hyperextending and suffering a bone bruise in his left knee<\/a> in the previous series against the Denver Nuggets. Not only did he get back in time for Game 1, but he took the game over in the fourth quarter, scoring 11 of his 18 points in the first five minutes of the period to push the Timberwolves in front.<\/p>\nThen, after a quick rest, he returned to finish the game with 25 minutes played.<\/p>\n
Edwards was playing nine days after the knee injury. He threw himself into rehab to get back at least five days sooner than expected, then spent the first three quarters trying to figure out what he could and could not do on the court.<\/p>\n
In the fourth quarter, he pounced. He hit two 3s and fed Randle for another 3 to tie the game at 84, then put his head down and got to the basket to get the Wolves the lead.<\/p>\n
His only blemish was a late turnover that Dylan Harper turned into a dunk to cut the deficit to two points. But Julian Champagnie missed a 3 to win the game, and the Wolves stole Game 1.<\/p>\n
It was the kind of gutty performance that faces of the franchise give. No one believed he was going to play. Then, not only did he play, but he led. \u2014 Jon Krawczynski<\/p>\n
A reality check for the Spurs<\/p>\n
It\u2019s reality-check time for the Spurs, who ran into the brick wall of the Timberwolves\u2019 defense and could not get their half-court offense going.<\/p>\n
Minnesota presented a starker challenge with their defensive length across the board, making it hard for Wembanyama to get anywhere unless he was taking Rudy Gobert in iso out on the perimeter. This was the moment the experience factor came into play, as the Spurs looked like they could not find their half-court identity, and Wembanyama struggled to create good looks until the very end.<\/p>\n
De\u2019Aaron Fox had a rough shooting night, and Wembanyama went 0 of 8 from deep, so the Spurs could not count on two of their key offensive engines to execute. Then, Stephon Castle fouled out heading into crunch time, taking away the team\u2019s most reliable dribble penetrator who can help create open 3s.<\/p>\n
The Spurs will need to find a way to generate better corner looks and get Wembanyama the ball on the roll, but they also need to get used to the length and strength Minnesota brings. \u2014 Jared Weiss<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was obvious \u2014 literally from the jump, when skyscrapers Rudy Gobert and Victor Wembanyama squared off at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[11951,355,2116,99],"class_list":["post-624426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-nba","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}