Edwards, Randle lead Timberwolves past Warriors 102-97 for 2-1 lead in second-round playoff series

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Even with Stephen Curry sidelined and Draymond Green in foul trouble, the Golden State Warriors were ahead by five points in the fourth quarter and felt they had every chance to grab a series lead against the Minnesota Timberwolves at home.

Until Anthony Edwards and Julius Randle took over for the Timberwolves in crunch time.

Edwards hit a baseline 3-pointer with 1:19 remaining and scored 36 points, Randle had 24 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds, and the Wolves beat the Warriors 102-97 on Saturday night for a 2-1 lead in their second-round playoff series.

Jimmy Butler had 33 points, seven assists and seven rebounds and Jonathan Kuminga scored 30 off the bench, but the Warriors still lacked the kind of rhythm they have with Curry on the floor.

“Obviously with Steph out there, he demands two to three bodies when he’s out there on the floor,” Butler said. “When he’s not, there’s no room for error. You can’t make mistakes. You can’t turn the ball over. You can’t give back all of those things. And then you’ve got to take the right shots."

Kuminga shot 11 for 18 as the Warriors again mixed and matched while playing without Curry as he nurses a strained left hamstring that he injured early in Game 1 on Tuesday.

Game 4 is Monday night at Chase Center.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr stressed his team had to win with defense — and his team couldn't make the key stops down the stretch.

Edwards, who showed no signs of being hampered after spraining his left ankle in the second quarter of Game 2, knocked down a go-ahead 3-pointer with 6:16 remaining, while Jaden McDaniels made another key 3 with 3:20 to play.

Randle began 1 for 6 and missed his initial four 3-point tries before connecting 6:30 before halftime to put Minnesota up 39-29 and force a Warriors timeout. He shot 10 for 23.

“We need it all. We needed everything from Julius, his hustle plays,” Minnesota coach Chris Finch said. “Sometimes he does a great job of just kind of chasing down rebounds and stuff like this. We needed it all."

Buddy Hield's 3-pointer with 1:56 left pulled Golden State within 93-89 then McDaniels threw the ball away moments later but the Warriors were sloppy.

Golden State missed all five of its 3-point tries in the first half but still led 42-40, then Hield found some rhythm and scored 14 second-half points.

Draymond Green fouled out with 4:38 to play, whistled for his sixth personal trying to block a shot by McDaniels that appeared questionable on several replay reviews. Green sprinted down the floor to the Warriors bench in frustration then pulled on his warmup jacket and stood with hands on hips.

Trayce Jackson-Davis moved into the Warriors’ starting lineup after he made all six of his field goals and had 15 points and six rebounds in Game 2 but played just 11 minutes.

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Jaden McDaniels (3) of Minnesota Timberwolves leaps to defend againt Brandin Podziemski (2) of the Golden State Warriors in the first half in Game 3 of the Conference Semifinals of the NBA Playoffs at Chase Center in San Francisco., on Saturday, May 10, 2025.(Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch watches during the first half of Game 3 of an NBA basketball second-round playoff series against the Golden State Warriors, Saturday, May 10, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Golden State Warriors' Draymond Green and Jonathan Kuminga are helped up by Gary Payton II, Jimmy Butler III and Minnesota Timberwolves' Donte Divincenzo in 1st quarter during NBA Western Conference Semifinals' Game 3 at Chase Center in San Francisco on Saturday, May 10, 2025. (Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Minnesota Timberwolves' Anthony Edwards tries to score between Golden State Warriors' Draymond Green and Jonathan Kuminga in 2nd quarter during NBA Western Conference Semifinals' Game 3 at Chase Center in San Francisco on Saturday, May 10, 2025. (Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Anthony Edwards (5) of Minnesota Timberwolves drives to the basket between Gary Payton II (0) and Draymond Green (23) of Golden State Warriors in the first half of Game 3 of the Conference Semifinals of the NBA Playoffs at Chase Center in San Francisco., on Saturday, May 10, 2025. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

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.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

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)