind is that it's the type of energy that can "come online the most quickly" after it is built, Solomon said.

"In this moment, when we're needing to build electricity generation resources really quickly to deal with low growth, data centers, [wind farms] are the ones that are going to be able to respond really quickly," she said.

Wind and solar made up nearly 90% of new U.S. electricity capacity in 2025, according to theFederal Energy Regulatory Commission. That trend is expected to continue into 2026, Solomon said.

Global renewable energy capacity is expected to more than double by 2030, according to theEIA.

MORE: What to know about wind power in the US as Trump administration pauses leases

Trump has long criticized wind energy

Trump's criticism of wind turbines dates back to his first term.

In 2019, Trump claimed that noises from wind turbines "cause cancer" and negativelyimpact property values. In 2024, during his presidential campaign, Trump stated that wind turbines "kill whales" and vowed to write an executive order on "Day 1" to end offshore wind projects.

On Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, Trump signed anexecutive orderto withdraw all areas of the outer continental shelf from offshore wind leasing. A federal judge in the U.S. District of Massachusettsruled in Decemberthat the stop to permits on wind farms was illegal.

The deal with TotalEnergies is the latest move by the administration in an attempt to halt the increased production of wind power.

In December 2025, the Interior Departmentfroze large offshore wind projectson the East Coast, citing national security concerns. Federal judges ruled that all five projects could resume construction, concluding that the government did not show that the risk was so imminent that it should stop.

The projects includedEmpire Wind, the wind farm being built 15 to 30 miles south of the coast of Long Island, and the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, which starteddelivering to the state's power gridon Monday, developer Dominion Energy announced.

Despite the victories for the offshore wind developers, the delays to the project have led to an uncertain investment environment and increased both the cost to build and the costs to consumers' energy bills, Solomon said.

The impact of these actions will raise energy costs in the end, Solomon said.

ABC News' Matthew Glasser contributed to this report.

An Air Canada regional jet landing at one of the country's busiest and most prominent airportsslammed into a fire truck at more than 100 miles per houron Sunday, leaving federal investigators and frightened passengers questioning what could have gone wrong.

The National Transportation Safety Board combed through wreckage, collecting data and physical evidence to find answers in the first days of an investigation that will take a year or longer.

"We have a lot of data right now, a lot of information, including information on tower staffing, but the NTSB deals in facts," said Jennifer Homendy, chair of the NTSB, at a news conference on Monday. "We don't speculate. We don't take one person at their word. We verify that information carefully before we provide it."

Investigators have released the plane to Air Canada, the airline said, which will move it into a secured hangar where teams will begin reuniting passengers with the personal belongings they left behind as they evacuated.

"Items will be safely returned as soon as possible, although the process of sorting and identifying all belongings from the aircraft will take time," the airline said Wednesday.

Air Canada Express flight 8646, operated by Jazz Aviation, had 72 passengers and four crew members on board for the flight from Montreal to New York's LaGuardia. The two pilots died and four of the dozens of passengers and crew who were injured in the collision remain in the hospital, the airline said.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada, the airline and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport, will also participate as parties to the investigation.

The first several days of the investigation are going to be focused on data collection, according to Jim Brauchle, an attorney that represents plaintiffs in aviation disasters for the law firm Motley Rice.

"They won't be doing a lot of analysis the first few days," Brauchle said. "That's more facts and data collection and getting witness statements and those kind of things, while it's still fresh."

What happened in the tower?

Questions about the people in the control tower, their responsibilities, and if all proper procedures were followed will be answered in the course of the investigation.

Homendy confirmed Tuesday there were two controllers working in the tower cab, the top of the control tower which looks out over the airfield, at the time of collision. The "local controller" manages active runways and the immediate airspace surrounding the airport. The "controller in charge" is a supervisor responsible for the safety of operations, and on the night of the crash, they were also assigned to give pilots departure information.

The NTSB says the staffing was standard operating procedure for LaGuardia at that time of the night, but whether that procedure was adequate will also be investigated.

"We saw that there was a pretty heavy workload for these two controllers where you had an emergency going on; you had several flights that they had to attend to," Homendy told CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins on The Source Wednesday. "We will look at controller staffing entirely in this tower, but then across the national airspace."

