Minnesota beat San Antonio 104-103<\/a> on Jan. 11.<\/p>\nEdwards almost did it again on Saturday, going 19 for 33 from the field and 9 for 16 from 3-point range to score the most points of his seven-year NBA career.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an honor, and it\u2019s the best thing to have the best players go as hard as they can because, first of all, it makes us better; it makes me better,\u201d Wembanyama said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a show of respect and also progress stepping up because now the standings make us that we\u2019re a respectable team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wembanyama was 12 for 23 from the field and 4 for 9 on 3-pointers Saturday, falling a point shy of matching the season high he set in the season opener against Dallas on Oct. 22.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe actually done put on a lot of weight,\u201d Edwards said of Wembanyama. \u201cLooking at him from last year and this year, I was trying to box him out, he done put on a lot of weight. I can see from a distance that he has worked. I can\u2019t do nothing but respect that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edwards has been a three-time All-Star since joining the league as the No. 1 draft pick in 2020, but he reiterated he would rather be himself than be the league\u2019s featured star.<\/p>\n
While he prefers to have the charismatic Wembanyama shine in that off-court spotlight, Edwards demonstrated Saturday he\u2019s not yielding to the 2023 No. 1 pick on the court.<\/p>\n
Edwards drained an 11-foot fadeaway jumper that put Minnesota ahead 110-108 with 3:28 remaining. Wembanyama responded with an 18-foot jumper. Edwards put the Wolves back up with a 25-foot 3-pointer and Wembanyama tied the game at 113 with a 26-foot 3. The back-and-forth took only 53 seconds, electrifying the sell-out crowd at the Frost Bank Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved it. I loved it,\u201d Edwards said, smiling. \u201cI wish we could have just moved everybody out of the way and just checked up me versus him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wembanyama and Edwards didn\u2019t get to face off one-on-one, but they set up some tense final seconds.<\/p>\n
Edwards had 26 points in the fourth quarter and Wembanyama had 12.<\/p>\n
Edwards made the first of two free throws to cut San Antonio\u2019s lead to 125-123 with six seconds remaining but missed the second. Spurs forward Julian Champagnie was immediately fouled after rebounding the miss but missed both free throws. Wembanyama skied above Minnesota defenders to rebound the second miss and salvage the victory.<\/p>\n
San Antonio (29-13) remains second in the West with Minnesota 2 1\/2 games back in fourth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was fun,\u201d Wembanyama said. \u201cNot the most fun, but it was a fun game for sure. And this one is worth a lot because of the way the West looks right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO (AP) \u2014 Anthony Edwards does not want to be the face of the NBA, but the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3797],"tags":[1981,1970,2097,7,6,67,969,474,4075,4074,66,83,534,2098],"class_list":{"0":"post-546861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio-spurs","8":"tag-app-professional-sports","9":"tag-app-sports","10":"tag-associated-press","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-san-antonio","15":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","16":"tag-sanantonio","17":"tag-sanantoniospurs","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-sports-news","20":"tag-spurs","21":"tag-texas"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115922322744470270","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546861","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=546861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}