Victor Wembanyama had 19 points and 15 rebounds as the San Antonio Spurs handed Minnesota the worst postseason loss in franchise history, beating the Timberwolves 133-95 to even their Western Conference semifinal series at one game apiece.<\/p>\n
Stephon Castle had 21 points and De’Aaron Fox added 16 points for San Antonio, which shot 50 per cent from the field and 41 per cent on 3-pointers. It was the highest-scoring playoff game for the Spurs since a series-clinching 145-105 win over Denver on May 4, 1983.<\/p>\n
Anthony Edwards, Julius Randle, Jaden McDaniels and Terrence Shannon Jr. each scored 12 points for Minnesota.<\/p>\n
Edwards came off the bench again as Minnesota continued to restrict his minutes in his second game back from a hyperextended left knee.<\/p>\n
Games three and four are Friday and Sunday in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
Twitter<\/p>\n
This content is provided by Twitter, which may be using cookies and other technologies. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Twitter cookies. Enable Cookies<\/a> With Wembanyama playing more aggressively on offense from the outset, the Spurs put the series-opening loss behind them quickly.<\/p>\n Minnesota’s previous largest postseason defeat was by 30 points to the Los Angeles Lakers on April 29, 2003.<\/p>\n Only the margin of victory was in doubt on Monday as both teams sent their starters to the bench with 10 minutes remaining and the Spurs leading 104-66.<\/p>\n After combining to score 21 points on 10-for-31 shooting in Game 1, Wembanyama and Fox combined to go 12 off 25.<\/p>\n The All-Star duo scored the Spurs’ first 11 points as they raced to a 29-point lead in the first half.<\/p>\n Twitter<\/p>\n This content is provided by Twitter, which may be using cookies and other technologies. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Twitter cookies. Enable Cookies<\/a> The Spurs missed their first three shots, but Wembanyama followed the third attempt by flying through the lane and throwing down a right-handed dunk to open the scoring.<\/p>\n Minnesota were held to 35 points in the first half. The Timberwolves shot 29.8 per cent from the field before halftime and were 2 for 15 on 3-pointers as they fell behind by 25 points.<\/p>\n Spurs rookie Carter Bryant soared for a two-handed slam for his first points of the series and Wembanyama followed with a three-pointer for a 43-26 lead midway through the second quarter.<\/p>\n Back-to-back slams by Dylan Harper and Castle were part of a 11-0 run that extended the advantage to 59-34.<\/p>\n San Antonio have not lost consecutive games since falling at Minnesota and Oklahoma City in mid-January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama had 19 points and 15 rebounds as the San Antonio Spurs handed Minnesota the worst postseason…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-655212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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