Another part of the investigation is to determine which of the controllers were responsible for the aircraft and vehicles on the ground.

"It is not clear who was conducting the duties of the ground controller. We have conflicting information," Homendy said. That person would be tasked with managing all aircraft and vehicle movements on taxiways but typically not active runways.

There is also "conflicting information, including dates and times on the logs," of who else was elsewhere in the air traffic control facility, she said. The NTSB will have to "rectify some of those inconsistencies," Homendy continued.

The controllers involved in the crash continued to work for some time after the crash, and the NTSB will also investigate why they were not relieved more rapidly.

Eighteen minutes after the collision, one controller appeared to blame himself for the crash in a conversation with a pilot who saw it happen.

"That wasn't good to watch," the pilot said in audio recorded by LiveATC.net.

"Yeah, I know. I tried to reach out to them," the noticeably distraught controller said. "We were dealing with an emergency earlier. I messed up."

The pilot responded, "Nah man, you did the best you could."

Investigators will probe far beyond the comment and investigate every aspect of what happened and always note accidents often have complicated causes.

"Our aviation system is incredibly safe because there are multiple, multiple layers of defense built in to prevent an accident," Homendy said. "So, when something goes wrong, that means many, many things went wrong."

The NTSB interviewed the local controller on Tuesday night and continued interviews with others on staff through Wednesday, Homendy said. Investigators will also examine audio recordings the Federal Aviation Administration keeps of every tower radio transmission to determine what exactly was said and by who.

"It looks like it's a communication error," Brauchle said, noting that publicly available recordings of air traffic control audio appear to show "the tower both cleared the aircraft to land, and also cleared the fire truck to cross the active runway."

But he said investigations can sometimes reveal more than is apparent in the first moments.

Why didn't the controllers see the collision coming earlier?

LaGuardia Airport has systems designed to prevent vehicles on the ground from colliding, and investigators will want to know why they were not able to stop this crash.

The airport's surface detection equipment –ASDE-X– uses radar to track ground vehicles but did not warn the controllers ahead of the collision, according to the NTSB.

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"Due to the close proximity of vehicles merging and unmerging near the runway," no alert was issued, Homendy said.

The radar returns on the screen showed two "blobs" on the taxiway, but never showed one go in front of the plane, she said.

Another revelation was that the fire truck involved in the crash was not equipped with a transponder to help air traffic controllers identify it and know its precise location. Though a vehicle without a transponder should show up on radar, no other information would be displayed, and obstructions might prevent radar returns. Why a transponder was not installed will be part of the investigation.

While stressing the need to wait for the investigation's findings, Homendy said Wednesday that she and the team believe all vehicles on tarmacs should have transponders so controllers can see them.

Did the fire truck hear the warning from the control tower to stop?

Another area of the investigation will include looking at the radio transmissions between pilots of Flight 8646, the firefighters, and the control tower.

"Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop, truck 1. Stop," one of the controllers yelled as the fire truck pulled in front of the plane landing on Runway 4.

Nine seconds after the first warning, they collided.

The first radio call the fire truck made to the control tower more than a minute before the collision was "stepped on" by another transmission and was apparently not audible in the control tower, recordings from that night show, but later transmissions appeared to go through.

Investigators will want to know what was transmitted and what was heard, and will review recordings from the control tower, the plane's cockpit voice recorder, and interview other people listening to the frequency that night.

During the investigation into the 2025 midair collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet over the Potomac River, the NTSB found the soldiers in the helicopter didn't hear all the directions given by air traffic control due to a problem with the frequency.

For Sunday's collision at LaGuardia, investigators also will be looking into the status of the airport's runway status lights. These are a type of traffic light system that is embedded in pavement of taxiways and runways.

The lights should, for instance, automatically signal vehicle operators whether it is unsafe to cross a runway,according to the FAA.

"We … know from the replay that the runway status lights were functioning," Homendy said Tuesday. "But we still have to verify that with tech ops from the FAA."

Why was the fire truck cleared to cross the runway?

Perhaps the most vexing question: Why did the controller apparently clear the fire truck to cross Runway 4 when the plane was speeding toward it?

