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Spurs roll over Twolves, 116-100

By Jerry Zgoda, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) –

SAN ANTONIO — It sure didn’t look or feel much like it, but the Minnesota Timberwolves left AT&T Center late Wednesday night having beaten San Antonio in a season series for the first time since 2000.

They defeated the Spurs twice at home way back when in January, a couple of relics mostly forgotten now that the Wolves limp for home on this seven-game road trip that ends Friday while the Spurs once again seemed primed for a playoff run after Wednesday’s 116-100 victory.

How things have changed in these past two months.

Back then, the Wolves were young, enthusiastic and healthy. The Spurs were showing their age, and hurting after star Manu Ginobili broke his hand early in that first game against the Wolves on Jan. 2.

Now, Wolves starting point guard Ricky Rubio underwent surgery Wednesday in Colorado to repair two torn knee ligaments, starting center Nikola Pekovic was sent home to rehab his aching ankles and bench scorer Michael Beasley once again didn’t play after halftime because of a big toe that continues to debilitate him.

The Spurs, meanwhile, have integrated the young with old, mixing greybeards Ginobili, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and now newly reacquired Stephen Jackson with youngsters Kawhi Leonard, DeJuan Blair, Danny Green, Tiago Splitter and Gary Neal.

On Wednesday, they played on three days’ rest while the Wolves played their fifth game in seven nights. It showed from the start. The Spurs built a 16-point lead by first quarter’s end and led by 23 early in the fourth quarter on their way to winning for the fourth time in five games.

“They’re in playoff mode, you can tell,” Wolves forward Kevin Love said. “They had three days’ rest, and we just seemed not to have any legs, me included. We need a full roster if we’re going to win against teams like this.”

The Spurs ran away and never were challenged Wednesday, even though Parker sat down for the night in the second quarter because of an injured hamstring.

Without Pekovic at center, Duncan exploited a matchup with Love by delivering a 21-point, 15-rebound night — his third double-double in his past four games — that outshone Love’s 17-point, 12-rebound double-double of his own. Afterward, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich noted how Love looked stiff and hurting because of that sore back with which he has played.

Duncan, meanwhile, looked like the nimble player from his youth.

“He just looks alive right now,” Wolves coach Rick Adelman said. “He looked like the Tim of old. He’s a real force when he’s like that.”

Adelman went small all night — starting rookie Derrick Williams alongside Love in Pekovic’s absence and relying on Anthony Tolliver rather than Darko Milicic and Anthony Randolph — because the Spurs play small themselves, sending Duncan and Splitter out there as their only real big men.

After the Spurs’ fast first-quarter start, the Wolves never got closer than seven points late in the first half on a night when their travels and their injuries appeared to catch up with them. Jackson’s three three-pointers and 16 points off the bench in his first week back with the Spurs didn’t let them catch up.

“It definitely affects things,” Adelman said. “We talked about them being off three days and them playing well. We knew they really were going to come at us hard. It just didn’t seem like we had it at the start of the game, for whatever reason, and you have to fight through it. You can’t give in to it. It’s reality: We’re on a long trip and we’re playing the two best teams in the West these next two games and you have to respond to it somehow.”

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