{"id":532124,"date":"2026-01-12T17:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T17:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/532124\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T17:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T17:42:14","slug":"thunder-beat-the-heat-as-timberwolves-edge-spurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/532124\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder beat the Heat as Timberwolves edge Spurs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on Sunday sparked defending champions Oklahoma City to victory, while Anthony Edwards led Minnesota\u2019s last-minute fightback to beat San Antonio.<\/p>\n

Gilgeous-Alexander scored 29 points while adding eight assists and five rebounds in the Thunder\u2019s 124-112 home victory over Miami, improving the NBA\u2019s best record to 33-7 after outscoring the Heat 70-53 in the second half.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe locked in defensively. We were finally able to get some stops,\u201d Thunder guard Aaron Wiggins said. \u201cWe were able to get out in transition a little bit, get going offensively and find the flow.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Photo: AP<\/p>\n

Jalen Williams scored 18 points, while Chet Holmgren added 16 points and nine rebounds for the Thunder. Andrew Wiggins led the Heat (20-19) with 23 points.<\/p>\n

A day after losing at Cleveland, Minnesota edged the visiting Spurs 104-103 on a bank shot by Anthony Edwards with 16.8 seconds to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnt-Man\u201d had 23 points, while Donte DiVincenzo scored 19, reserve Naz Reid added 17 points and 11 rebounds, and Rudy Gobert grabbed 14 rebounds.<\/p>\n

Victor Wembanyama led the Spurs with 29 points, but the French star and De\u2019Aaron Fox each missed go-ahead shots in the dying seconds.<\/p>\n

Second-placed San Antonio (27-12) fell 5.5 games behind the Thunder atop the Western Conference with the T-Wolves another 1.5 games back at 26-14.<\/p>\n

Another thriller came in Canada as Toronto\u2019s Scottie Barnes made the winning free throw with 0.8 of a second remaining in overtime as the Raptors edged Philadelphia 116-115, denying the 76ers a sixth win in seven games.<\/p>\n

Barnes led Toronto with 31 points, while Tyrese Maxey scored a game-high 38 for the Sixers.<\/p>\n

Jamal Shead made a jumper for Toronto with 1.9 seconds to play in regulation to force overtime at 107-107.<\/p>\n

A three-pointer by V.J. Edgecombe lifted the Sixers level with 16.1 seconds remaining in overtime before Kelly Oubre\u2019s foul on Barnes set up the deciding free throw.<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s Jalen Brunson scored 26 points while O.G. Anunoby added 24 to lead the Knicks to a 123-114 triumph at Portland, snapping the Trail Blazers\u2019 five game winning streak.<\/p>\n

Anunoby made two threes in an 11-0 Knicks run to seize a 114-104 lead and Portland could not overtake New York again.<\/p>\n

Karl-Anthony Towns contributed 20 points and 11 rebounds for the Knicks, while Deni Avdija led Portland with 25 points.<\/p>\n

Denver\u2019s Aaron Gordon scored 23 points and Tim Hardaway Jr had 26 off the bench to lead the Nuggets over visiting Milwaukee 108-104.<\/p>\n

Orlando\u2019s Desmond Bane scored 27 points as the Magic rallied in the fourth quarter to beat New Orleans 128-118.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, the Grizzlies defeated the Nets 103-98, the Suns eclipsed the Wizards 112-93, the Hawks beat the Warriors 124-111 and the Kings downed the Rockets 111-98.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by staff writer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on Sunday sparked defending champions Oklahoma City to victory, while Anthony…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,3974,312,3973],"class_list":{"0":"post-532124","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-oklahoma","11":"tag-oklahoma-city","12":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","13":"tag-oklahomacity","14":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","15":"tag-the-taipei-times","16":"tag-thunder","17":"tag-3973"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115883370347516622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}