Controllers are working in high stress situations with long hours and busy airfields to manage. Investigators want to know if something was going on with them that may have contributed to the crash.

The two controllers started their shifts about an hour before the 11:37 p.m. collision and at some point took over duties in the tower cab, the NTSB noted.

Shortly before the collision, another plane on the other side of the airport declared an emergency after an aborted landing and odor in the cabin. Controllers dispatched the fire trucks and were working to find a gate for the plane in the minutes before the accident.

"This is a heavy workload environment," Homendy noted, but said no one should jump to conclusions.

"I would caution (against) pointing fingers at controllers and saying distraction was involved," she said. "We still have to determine what happened at shift change, which was around 10:30. We have to determine who else was in the tower and the facility and available at the time. We rarely, if ever, investigate a major accident where it was one failure."

What was going on in the plane?

The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, often referred to as black boxes, are two "critical" pieces to the puzzle in any aviation incident investigation, Peter Goelz, former NTSB managing director and CNN aviation analyst told CNN Monday.

The data recorders are expected to give some insight into what happened during the flight's final moments,capturing everything from what was said in the cockpit, to the sound of switches and automated warnings as well as what the aircraft's instruments were reading.

"They give you the functionality of the plane," Goelz said. "It will tell you exactly when it touched down. Did the pilots attempt to do a go-around? Did the speed brake work effectively? And it will discuss the comments between the pilots on whether they were following procedures, what they saw and how they reacted."

Investigators had to "cut a hole," on top of the aircraft to retrieve the recorders, Homendy said. They were then driven to the NTSB's headquarters in Washington, DC, for analysis.

The cockpit voice recorder contained more than 25 hours of good quality audio across four separate channels, said Doug Brazy, NTSB lead investigator. The flight data recorder contained approximately 80 hours of data and recorded more than 400 parameters.

What will the debris tell us?

While investigators moved quickly to recover data and comb the wreckage before any clue is lost to time or the elements, they have to be careful because some of what is left of the plane and fire truck is complex and hazardous.

"There is a tremendous, tremendous amount of debris from taxiway delta across Runway 4," Homendy said. "It's pretty expansive, and we want to make sure, because as you're walking around, you can get injured. There's also hazardous materials, of course, on the firefighting vehicle itself."

Runway 4 at LaGuardia remains closed until Friday afternoon, according to a FAA notice, while the NTSB conducts its investigation.

The airport, meanwhile, has reopened with flights using a perpendicular runway. As they whiz by, passengers can catch a glimpse of the wreckage and the investigators making sure they understand what went wrong so it never happens again.

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Temperatures reached record highs in multiple states on Wednesday, asa heat wavethat has been scorching the West since last week expanded into the middle of the country.

The unusually warm weather tied or broke records across the western half of the U.S. over the course of the day, according to the National Weather Service, and warmer temperatures are expected to continue in the coming days as the wave moves east.

Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming were among the states impacted, with temperatures hitting 90 degrees and higher in major cities throughout the region.

Denversaw its hottest March dayon record, hitting 88 degrees at Denver International Airport. The previous record was 86 degrees, set just four days earlier, on March 21.

Phoenix was among the cities to see the most extreme conditions, after weathering triple-digit temperatures on multiple days already since the heat wave began, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration'sNational Digital Forecast Database. The Arizona capital hit a high of 100 degrees Wednesday, a daily record, theNational Weather Service confirmed. The city's last record-high temperature for this date was set in 2022.

A new record warm low was also set Wednesday in Phoenix, which recorded 68 degrees as its low temperature, theNWS said. The previous record was 66 degrees, set in 2025 and 2004.

Other cities that broke their daily records include Yuma, Arizona; Las Vegas, Nevada; Salt Lake City, Utah; Rawlins, Wyoming, and Pocatello, Idaho.

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Tucson's seven-day streak of tying or breaking maximum daily record highs came to an end Wednesday when it recorded a high of 95 degrees, just one degree shy of the record,the NWS said.

Salt Lake City broke its daily record with 83 degrees. The old record was 78 degrees, set in 2022.

More than 200 additional daily temperature records could be broken through Sunday, said CBS News meteorologist Nikki Nolan. The heat wave is forecast to slowly move eastward this week and eventually reach the East Coast on Friday.

