Despite heroic efforts from Andrew Wiggins, Jimmy Butler and Jeff Teague, the Wolves fell to the San Antonio Spurs 108-112 on the road to open their season. The team showed real flashes of promise, but just couldn’t finish the job down the stretch.
The game got off to a rough start as the Wolves couldn’t buy a bucket for the first few minutes and the Spurs were able to find their way through the Wolves’ defense for some easy baskets. Then Wiggins caught fire. He hit back-to-back threes, got a few great looks around the rim and looked active and engaged on both ends of the floor. He also flashed some really intriguing post-up play that could definitely pay off for him down the line. However, despite Wiggins’ efforts, the Wolves trailed by seven at the end of the quarter.
Minnesota turned things around in the second. After allowing 31 first-quarter points, the team locked down on defense and allowed just 25 to a dangerous Spurs offense in both the second and third quarters. The Wolves used a three-guard lineup of Tyus Jones, Derrick Rose, Butler, Anthony Tolliver and Gorgui Deing for much of the second quarter and found a lot of success. Deing especially looks much improved compared to last season and set some excellent screens to go along with a few nice buckets around the rim and in the midrange.
The third quarter belonged to the Wolves offense. Spurred (no pun intended) by Teague’s excellent penetration, Minnesota was able to move the ball around effectively and find good shots. Wiggins continued his dominance, and the bench unit held it down enough to get the starters some valuable rest.
Unfortunately, though it was a tight game, the Wolves didn’t have quite enough in the fourth quarter to come away with the victory. The game was within a few points deep into the period with LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan fueling the Spurs’ offensive attack. Marco Belinelli was also clutch, hitting several three-pointers and the Spurs started to pull away. But Butler and Teague had the Wolves right back in it, with Teague hitting a three-pointer and feeding Taj Gibson for a dunk and Butler getting several good shots around the rim plus a beautiful assist to Wiggins.
With a minute left, the Wolves trailed by three points. They got a miss from Aldridge before Butler splashed a corner three to tie it. DeRozan answered with a layup though and an attempt from Rose rimmed off. DeRozan hit two foul shots to seal the deal.
Jeff Teague scored 27 and added four assists and Butler netted 23 to go along with seven rebounds despite looking a little fatigued at times. Wiggins finished with 20 points, six rebounds and three assists. Those three made up for a quiet night from Karl-Anthony Towns, who finished with eight points on just six shots. He did grab 11 rebounds. The Wolves as a whole shot 42.9 percent from the field and held the Spurs to 43-percent shooting. The difference was in three-point shooting, where the Spurs went 11-of-25 and the Wolves were just 6-of-19.