By Oliver Carter
The San Antonio Spurs cruised to an easy win in Game 2 of their Western Conference semi-final match-up against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
San Antonio won 95-133 in Frost Bank Center on Wednesday night.
The win was an important, tone-setting win to tie the series 1-1 after their shock Game 1 loss
Story of the game
The Spurs came out of the gates firing, their first points of the game coming from Victor Wembanyama, who crushed home a putback dunk.
The Timberwolves tried their best to stay in the game but were quickly overwhelmed.
Minnesota managed to take the lead just twice in the first quarter, never by more than one point.
San Antonio regained the lead, winning the first quarter 17-24 before piling on ever more to push the lead out to 35-59 at the half.
While the Timberwolves already looked defeated, San Antonio continued to run the score even higher, outscoring the Wolves by 11 in the third, growing to a game-high 47-point lead midway through the final period.
Midway through the third quarter, Spurs shooting guard Devin Vassell hit a shot that proved everything was going perfectly for the Spurs, after Julian Champagnie fumbled a pass from Wembanyama, he threw a pass to Vassell with under a second left on the shot clock.
Anticipating the pass, Vassell began his shooting motion, jumping and catching the ball mid-air before knocking down the three-pointer, having made contact with the ball for just 0.6 seconds.
After growing their lead, the Spurs subbed all their usual rotation players out of the game, giving minutes to all 15 members of the Spurs roster, with no one playing more than 30-minutes.
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Timberwolves shooting struggles
Jaden McDaniels, Terrence Shannon Jr, Julius Randle and Anthony Edwards all tied at the top of the Wolves’ scoring list, though they each managed just 12 points.
McDaniels led the top scorers in efficiency as he shot a respectable 6/10 from the field, Randle shot just 4/10 with four points added from free throws, Shannon Jr also shot a terrible 33%.
Edwards, who averaged 28.8 points per game on 48.9% shooting through the regular season, ended 5/13 from the field, as well as making just one three-pointer.
Edwards also had a -33 +/-
The worst of his career so far.
After winning Game 1, a lot of fans thought they had a good chance to win the series and eliminate the Spurs, however, this performance has restored the Texas-based team to heavy favourites.
Looking ahead to Game 3
With the series travelling up north to Minnesota, the Timberwolves will hope they can rally behind their home support and get back on track after such a humiliating loss.
While the Spurs won Game 2 in such a resounding fashion, they did still drop a home game, a mistake they will look to rectify, hoping to win at least one of the two upcoming away games.
Minnesota will hope Edwards can look more like his regular-season self as he plays through injury and San Antonio will look to Wembanyama on both ends of the floor to lead their offensive efforts while anchoring the defence.
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Geoffrey H. Latayan