Central states are expected to see temperatures of 30 or 40 degrees above average for the time being, and Nolan warned that warmth settling into the Northern Plains will increase fire risks in that region through Thursday.

Numerousfire weather alertswere in effect Wednesday for a large strip of the central U.S., from Montana to Texas, and forecasters warned there is a "critical threat" of fire weather through Thursday for sections of the Rocky Mountains down to the Southern Plains. In addition to the heat, wind gusts in those areas could reach up to 40 or 50 mph this week, while relative humidity is expected to drop to as low as 4% in certain places, Nolan said. Those types of dry, blustery conditions can be conducive to wildfires.

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DENVER (AP) — Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic have had historic games for the Denver Nuggets before, but rarely do they occur on the same night.

Mavericks Nuggets Basketball

Wednesday was one of those rare nights for the franchise cornerstones.

Murray scored a season-high 53 points and Jokic had his 30th triple-double of the season with 23 points, 21 points and 19 assists in a142-135 win over the Dallas Mavericks.

Denver is the first team in NBA history to have one player with 50 points and another with at least 15 points, 15 rebounds and 15 assists in the same game.

It was reminiscent of Game 3 of the 2023 NBA Finals when both players had 30-point triple-doubles at Miami to take control of that series. Wednesday night came on the second night of a back-to-back when tipoff was 16 hours after the team landed in Denver after winning in Phoenix.

"Fifty-three from your point guard and 23, 21, 19 from your center. Just outrageous numbers from the best tandem in the NBA," coach David Adelman said. "They really are the history book of this franchise when it comes to the longevity together, and also the playoffs and all these wars they've been through in a basketball sense, it's just super special."

Jokic's career started in 2015-16 a year after being drafted 41st overall, and Murray broke in a year later as the seventh overall pick. They have won 400 games together over the last 10 seasons, including the playoffs, the most in the NBA as teammates.

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They reached the postseason two years after first sharing the court and won the franchise's first NBA title four years later.

Their bond has continued to grow, and Jokic is appreciative of the journey

"How we both started, the path that we had, from nobody to somebody into a championship — and still growing and still performing," he said.

The two are leading the Nuggets back to the playoffs this year and showing what they can do when both are playing at a high level.

"I feel like our best chemistry is when we're not (both playing well)," said Murray, who was two points shy of his career high. "Sometimes he's having a rough day and I'll pick up the slack, and then there's days when I'm not doing anything and he takes over. There's not tug-of-war with the ball; there's no animosity of who's shooting it."

AP NBA:https://apnews.com/hub/NBA

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota Timberwolves were missing five of their top seven players for most of theirrecord-setting overtime rallyto beat the Houston Rockets.

Rockets Timberwolves Basketball

They chose focus over frustration.

With a game-closing 15-0 run, the Timberwolves came back from 13 points down for a 110-108 victory over the Rockets. No otherNBAteam has overcome an overtime deficit that big since the league began logging play-by-play details with the 1997-98 season.

"They fought through a ton of adversity. We should've won that game in regulation. We deserved to win that game. We were the better team all night, and we gave them a chance to steal it from us, but we stole it right back," coach Chris Finch said.

After frittering away an 11-point lead with 3 1/2 minutes left in regulation and fighting an imbalance in the foul calls all night, the Timberwolves found themselves trailing by 13 points with less than two minutes elapsed in the extra period on Wednesday.

Superstar Anthony Edwards was sidelined for a fifth straight game with knee trouble. Key backup Ayo Dosunmu was out, too, with a sore calf. Jaden McDaniels, who had 25 points and valiant defense on Rockets star Kevin Durant all night, started hobbling down the stretch of the fourth quarter and had to be pulled. Rudy Gobert, who had a steely 14 points, 14 rebounds and five blocks, fouled out.

Then early in overtime, Naz Reid was ejected after voicing his displeasure with official Scott Foster for an offensive foul call. The fans at Target Center were steadily filing out.

But after Alperen Sengun's dunk put the Rockets up 108-95, capping a stunning 26-2 run, the Timberwolves refused to punt on this pivotal game for Western Conference playoff positioning.

