CBSSports.com wire reports
Jan. 2, 2012

MINNEAPOLIS — Rick Adelman was wondering how his young Minnesota Timberwolves would handle their first taste of prosperity.

He couldn’t have been much happier after watching them thump the San Antonio Spurs, who now find themselves knee deep in adversity with the loss of star guard Manu Ginobili.

Kevin Lovehad 24 points and 15 rebounds to lead the Timberwolves to their second win in a row, 106-96 Monday night over the Spurs, who lost Ginobili to a broken left hand.

Luke Ridnour had 19 points and nine assists and Wes Johnson broke out of a shooting slump with 14 points and 6-for-6 shooting for the Timberwolves, who snapped an 18-game losing streak with a win over Dallas on Sunday.

“You’re not satisfied with last night, you build off of it,” said Adelman, whose Wolves scored 65 points in the first half on the second night of a back-to-back. “That’s what I just told them. We’ve got two more home games on this homestand and we want to build off it.”

Ginobili injured his shooting hand in the second quarter. The two-time All-Star will be examined in San Antonio on Tuesday.

“It’s going to be tough for us because he was playing at an All-Star level,” said point guard Tony Parker, who had 11 points and nine assists. “And now we’re going to have to have everybody pick it up.”

Tim Duncan had 16 points and five assists and Richard Jefferson scored 16 points for the Spurs.

The Timberwolves shot 58 percent for the game and were above 70 percent shooting midway through the third quarter.

Playing with five stitches in the index finger on his shooting hand, Michael Beasley had 19 points on 8-of-15 shooting and Johnson bounced back after going 3 for 13 in his previous two games.

“I was pressing,” Johnson said. “I was trying to find my shot moreso than letting it come to me. As I saw tonight, if I just be patient, it’s there.”

The Spurs will get over the loss to Minnesota quickly. The loss of Ginobili could linger for a while.

The team’s leading scorer is the emotional and fiery center of this proud, veteran team. With Duncan getting older and having his minutes limited to save him for the postseason, the offense revolves around Ginobili’s perimeter shooting and slashing to the basket.

“Manu is pretty important to us and we lost him,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “We’ll just have to deal with it.”

The former Sixth Man of the Year quickly walked to the locker room after he was injured for X-rays, which revealed a broken fifth metacarpal on his shooting hand.

“He means a lot to the team,” said James Anderson, who figures to get a lot of the playing time in Ginobili’s absence. “He’s one of the biggest plusses to the team. Without him we lose a lot of stuff, and that’s on both ends.”

Without Ginobili’s offensive punch, the Spurs simply couldn’t keep up with Minnesota’s torrid shooting.

The Spurs have hung their hats on the defensive end for years, building a championship foundation that let opponents know they were going to have to work for every bucket against Duncan and Co. Coming into the game, they held their previous two opponents to 4 for 33 on 3-pointers.

That’s why it was so startling to see the Timberwolves have such an easy time on Monday night. They shot a scorching 67 percent from the field in the first half, including 7 for 8 from 3-point range. A lot of those were wide open looks for Love, who buried 3 of 4 from long range thanks to superb ball movement from Ridnour and Ricky Rubio at the point.

The Wolves hit 12 of 21 shots from deep for the game.

Rubio, the impressive rookie from Spain, was quiet with six points and three assists in 24 minutes, but the veteran Ridnour more than picked up the slack by hitting seven of his 10 shots and two of three 3-pointers.

“There’s going to be so many games this year, if you can try to find a way to get on a run at home, it’s going to help you in the long run,” Ridnour said. “To be able to win two in a row against Dallas and San Antonio, for this team, is huge.”

Notes

• Timberwolves G JJ Barea sat out the game to rest his strained right hamstring.
• Spurs G Gary Neal, who has not played this season because of an appendectomy, has been assigned to the D-League Austin Toros to get some practice time in before rejoining the team.
• Danny Green played a solid 17 minutes for the Spurs, scoring nine points and playing tough defense on Rubio.

The San Antonio Spurs will be without one of their top players for the next few weeks after Manu Ginobili broke his left hand in Monday night’s 106-96 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The injury occurred with 2:38 remaining in the first half when Timberwolves forward Anthony Tolliver tried to strip Ginobili of the ball as he attempted a shot from near the arc.

“I have the 5th metacarpal of my left hand fractured. I guess I’ll miss a few weeks. Sad day 4 me,” Ginobili tweeted after the game on his account, @manuginobili.

