{"id":727793,"date":"2026-05-07T05:27:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T05:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/727793\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T05:27:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T05:27:18","slug":"san-antonio-brings-the-defense-cruises-to-game-2-win-over-minnesota-133-95-to-even-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/727793\/","title":{"rendered":"San Antonio brings the defense, cruises to Game 2 win over Minnesota, 133-95, to even series"},"content":{"rendered":"

While a headline from Game 1 was Victor Wembanyama<\/a> having a dozen blocks, the Timberwolves<\/a> were still scoring, with a 51.1% eFG, and they shot 52% in the paint, and they won.<\/p>\n

Wednesday night, the Spurs brought the defensive pressure all over the court, not just the blocks (Wemby had two). Because of that, Minnesota<\/a> shot just 39.8% overall and 40.9% in the paint, plus they turned the ball over 22 times.<\/p>\n

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It turned Game 2 into a blowout, with the ‘Spurs<\/a>‘ lead never falling below 20 in the third quarter and below 30 in the fourth. San Antonio<\/a> cruised to a 133-95 win.<\/p>\n

The series is now tied 1-1, heading back to Minnesota for Game 3 on Friday night.<\/p>\n

This was the most lopsided loss in Minnesota postseason history.<\/p>\n

While the Spurs’ defense showed up, it was also more aggressive and intentional on offense.<\/p>\n

After settling for too many 3-pointers in Game 1, Wembanyama and San Antonio attacked the rim from the start \u2014 nine of the Spurs’ first 11 shots were in the paint, including Wemby starting 3-of-3. Stephon Castle<\/a> was trying to touch the paint every time he touched the ball.<\/p>\n

Wembanyama finished with 19 points and 15 rebounds, Stephon Castle had 21 points and De’Aaron Fox<\/a> added 16 points, and none of them played more than 26 minutes thanks to the blowout.<\/p>\n

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Minnesota was led by four players with 12 points each: Anthony Edwards<\/a> off the bench, plus Jaden McDaniels<\/a>, Julius Randle<\/a> and Terrence Shannon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This game was decided in the first half \u2014 Minnesota scored a season-low 35 first-half points and did it on 29.8% shooting. San Antonio’s defenders were physical, and they were everywhere, also forcing 11 turnovers. It’s not like the Timberwolves just missed their 3-points \u2014 although they did that, too, going 2-of-15 from beyond the arc \u2014 but they also shot just 8-of-24 (33.3%) in the paint. Anthony Edwards, the spark of Game 1, was 1-of-6 in the first half.<\/p>\n

Combine that with Wembanyama, Castle and Fox all finding their groove after a rough Game 1, and it felt over by halftime. If it wasn’t that, the Spurs’ 5-0 run to open the third quarter pretty much sealed it.<\/p>\n

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch waived the white flag with 10 minutes remaining, when both teams sat their starters and started going deep into their benches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While a headline from Game 1 was Victor Wembanyama having a dozen blocks, the Timberwolves were still scoring,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3782],"tags":[375,7,65885,377,376,307,152,3954,6,969,534,930,2287,2594,308,693],"class_list":["post-727793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-anthony-edwards","tag-basketball","tag-de39aaron-fox","tag-jaden-mcdaniels","tag-julius-randle","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-minnesotatimberwolves","tag-nba","tag-san-antonio","tag-spurs","tag-stephon-castle","tag-terrence-shannon","tag-the-spurs","tag-timberwolves","tag-victor-wembanyama"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116531642272320311","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727793","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=727793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}