"You just got to take it a possession at a time. Biggest thing is be in the moment," said Julius Randle, who shared the duty of defending Durant with Kyle Anderson after McDaniels departed.

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Mike Conley, who got a rare start with Edwards and Dosunmu unavailable, swished a 3-pointer with 2:45 left. Anderson tipped in Randle's missed layup, drew a foul on Sengun and converted a three-point play. Then the Timberwolves forced an 8-second violation by keeping the Rockets from advancing past halfcourt.

Donte DiVincenzo cut in for a layup off a feed from Anderson to cut the deficit to five points. Randle grabbed Sengun's miss at the rim before blowing by him for a layup on the other end to bring the Timberwolves within 108-105 with 1:34 left.

DiVincenzo tied it with a 3-pointer. Sengun missed a jumper. Then Randle sank a pullup shot with 8.8 seconds remaining for the lead.

"We've got real competitors in here, guys who want the challenge. It's not the first time we've done something like that," said Randle, who had 24 points, all after halftime. "When it gets tough, we come together as a group. It brings the best out of us."

The Timberwolves (45-28) with the win stayed a half-game behind Denver (46-28) for fourth place in the Western Conference. They moved 1 1/2 games ahead of Houston (43-29) and, most importantly, evened the season series at one apiece. The Wolves face the Rockets on the road on April 10.

Despite taking 63 shots in the paint and only getting 10 free throws out of it, the Timberwolves found a way to pull out a win. Even after Randle was called for a foul on Durant on his drive with 3.3 seconds left, sending him to the line with the Rockets 23 for 23 in the game at that point. He missed, then bricked the second one intentionally to try to keep possession.

"I'm so proud that we didn't quit. We had a lot of opportunities to get very frustrated tonight," Gobert said. "For the most part, we were able to overcome that. That's the blueprint for us. We want to win a championship, so we know there's going to be adversity. We know it's going to come in a lot of ways."

AP NBA:https://apnews.com/hub/NBA

A day after the National Basketball Players Association criticized the Milwaukee Bucks for their handling of superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo and his injury status, coach Doc Rivers on Wednesday defended his organization and the decision to not play his star.

"He's progressing," Rivers told reporters Wednesday. "He's just not healthy."

Reports surfaced last week that Antetokounmpo, a 10-time All-Star and two-time league MVP, requested to play but the club refused. On Tuesday, the NBPA released a statement calling the Bucks out for tanking.

"The Player Participation Policy was designed by the league to hold teams accountable and ensure that when an All-Star like Giannis Antetokounmpo is healthy and ready to play, he is on the court," the union said in its statement. "Unfortunately, anti-tanking policies are only as effective as their enforcement; fans, broadcast partners, and the integrity of the game itself will continue to suffer as long as ownership goes unchecked. We look forward to collaborating with the NBA on meaningful new proposals that will directly address and discourage tanking."

The Bucks are 29-43 and nine games out of the final play-in spot in the Eastern Conference with 10 games remaining following Wednesday's 130-99 blowout at the hands of the Trail Blazers in Portland.

"We're just trying to get Giannis clear and healthy," Rivers said before the game. "That's our only focus. All the other stuff, we stay above."

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Antetokounmpo has endured an injury-plagued season that has caused him to miss a career-high 36 games. The team, which had rebuffed trade offers for its superstar, has argued that it's best for Antetokounmpo's future as well as for the organization that he cut short the season, per the reports.

Antetokounmpo missed 15 games due to a calf strain before returning on March 2, then sat out another two games when the team went 2-4 with him and 0-2 without him. A left ankle sprain was cited as the cause of his absence from the 122-99 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on March 14.

He exited during the third quarter after landing awkwardly on a dunk during a home victory over the Indiana Pacers on March 15. Then he missed a home loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on March 17 and road games against the Utah Jazz on Thursday (loss), against the Phoenix Suns on Saturday (win) and the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday (loss).

He is averaging 27.6 points, 9.8 rebounds and 5.4 assists in 36 games and already is set to play the fewest games of his 13 seasons with the Bucks. His previous low was 61 games during the shortened 2020-21 campaign.

Antetokounmpo has career averages of 24.1 points, 9.9 rebounds and 5.0 assists in 895 games (830 starts).

--Field Level Media