MINNEAPOLIS - Small forward Kawhi Leonard led the San Antonio Spurs to their 13th road win of the season by beating the Minnesota Timberwolves, 105-91, on Tuesday night at the Target Center.
Leonard, the reigning back-to-back defensive player of the year, had a quiet opening frame before exploding in the second quarter with 12 points.
"He (Leonard) is a confident player, he knows he has
the green light. He's getting pretty good at pick-and-roll" Spurs coach Greg Popovich said.
Leonard said he has worked on that fade away shot for years through assistant coach Chip Engelland and the rest of the Spurs coaching staff. Engelland is a former Philippine Basketball Association import who helped the Philippines capture the prestigious 1986 Jones Cup.
Without Tony Parker, who was sidelined by a bruised left knee, Argentine Nicolas Laprovittola started at point guard for San Antonio. But it was Leonard who ran the show, finishing with 31 points and went 11 of 15 from the field.
"Having a green light doesn't mean you just shoot every possession" Leonard during post game interview.
Reserve guard Patty Mills contributed 15 points, Pau Gasol and Kyle Anderson had 11 each and Laprovittola 10.
Zach LaVine topscored for the Wolves with 25 points
while Gorgui Dieng submitted 16, Kris Dunn had 15 points off the bench while Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins had 11 each.
"You have to eliminate all the ways in which you beat yourself first, so we have to understand that, we have to improve in that area" Wolves coach Tom Thibodeau said.
Up Next
The Timberwolves (6-15) heads out to Toronto and face the Raptors on Thursday night while the Spurs (18-4), ranked 2nd in the West and 13-0 on the road, heads to Chicago to face the Bulls on the same night. This is the first visit of Gasol and his Spurs against his former team
On the other hand Mills, the sweet shooting guard from Australia said he's very interested to visit the Philippines.
In an exclusive interview of Philboxing.com and Sunstar Superbalita Cebu, Mills said he's grateful upon hearing that a lot of Spurs fans in the Philippines.
"Spurs fans around the world especially in the Philippines, the support is always great to hear" Mills said "If there's a chance
and opportunity to come up and go over and say hello, how grateful I am, I have a lot of Filipino and child hood friends in my Hometown (Canberra, Capital City of Australia), that I get along very close.
Photo: guard Patty mills (left) of San Antonio Spurs before the game.
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