MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Five players and two coaches were ejected after a fight broke out in the second quarter in the Minnesota Timberwolves' victory over the Detroit Pistons on Sunday night.
Detroit lost head coach J.B. Bickerstaff, center Isaiah Stewart, forward Ron Holland II and guard Marcus Sasser. Minnesota forward Naz Reid and guard Donte DiVincenzo also were tossed, along with assistant coach Pablo Prigioni.
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CORRECTS TO PISTONS FORWARD RONALD HOLLAND II NOT CENTER JALEN DUREN - Detroit Pistons forward Ronald Holland II, center left, and Minnesota Timberwolves guard Donte DiVincenzo, center right, fight during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Minnesota Timberwolves and Detroit Pistons players get into a fight during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Detroit Pistons forward Ronald Holland II (00) left, and Minnesota Timberwolves guard Donte DiVincenzo, middle, fight during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Minnesota Timberwolves guard Donte DiVincenzo (0), middle, and Detroit Pistons forward Ronald Holland II (00), right, fight during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Minnesota Timberwolves and Detroit Pistons players get into a fight during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Minnesota Timberwolves guard Donte DiVincenzo (0), center back, Timberwolves center Naz Reid (11) and Detroit Pistons center Jalen Duren (0) get into an altercation during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Minnesota Timberwolves guard Donte DiVincenzo (0), middle, and Detroit Pistons forward Ronald Holland II (00), right, fight during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
“Obviously things went too far,” Bickerstaff said. “But what you see is guys looking out for one another, guys trying to protect one another, guys trying to have each other’s backs. ... Those are non-negotiables in our locker room.”
The skirmish began with 8:36 left in the half with the Pistons up 39-30. Stewart had received a technical foul just moments earlier when he bumped DiVincenzo hard after the whistle. Then Holland was called for a foul as he slapped the ball out of Reid's hands near the baseline.
The two exchanged words, DiVincenzo stepped between them and grabbed Holland's jersey, and soon all 10 players on the court and multiple coaches and trainers were part of the scrum.
As the players were being separated, Bickerstaff and Prigioni were screaming at each other and had to be separated by team personnel.
The whole scene played out just 20 feet from new Timberwolves owner Alex Rodriguez, who walked over from his courtside seat in the aftermath and appeared to call for assistance for a young fan who got caught in the middle of the melee.
The game featured 12 technical fouls, the most in an NBA game since March 23, 2005, per OptaSTATS.
“I thought leading up to that the game was way too physical,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said. “It’s unfortunate, but we knew they were a super physical team. They hit you, they hold you, all the stuff that you want your physical teams to do. But I just thought it got to a point where players were going to take matters into their own hands. You don’t ever want that.”
The Timberwolves rallied from an early 16-point deficit to beat the Pistons 123-104.
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba
CORRECTS TO PISTONS FORWARD RONALD HOLLAND II NOT CENTER JALEN DUREN - Detroit Pistons forward Ronald Holland II, center left, and Minnesota Timberwolves guard Donte DiVincenzo, center right, fight during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Minnesota Timberwolves and Detroit Pistons players get into a fight during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Detroit Pistons forward Ronald Holland II (00) left, and Minnesota Timberwolves guard Donte DiVincenzo, middle, fight during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Minnesota Timberwolves guard Donte DiVincenzo (0), middle, and Detroit Pistons forward Ronald Holland II (00), right, fight during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Minnesota Timberwolves and Detroit Pistons players get into a fight during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Minnesota Timberwolves guard Donte DiVincenzo (0), center back, Timberwolves center Naz Reid (11) and Detroit Pistons center Jalen Duren (0) get into an altercation during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Minnesota Timberwolves guard Donte DiVincenzo (0), middle, and Detroit Pistons forward Ronald Holland II (00), right, fight during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Days of unrelenting heavy rain and storms that killed at least 18 people worsened flooding as some rivers rose to near-record levels and inundated towns across an already saturated U.S. South and parts of the Midwest.
Cities ordered evacuations and rescue crews in inflatable boats checked on residents in Kentucky and Tennessee, while utilities shut off power and gas in a region stretching from Texas to Ohio.
“I think everybody was shocked at how quick (the river) actually did come up,” said salon owner Jessica Tuggle, who was watching Monday as murky brown water approached her business in Frankfort, Kentucky, the state capital along the swollen Kentucky River.
She said that as each new wave of rain arrived over the weekend, anxious residents hoped for a reprieve so they could just figure out how bad things would get and how to prepare. She and friends packed up everything she could haul out of her salon, including styling chairs, hair products and electronics, and they took it all to a nearby tap house up the hill.
“Everybody was just ‘stop raining, stop raining’ so we could get an idea of what the worst situation would be,” she said.
