Timberwolves at Spurs Game Thread

Wolves at Spurs
6:00 pm CDT
FS North

The Wolves will look to avoid an 0-4 road trip tonight when the take on the Spurs in San Antionio. The Spurs have started rounding into post-season form following a somewhat indifferent season up until a couple of weeks ago. They won six in row until they fell in overtime to Kyrie Irving's 57 and the Cavaliers on Thursday night.

The Spurs are finally getting healthy and looking more like the contender they have been seemingly forever, as Tony Parker, bothered by a hamstring for much of the year, has been significantly better over the past couple of weeks. He's a huge part of what they do offensively, and having him back and clicking makes the Spurs much more dangerous.

They remain one of the top ten defenses in the league, holding opponents to a below average efg% and controlling their defensive glass. One of their strengths is running teams off the three point line--they allow the 2nd fewest 3PAs in the league. Of course, that probably won't be of much help against the Wolves, who don't look for threes.

For the Wolves, it's not clear as of this writing who will be available. Kevin Garnett has missed all three games on the trip so far with a sore knee, and with a home game tomorrow night against Brooklyn, I would expect him to sit tonight as well. Nikola Pekovic missed the Thunder game with continuing and chronic ankle problems. Ricky Rubio tweaked his ankle against the Thunder in the third quarter and sat the rest of the way.

In other words, the Wolves are breaking down while the Spurs, who are rested throughout the year, are getting healthy, which doesn't bode well for this game. This is the 4th and final meeting between these teams this season, and the Spurs have cruised in each of the previous three, winning by an average of 22 points, with the last meeting, a 15 point Spurs win, the closest.

At this point, I'm not even sure what I'm rooting for. I suppose I would like to see Andrew Wiggins finish the season strong, but it's been pretty clear recently that he's exhausted, and that might last the rest of the year. I'm not sure there is a lot of sense in playing Big Pek much more this season even if he can go; the ankle is just going to flare up again. Maybe they will find something else to try this summer.

Still, it's a Wolves game, and another chance to get a win, as unlikely as it seems. So I'll be watching.

Expected lineups

Spurs

Tony Parker
Danny Green
Kawhi Leonard
Tim Duncan
Tiago Splitter

Wolves

Ricky Rubio(?)
Kevin Martin
Andrew Wiggins
Gorgui Dieng(?)
Justin Hamilton(?)

Here's a link to Pounding The Rock. Be excellent.

No no and no.

Enjoy. Chat. Go.