X-rays taken at the arena confirmed the break, according to the San Antonio Express-News. The two-time All-Star will be examined in San Antonio on Tuesday.

Ginobili leads the Spurs in scoring this season at 17.4 points per game and was shooting a team-high 59 percent from the field.

”It’s going to be tough for us because he was playing at an All-Star
level,” said point guard Tony Parker, who had 11 points and nine
assists. ”And now we’re going to have to have everybody pick it up.”

The Spurs will get over the loss to Minnesota quickly. The loss of Ginobili could linger for a while.

The
team’s leading scorer is the emotional and fiery center of this proud,
veteran team. With Tim Duncan getting older and having his minutes limited
to save him for the postseason, the offense revolves around Ginobili’s
perimeter shooting and slashing to the basket.

”Manu is pretty important to us and we lost him,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. ”We’ll just have to deal with it.”

”He means a lot to the team,” said James
Anderson, who figures to get a lot of the playing time in Ginobili’s
absence. ”He’s one of the biggest plusses to the team. Without him we
lose a lot of stuff, and that’s on both ends.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

SAN ANTONIO: The San Antonio Spurs, not quite ready to be written off as too old and too slow to claim an NBA crown, routed the Los Angeles Clippers 115-90 on Wed­nes­day.

Manu Ginobili scored 24 points, leading six Spurs players who scored in double figures.

DeJuan Blair added 20 and Richard Jefferson chipped in 19. Tony Parker scored 14 points with nine assists, Tim Duncan scored 10 with eight rebounds and James Anderson added 12 off the bench as the Spurs shot 56.3% from the field.

The Spurs also made all 15 of their free throws, but coach Gregg Popovich said defence was the key to victory.

“Shots went in tonight,” Popovich said. “That’s what happens. Some nights they don’t drop. Tonight the best part of our game was defence.”

And that’s what was lacking for the Clippers, coach Vinny Del Negro said.

“Give San Antonio credit – they were cutting hard, they were moving the basketball, we were very stagnant,” he said. “We weren’t physical. We weren’t contesting shots…

“We played terrible, just from start to finish tonight,” Del Negro said.

“We had a little glimpse in the second quarter, I thought we did some good things. But they jumped on us in the third and we were just chasing them the rest of the game.”

The Clippers have been touted as a potential new power in the Western Conference after the arrival of All-Star point guard Chris Paul to team with Blake Griffin, the explosive talent who earned Rookie of the Year honours last season.

Griffin led the Clippers with 28 points, while Paul scored 10 on 3-of-10 shooting.

The Spurs, long a Western Conference force, won 61 games last season but were surprised in the first round of the playoffs by a young, energetic Memphis team, sparking predictions that the team led by 35-year-old Duncan and featuring 34-year-old Ginobili and 29-year-old Parker had passed their prime.

In their first two games of this lockout-shortened season, however, the Spurs have now beaten both Memphis and the Clippers.

San Antonio led by as many as 12 points before Griffin capped a Clippers surge by soaring for a basket that knotted the score at 52-52 late in the second quarter.

A Ginobili three-pointer saw the Spurs take a 58-54 lead at half-time, and San Antonio took firm control in the third period, when they out-scored Los Angeles by 21 points to take a 96-71 lead.

The comfortable victory meant Popovich was able to give his stars some rest. Duncan played 25 minutes, Parker 26 and Ginobili 27.

“You wouldn’t trade it,” Popovich said of the luxury of resting his veterans for significant minutes.

It could prove especially important in the hectic, lockout-shortened season.

“It was a good night for us, and to get some rest was surely welcome,” Popovich said.

In New Orleans, Jarrett Jack had 21 points and nine assists in his regular-season debut, and New Orleans dominated in their home opener, beating the winless Boston Celtics 97-78.

Danny Granger scored nine of his 21 points in the fourth quarter as Indiana Pacers beat the Raptors 90 to 85. Paul George had 18 points, David West scored 14 and Roy Hibbert had 12 points and 10 rebounds.

At Auburn Hills, Michigan, rookie Kyrie Irving had 14 points and seven assists to help Cleveland Cavaliers beat Detroit 105 to 89, spoiling the Pistons’ first home opener with new owner Tom Gores.

Meanwhile Joe Johnson led another balanced attack with 18 points as as Atlanta beat Washington 101 to 83.

At Denver, Nene scored 25 points, reserve Al Harrington had 18 points and seven rebounds, and Denver rolled over the Utah 117 to 100.