Officials diverted traffic and turned off utilities to businesses in the city as the river was expected to approach a record crest on Monday.
For many, there was a sense of dread that the worst was still to come.
“As long as I’ve been alive — and I’m 52 — this is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Wendy Quire, the general manager at the Brown Barrel restaurant downtown.
“The rain just won’t stop,” Quire said Sunday. “It’s been nonstop for days and days.”
The 18 reported deaths since the storms began on Wednesday included 10 in Tennessee. A 9-year-old boy in Kentucky was caught up in floodwaters while walking to catch his school bus. A 5-year-old boy in Arkansas died after a tree fell on his family’s home, police said. A 16-year-old volunteer Missouri firefighter died in a crash while seeking to rescue people caught in the storm.
The National Weather Service warned Sunday that dozens of locations in multiple states were expected to reach a “major flood stage,” with extensive flooding of structures, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure possible.
In north-central Kentucky, emergency officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for Falmouth and Butler, towns near the bend of the rising Licking River. Thirty years ago, the river reached a record 50 feet (15 meters), resulting in five deaths and 1,000 homes destroyed.
The storms come after the Trump administration cut jobs at NWS forecast offices, leaving half of them with vacancy rates of about 20%, or double the level of a decade ago.
Forecasters attributed the violent weather to warm temperatures, an unstable atmosphere, strong winds and abundant moisture streaming from the Gulf.
The NWS said 5.06 inches (nearly 13 centimeters) of rain fell Saturday in Jonesboro, Arkansas — making it the wettest day ever recorded in April in the city. Memphis, Tennessee, received 14 inches (35 centimeters) of rain from Wednesday to Sunday, the NWS said.
Rives, a northwestern Tennessee town of about 200 people, was almost entirely underwater after the Obion River overflowed.
Domanic Scott went to check on his father in Rives after not hearing from him in a house where water reached the doorstep.
“It’s the first house we’ve ever paid off. The insurance companies around here won’t give flood insurance to anyone who lives in Rives because we’re too close to the river and the levees. So if we lose it, we’re kind of screwed without a house,” Scott said.
In Dyersburg, Tennessee, dozens of people arrived over the weekend at a storm shelter near a public school clutching blankets, pillows and other necessities. Just days earlier the city was hit by a tornado that caused millions of dollars in damage.
For some, grabbing the essentials also meant taking a closer look at the liquor cabinet.
In Frankfort, with water rising up to his window sills, resident Bill Jones fled his home in a boat, which he loaded with several boxes of bottles of bourbon.
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Anthony Izaguirre in New York; Kimberlee Kruesi, in Nashville; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Adrian Sainz in Memphis; Tennessee; Sarah Raza in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Obed Lamy in Rives, Tennessee; and Sophia Tareen in Chicago.
The rising Ohio River partially submerges the bronze statue of James Bradley along Riverside Drive, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Covington, Ky. Cincinnati and the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge are seen across the Ohio River. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
A Canadian goose swims in the rising Ohio River at the intersection of River Riverside Place and Ben Bernstein Place, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Covington, Ky., across the river from Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Carole Smith walks through her flooded home on Saturday, April 5, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
Search and rescue firefighters carry a boat to a flooded neighborhood on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
A flooded neighborhood is seen on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
Road crews work to clear Lee County Rd. 681 in Saltillo, Miss, Sunday, April 6, 2025, of downed trees that blocked the road following the severe weather that passed through the area Saturday night. (Thomas Wells /The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal via AP)
CORRECTS TO MICHAEL NOT MICHALE Michael Scott Memering looks out of his trailer after evacuating the Licking River RV Campground that was flooded by the rising waters of the Licking River, seen behind, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Falmouth, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Bill Jones pulls his boat ashore, filled with bottles of bourbon, from a flooded home near the banks of the Kentucky River on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
Search and rescue firefighters conduct wellness checks in a neighborhood on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
Abner Wagers stands near flooded homes in the rising waters of the Kentucky River in Monterey, Ky,. Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
The flooded downtown area is seen on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
Search and rescue firefighters speak to a resident in a flooded neighborhood on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
A group of people survey damage at Pounders Mobile Home Park following a strong line of storms in the area in Muscle Shoals, Ala, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (Dan Busey/The TimesDaily via AP)
Search and rescue firefighters conduct wellness checks in a neighborhood on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
Abner Wagers walks in the rising waters of the Kentucky River on a flooded Monterey Pike in Monterey, Ky., Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Abner Wagers, right, and Brayden Baker, both with the Monterey Volunteer Fire Department, walk in the rising waters of the Kentucky River near a flooded home in Monterey, Ky., Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
the rising waters of Cedar Creek and the Kentucky River overflow their banks, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Monterey, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
