LOS ANGELES (AP) — LeBron James had 33 points and 17 rebounds and the Los Angeles Lakers won their fourth straight game, holding off the Minnesota Timberwolves 111-102 on Thursday night.
Austin Reeves added 23 points and Luka Doncic had 21 points and 13 rebounds to help the Lakers improve to 14-3 since Jan. 21.
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Minnesota Timberwolves guard Rob Dillingham, left, and Los Angeles Lakers forward Dorian Finney-Smith goes after a loose ball during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic, left, shoots as Minnesota Timberwolves center Naz Reid defends during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Minnesota Timberwolves guard Rob Dillingham, left, shoots as Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James, center, defends along with center Jaxson Hayes during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Minnesota Timberwolves guard Terrence Shannon Jr., left, shoots as Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James defends during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic, left, shoots as Minnesota Timberwolves guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker, center, and guard Anthony Edwards defends during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James, left, is congratulated by guard Luka Doncic after he scored during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic gestures toward forward LeBron James after he scored with an assist by James during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Terrence Shannon Jr. led Minnesota with a career-high 25 points. The Timberwolves have dropped three of four and five of seven.
The Timberwolves were able to rally back despite All-Star guard Anthony Edwards being ejected with 5:27 remaining in the third quarter after picking up his second technical foul.
Edwards threw the ball into the stands after being ejected. If both technical fouls are upheld, he will be suspended one game for picking up 16 technicals this season.
Edwards, who is fourth in the league in scoring at 27.3 points per game, had 18 points.
Minnesota was down 92-77 less than three minutes into the fourth quarter before it made a 13-1 run.
Doncic though stifled the Timberwolves' momentum by making an off-balance 3-pointer with 3:37 remaining and while the shot clock was winding down to put the Lakers up 98-91.
Timberwolves: Minnesota overcame a 25-point, second-half deficit Monday night to defeat Oklahoma City, but could not pull off a miraculous comeback for the second straight game.
Lakers: A 3-pointer by James gave the Lakers a 47-24 lead early in the second quarter before the Timberwolves started to slowly come back.
Doncic had five assists, including a cross court pass to James early in the first quarter, who finished it off with a layup to give the Lakers a 9-3 advantage.
The 17 rebounds by James ties a season high.
Both teams play Friday night. The Timberwolves are at Utah, and the Lakers host the Clippers.
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Minnesota Timberwolves guard Rob Dillingham, left, and Los Angeles Lakers forward Dorian Finney-Smith goes after a loose ball during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic, left, shoots as Minnesota Timberwolves center Naz Reid defends during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Minnesota Timberwolves guard Rob Dillingham, left, shoots as Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James, center, defends along with center Jaxson Hayes during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Minnesota Timberwolves guard Terrence Shannon Jr., left, shoots as Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James defends during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic, left, shoots as Minnesota Timberwolves guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker, center, and guard Anthony Edwards defends during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James, left, is congratulated by guard Luka Doncic after he scored during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic gestures toward forward LeBron James after he scored with an assist by James during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.
West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.
The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.
Decisions are expected by early summer.
President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.
Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.
“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”
She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.
Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.
She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.
Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.
“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.
Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.
The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.
About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.
"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”
But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.
“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”
Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”
“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.
One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.
Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”
The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.
The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.
The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.
The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.
If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.
“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.
The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)
