Timberwolves best Spurs 117-110 to open in-season tournament play

Friday's 117-110 victory in San Antonio provided yet another positive sign to the Timberwolves' strong 6-2 start to the season:

The Wolves won on the road, for the first time. They won, overall, their fifth straight. Friday they won despite playing sloppily in the first quarter and rather falteringly down the stretch.

Thanks to two players:

* Karl-Anthony Towns, who scored 29 points with 12 rebounds, and:

* Anthony Edwards, who scored nine of his 28 points in the fourth quarter, including four free throws in the final 81 seconds.

The first NBA matchup between towering French centers Rudy Gobert (11 and 10) and San Antonio's first-year sensation Victor Wembanyama (29 and nine with four blocks) went to the rookie.

It was also a good way to open up the NBA's in-season tournament. Announced in July, each conference is broken into five teams, with the Wolves in a group with Sacramento, Golden State, Oklahoma City and San Antonio.

"We buckled down at the end,'' Towns said in a TV interview after the game. "We found ways to make shots. The in-season tournament definitely brought a different energy to this.''

Pool play includes four games — two on the road and two at home — against teams in their pool, with all four counting toward regular season records. Then eight teams advance to single-elimination play, each pool winner and the next-best record in each conference. The semifinals and finals will be played in Las Vegas.

And the Wolves are now 1-0 in that competition, despite a turnover-filled first quarter and allowing a 17-point lead to start the fourth dwindle to five on Wembanyama's three-pointer with 33.4 seconds left.

The difference in a game was a 25-9 run that began with Mike Conley's three with 7.6 seconds left in the second quarter and ended with Towns' drive midway through the third that put the Wolves up 16. Towns had 13 points in the Wolves' 34-19 third quarter.

"We didn't play our best, for sure,'' Wolves coach Chris Finch told reporters. "We got off to an indifferent start. Thought we were super sloppy, not locked in. Then we found a combination of guys there in the second quarter that kind of sparked us.

The Wolves only got better in the third and appeared ready to breeze home.

Of course, the Spurs (3-6) came back. Devin Vassell scored 14 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter, including three free throws with 1:04 left that made it a six-point game. Wembanyama had 13 fourth-quarter points.

But Conley (11 points, six assists) answered with two free throws with 25.9 seconds left to seal the win.

Minnesota got 28 points from the bench, including a nine-point, three-rebound, four-assist game from Nickeil Alexander-Walker. Naz Reid scored seven before tweaking his neck sliding into the stanchion early in the fourth quarter and leaving the game.

"We have to do better,'' Finch said of finishing games. "That game goes two minutes longer we might not win.''

But the point is, they did. Earlier in the season, in a loss in Atlanta the Wolves held a 21-point lead early in the third quarter only to lose by 14. The Wolves found a way.

"It's great for us,'' Finch said. "The game was turning against us the crowd, some calls. But we managed to find enough plays to stave 'em off. But we have to be mindful of not putting ourselves in that situation.''

After the game, Wembanyama was the big topic of discussion. Finch raved about the 7-4 rookie's potential. Gobert, who has become something of a mentor to the youngster, was impressed. "I've watched him,'' Gobert said. "But I haven't played against him in a [few] years, so I'm really happy and proud of the way he's evolving.''

The Star Tribune did not send the writer of this article to the game. This was written using a broadcast, interviews and other material.