The San Antonio Spurs defeat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 115-108, in Game 3 to take a 2-1 series lead.
Monster numbers by some monster players dominated the conversation after Victor Wembanyama’s complete performance in San Antonio’s 115-108 victory in Minneapolis to give the Spurs a 2-1 lead in their Western Conference semifinal series.
In only Wembanyama’s seventh playoff game – and second on the road – his 39 points, 15 rebounds and five blocked shots put him in the company of some elite big men. Until Friday night at Target Center, only Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O’Neal and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had hit those threshold in a postseason game (blocks not becoming an official stat until 1973-74).
Wembanyama got their quicker than any of them.
Olajuwon had a similar outing in his ninth playoff performance (38-16-5) for Houston against Denver in April 1986. It took Abdul-Jabbar 42 games before he put up a 35-21-6 against the Lakers in March 1974 (again, the NBA didn’t track blocks through his first 41).
And O’Neal needed 67 games before he dropped a 46-17-5 on Sacramento in April 2000.
That’s why, beyond the main story of San Antonio’s advantage in the best-of-seven series, there was a renewed buzz about Wembanyama, his place right now among the league’s best players and the potential that should carry him and the Spurs ever-higher in coming seasons.
Here are four takeaways from their clutch performance:
1. Wemby early, Wemby late
With Wembanyama, the biggest question often is about his minutes distribution and if he’ll be on the floor when the game actually gets decided. He averaged less than 30 minutes in the regular season and had stayed there through his first six playoff starts, leaving about 40% of each game to be determined while he’s spectating.
The big guy and coach Mitch Johnson didn’t allow such exposure Friday. Wembanyama played two ticks shy of 37 minutes and made sure the Spurs’ cushion was sufficient to outlast whatever breathers he needed. For the record, San Antonio was 16 points better in its Wemby minutes, nine points worse in the 11:02 he sat.
The Wolves felt Wembanyama’s impact most at the start and near the end. He had nine of his game-high 39 points in the first quarter, sparking the Spurs to the type of start they needed on hostile hardwood. He wrapped with 16 in the fourth, including seven of his team’s nine in a late clutch stretch.
Victor Wembanyama scores a playoff career-high 39 points, along with 15 rebounds and five blocks in a Game 3 win.
“He really imposed himself on the game,” Johnson said. “He established himself dominating the paint and the rim on both ends. When he does that, it feels like everything opens up for himself and his teammates.”
In the last four minutes, Minnesota got the deficit within a single possession just once, 106-103. And there was Wembanyama to bump the Spurs’ lead. He shook loose out top, getting space behind Stephon Castle’s flare screen that slowed defender Rudy Gobert, and canned a 25-footer to make it 109-103.
Wembanyama had been 4-of-14 from the arc in the series till then. Nearly two minutes burned off between Wolves baskets before and after that one, the game slipping away.
As impressive as his stats line, the Spurs’ 7-foot-4 prodigy held up through another physical game, playing through contact with nary a flinch, getting up repeatedly from the floor with nary a gripe. He was in the middle of seemingly every play, yet stuck around while playing with five fouls over the final six minutes.
2. Edwards empties the tank
Anthony Edwards scores 32 points along with 14 rebounds in Game 3.
Anthony Edwards, Minnesota’s star shooting guard, surprised people when he showed up ready to play Game 1, accelerating by maybe a week his recovery from a bruised and hyperextended left knee injured in the first round.
Edwards showed more resiliency in Game 3, starting and blowing past whatever informal minutes limit the medical staff had in mind. He logged 40:33, scored 32 points on 12-of-26 shooting, grabbed 14 rebounds with six assists and even had a cute jersey grab on Wembanyama to impede the big guy’s sprint upcourt.
He was, in other words, Ant in full. The Wolves will require nothing less in what’s left of this series to catch and beat the Spurs.
“He needed that. We needed that,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said. “He’s been battling back to find a game like this. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the result to go along with it.”
Edwards scored 19 of his points in the first half and eight more in the third quarter. He was 2-of-4 for five points in the fourth. But he seemed fresh enough, a big stride forward from some Game 2 sluggishness and indecision. With Ayo Dosunmu healthy enough to log 32 minutes and Terrence Shannon Jr. bringing energy and quickness, the Wolves should be fine in the backcourt barring further ailments.
3. That wacky 1st quarter
The opening minutes of Game 3 looked like a debacle for Minnesota, an embarrassing squandering of the home court the instant they stepped foot on it. The Wolves missed their first 12 shots, didn’t get a bucket until nearly seven minutes had lapsed and trailed by an absurd 18-3.
Then, abruptly, it was San Antonio’s turn in the tank. The Spurs got outscored 19-5 over the period’s final 3:48, making only two of eight shots in that stretch. Edwards scored 12 of those 19, with a pair of late 3-pointers. His 31-footer to beat the buzzer just highlighted how goofy those 12 minutes had been.
Equilibrium was restored, 23-22 Spurs, and it lasted into the third quarter until San Antonio’s shooters got hot for a spell.
4. Spurs’ follow-up vs. Wolves’
San Antonio took back its homecourt advantage Friday, so it doesn’t need to win again at Target Center to take the series. But having seen Minnesota’s lackluster performance in Game 2, when Edwards, Gobert and crew appeared content to head home with the split, the Spurs may approach Game 4 Sunday (7:30 ET, NBC) a little more greedily.
“I think we haven’t done anything yet,” Wembanyama said. “Not even halfway of the work in this series. We showed some strength in this game, some relentlessness, but we’ve got to prove to ourselves we can sustain it.”
The Wolves just saw how comfortable a 3-1 series lead can be, grabbing that against Denver in the first round and closing in six games. So they have zero interest in letting the Spurs get that leverage over them.
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
