Minnesota Timberwolves: Player grades from win over San Antonio Spurs

The Minnesota Timberwolves have won two games in a row for just the second time this season after a dominant victory over the San Antonio Spurs.

Minnesota Timberwolves: Player grades from win over San Antonio Spurs

The Wolves led wire-to-wire in an impressive win over Gregg Popovich’s Spurs on Wednesday night.

Sure, the Spurs came into the game with a 4-10 record, but they had played a tough schedule and suffered some close losses to good teams. They also had Jakob Poeltl back, albeit in a limited role, after he had missed half of their games due to injury.

The Wolves jumped out to a 13-0 lead with Anthony Edwards scoring the first seven points of the game. They led 22-3 before the Spurs began to push back.

While Edwards cooled off, Karl-Anthony Towns and D’Angelo Russell both had impressive and complete games. Minnesota also saw both Taurean Prince and Jaden McDaniels play their best games of the season to this point, helping to support Towns and D’Lo with a truly dangerous perimeter attack. Edwards only scored six points on the night after his initial flurry.

The Wolves shot 42.9 percent on 3-point attempts. It was only the second game all season that the Wolves managed to shoot north of 40 percent from long-range, along with the opening-night win over the Houston Rockets.

San Antonio pulled within single digits a couple of times, but things never really seemed to be in doubt as the Wolves pulled away in the fourth quarter.

Minnesota Timberwolves: Player grades from win over San Antonio Spurs

The Wolves’ three best players were great once again, but they also received solid performances from some of their ancillary pieces.

Karl-Anthony Towns: A

25 points (9-16 FG, 3-4 3P, 4-6 FT), 12 rebounds, 5 assists, one block

This was arguably Towns’ most complete game of the season. He scored inside and out and had the opportunity to create from a variety of places on the floor as head coach Chris Finch made a concerted effort to get him the ball in advantageous positions.

Towns was solid defensively and on the glass and trimmed back his turnovers to just two compared to his five assists in 38 minutes.

D’Angelo Russell: B

22 points (6-19 FG, 4-12 3P, 6-7 FT), 5 assists, 3 rebounds, one steal, one block

Russell had some spotty moments, but overall was impressive and continues to improve over his rough early season play.

D’Lo controlled tempo and made good decisions, knocking down some big 3-pointers, including a 4-point play, and even scoring in the paint and getting to the free throw line.

Taurean Prince: A

13 points (4-6 FG, 3-5 3P, 2-2 FT), 3 rebounds

Prince had what was easily the best performance of his Wolves career, knocking down open threes with confidence and finally looking like he belongs.

Unfortunately, his night was cut short when he hit Lonnie Walker in the face with the heel of his palm trying to wall up in front of the basket. Prince was called for a Flagrant 2 foul upon review, and he had to spend the rest of the night in the locker room.

Jaden McDaniels: A

13 points (6-8 FG, 1-2 3P), 6 rebounds, one assist, one steal, one block

McDaniels had one of his better games of the season as well, scoring on a variety of cuts to the rim and dump-off passes from Towns and others. He knocked down a tough three from the right wing as well and finally began to look comfortable on both ends of the floor.

The Wolves have Friday off before hosting the Memphis Grizzlies at Target Center on Saturday night.