{"id":640142,"date":"2026-05-13T07:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T07:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/640142\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T07:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T07:26:09","slug":"nba-play-offs-victor-wembanyama-leads-san-antonio-spurs-to-win-over-minnesota-timberwolves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/640142\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Play-Offs: Victor Wembanyama leads San Antonio Spurs to win over Minnesota Timberwolves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victor Wembanyama starred as the San Antonio Spurs moved to within one win of a Western Conference final against the Oklahoma City Thunder by taking a 3-2 lead against the Minnesota Timberwolves.<\/p>\n

Wembanyama scored 27 points – including 18 in the first quarter – to lead the Spurs to a 126-97 victory in game five of the best-of-seven series.<\/p>\n

His display came after the 22-year-old was ejected for the first time in his NBA career in the previous game for elbowing an opponent, although he did not receive a suspension. <\/p>\n

Victory in game six for the Spurs in Minneapolis on Friday would set up a showdown with the Thunder – the reigning NBA champions – who completed a 4-0 sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On whether he was anxious about returning for game five, Wembanyama said: “Very, very much. I mean, I was fresh, feeling good. But honestly, it’s hard to tell if it was just getting fired up. <\/p>\n

“Obviously, I’m going to be excited with butterflies, you know. So excitement is not something abnormal.”<\/p>\n

Asked about Wembanyama, Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said: “The one word I’d like to use [is] just mature.<\/p>\n

“There’s a lot that’s happened in the last 48 hours, in the last game, and I think how that young man came out tonight and played in a variety of ways, in a variety of situations, was extremely mature.”<\/p>\n

The Spurs allowed an 18-point second-quarter lead to slip as Minnesota levelled the game at 61-61 four minutes into the third quarter.<\/p>\n

But San Antonio rallied again, scoring 30 of the next 42 points to take a 91-73 lead into the final quarter – and extended that advantage even further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama starred as the San Antonio Spurs moved to within one win of a Western Conference final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-640142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640142","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=640142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}