The San Antonio Spurs jumped out to an early lead against the Minnesota Timberwolves but could not finish strong as they fell to their Western Conference counterparts late in the game. Victor Wembanyama led all players with 29 points while Keldon Johnson chipped in 15 points off the bench. Luke Kornet along with Julian Champagnie hit the glass hard as Kornet grabbed 12 rebounds and Champagnie had 10.<\/p>\n
Watching two seven-footers go at each other at the top of the key when one of them starts dribbling between the legs, pump fake, and then takes one step from the free throw line to the basket is something special. When I want to feel like a giant, I just break out my tiny bottles of ketchup and Tabasco sauce at breakfast and sit with my daughter\u2019s stuffed animals at the kids\u2019 table. I would have to find my daughter\u2019s toddler-sized basketball goal to practice my between-the-legs dribbling, pump fake, and step-through finger roll.<\/p>\n
Keldon Johnson coolly drains the three after Stephon Castle kicks the ball out to the three point line. Johnson, for his part, continued to be that steady presence off the bench. He is averaging a robust 42% from three while also averaging 13.7 points per game.<\/p>\n
Lindy Waters III choose the optimal play, and chose wisely to feed the ball down low to Wembanyama for the flush. Waters has not had the most consistent minutes this season, but when called upon, the 6th year guard out of Oklahoma State has stepped in when the team needs him. Waters contributed 3 points and 3 assists in 12 minutes of play on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Wembanyama going to work against his fellow French compadre, or copain, I should say. Wembanyama rejoined the starting lineup so I imagine the hope is that he and the Spurs can coalesce their lineups and play into some rhythm and chemistry. Although the Spurs have played above consensus expectations this season, they have done so despite not having all of their starters available at the same time.<\/p>\n
It does feel like the \u201cdog days\u201d of the basketball season, but for a young team jockeying for playoff position (they are second in the West!), it\u2019s good to have a veteran voice like Harrison Barnes to make sure the ship stays on course.<\/p>\n
If you missed the game because you were too busy planning your wardrobe for 30 degree mornings and 80 degree afternoons, here are the full-game highlights:<\/p>\n
Next up, the Spurs will head to Oklahoma City to take on the Thunder on Tuesday, January 13, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Antonio Spurs jumped out to an early lead against the Minnesota Timberwolves but could not finish…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3797],"tags":[7,6,969,474,4075,4074,534,53862],"class_list":{"0":"post-532239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio-spurs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-san-antonio","11":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","12":"tag-sanantonio","13":"tag-sanantoniospurs","14":"tag-spurs","15":"tag-spurs-highlights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115883641748251260","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532239","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=532239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}