The surging San Antonio Spurs will look for their fourth straight win when they square off against the enigmatic Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday in the second of a two-game mini-series at Minneapolis.
The Spurs captured the first game of the set on Monday, beating the Timberwolves 115-106 on the strength of six players in double-figure scoring and a dominating third quarter in which they built an insurmountable 34-point lead.
Devin Vassell had 23 points to lead San Antonio’s balanced attack with Keldon Johnson adding 18 points, Jeremy Sochan and Jakob Poeltl scoring 14 each, Zach Collins hitting for 11 off the bench and Joshua Primo contributing 10. Poeltl also had 14 rebounds.
After getting blown out by Charlotte at home in their season opener, the Spurs have captured the past three games, all on the road, against Indiana, Philadelphia and Minnesota. San Antonio’s big third quarter on Monday allowed it to stumble to the finish line as it scored just 12 points in the final period.
San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich called his team, which is the youngest in the NBA, humble yet confident.
“They come to play, come to win,” Popovich said. “Obviously, you aren’t going to win every one, but they play like they are going to win. That’s all you can ask. You can go to sleep at night when you have a group who does that.”
It is only the fourth time in team history that San Antonio has started a season 3-0 in road games, in additio to 2016-17, 2010-11, and 2006-07.
Minnesota has alternated wins and losses over its first four games as it tries to find the right formula to succeed with a talented roster.
Karl-Anthony Towns led the Timberwolves with 27 points and 11 rebounds in Monday’s loss, while D’Angelo Russell added 25, Jaylen Nowell scored 13 points and Rudy Gobert had 11. Anthony Edwards, who had just nine points after scoring 30 in the two previous games, grabbed 10 rebounds.
Monday’s game was the second of a road-home back-to-back for Minnesota.
“We know it’s a back-to-back and all of that, but I don’t think it takes more energy to just decide, instead of just lingering, just running back,” Gobert said. “It doesn’t take much energy to talk, you just got to want to do it. We’re not there yet.”
The Timberwolves trailed by 67-57 at the half but allowed the Spurs to score the first 14 points of the third quarter and were never in it again. The final score was not indicative of how the Spurs dominated the game.
“(San Antonio) just out-punked us in every way possible,” Minnesota coach Chris Finch said. “Out-ran us, out-competed us, out-physicaled us. It was ugly and not acceptable. All credit to them. They kicked our (butt), and we felt it.
“We knew they’re a hard-playing team and they made more effort than us. Those aren’t things that we certainly can tolerate. But we’ve got to figure out why and a lot of it is our connectivity right now has got to be better, both ends of the floor.”
–Field Level Media
