Fresh off a stirring win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, the San Antonio Spurs traveled to Minnesota and were unprepared for the onslaught Ricky Rubio had in store for them during the Timberwolves' 107-83 win.
Rubio seems to have finally regained all his quickness after ACL surgery last season, because he ran circles around San Antonio en route to a 21-point, 13-rebound, 12-assist performance, the first triple-double of his career. After the game Rubio told reporters ''I just try to be aggressive all the time. Stats are the last thing I try to watch. The victory is the most important thing.'' Timberwolves head coach Rick Adelman had high praise for Rubio after the game, telling the media ''He's playing with such a resolve just trying to get us over the hump. You see it. He's had that effort, but we had so many people step up tonight and it really made a big difference.''
J.J. Barea and and Alexey Shved lifted the Timberwolves off the bench, scoring 17 and 16 points respectively, with Shved knocking down six of his eight shot attempts.
The Spurs, who are without All-Star Tony Parker for the next few weeks were also playing without Tim Duncan and Kawhi Leonard who remained in San Antonio with "sore left knees." It is possible that Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is just keeping his starters fresh and masking it under the guise of injury. Earlier in the year Popovich openly rested Parker, Duncan and Manu Ginobili and earned the organization a $250,000 fine from the league.
Any complaints about absent players likely fell on the Wolves' deaf ears. Minnesota has been without Kevin Love for much of the year and last night starting small forward Andrei Kirilenko was missing with a strained quadriceps and center Nikola Pekovic was out with an abdominal strain.
Popovich chided his team for their play, saying ''They played better than we did in a lot of ways. Both defensively and offensively they played a very good game and kicked our butt.''
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