At Charlotte, North Carolina, Dwyane Wade hit a bank shot over Gerald Henderson with 2.9 seconds left to lift unbeaten Miami over Charlotte 96 to 95.

In the other games Oklahoma City beat Memphis 98 to 95, Golden State beat New York 92-78, Philadelphia routed Phoenix 103 to 83, Atlanta beat Washington 101 to 83. — Agencies

CBSSports.com wire reports
Dec. 28, 2011

SAN ANTONIO — The Los Angeles Clippers might be the talk of the Western Conference right now, but the San Antonio Spurs showed they still have plenty of life left.

Manu Ginobili scored 24 points and DeJuan Blair added 20 to lead the Spurs to a 115-90 win over the Clippers on Wednesday night.

Blake Griffin scored 28 points for the Clippers, while Chris Paul was held to 3-of-10 shooting and finished with 10 points.

Richard Jefferson added 19 points on 8-of-9 shooting for the Spurs, who have won 17 straight home games against the Clippers, a streak that dates to Jan. 31, 2002. Tony Parker scored 14 points, James Anderson 12 and Tim Duncan 10.

The Spurs hit 45 of 80 shots from the field while limiting the Clippers to 29-of-74 shooting. San Antonio led by only four points at halftime but outscored Los Angeles 38-17 in the third quarter to take control.

“Our defense in the second half was great,” Ginobili said. “They couldn’t get lobs. They scored under 40 in the second half. We were pretty good on defense. We moved the ball, and everybody scored.”

San Antonio outscored Los Angeles 57-36 in the second half.

“They tore us apart in that third quarter,” Griffin said. “Our defense needs to be better, and it can get better. The good thing about the mistakes out there is that they are easily correctable.”

While Blair didn’t limit Griffin’s scoring, he was able to do enough offensively to nearly offset him.

“I try to read them,” Blair said. “They’re very athletic. They jump high. I jump a little bit, but I’m undersized, so I just try to read them. Just look for schemes to get around the taller defenders. I watch a lot of Charles Barkley and Karl Malone, try to get a low shot. But I’m doing great with what I’m doing.”

The Clippers weren’t able to get closer than 19 in the fourth quarter. After DeAndre Jordan’s free throw made it 98-79, Ginobili hit a 3-pointer then found Blair for a short jumper to put the Spurs up 103-79.

“They’re dunkers,” Blair said while laughing when asked about the Clippers being called Lob City. “But, yeah, not tonight.

The Spurs hit 16 of 21 shots in the third, with Parker scoring 10 on 4-of-4 shooting from the field and 2 of 2 from the free throw line. Anderson converted a three-point play with 0.3 seconds left in the quarter to give San Antonio its biggest lead of the game at that point – 96-71.

“We were down four, and I look up to see we are down 68-58 at one point,” Paul said. “We are going to practice tomorrow and figure out what we did right and figure out what we did wrong. First things first, we need to start with me.”

The Spurs led 58-54 at halftime behind 16 points from Ginobili, who hit 4 of 6 attempts from 3-point range in the half.

Blair added 12 points on 6-of-8 shooting and Jefferson had 10, including a pair of 3-pointers. Griffin had 16 points in the first two quarters and scored all but four of those points on either layups or dunks.

San Antonio led by as many as 15 points in the first half, but the Clippers went on a 16-4 run and tied the game 52-all on Griffin’s dunk with 47 seconds left in the half.

The Spurs led 26-19 entering the second quarter after holding the Clippers to 8-of-22 shooting in the first. The Clippers jumped out to a 5-0 lead, but Ginobili responded by scoring the next nine points. Ginobili sandwiched two 3-pointers around three free throws after he was fouled by Chauncey Billups on a 3-pointer.

I’m kind of surprised,” Ginobili said of the team’s 2-0 start. “I didn’t think that the team was ready to have two games like this — to be so solid defensively. We’re looking sharp, but I don’t want to get too confident. I don’t think it’s fair or it’s true. We still have a long way to go. It just so happened we played two very good games.”

Notes

• Jordan hit 4 of 6 free throws. He went 4 of 12 in the opener against Golden State.
• Since Dec. 10, 1997, the Spurs have won 47 of 52 against the Clippers.
• The Spurs are off to a 2-0 start for the first time since 2008.
• The big win allowed the Spurs to rest several key players. Duncan played 26 minutes, while Ginobili and Parker played only 27.
• Caron Butler and Mo Williams each had 12 points for the Clippers. Billups had 11. Ginobili hit 5 of 8 3-pointers and 7 of 7 free throws.