Barely a minute into the fourth quarter Wednesday, Minnesota’s Jake Layman took a fast-break pass from Jaden McDaniels and made an uncontested layup.
The Spurs, for all intents and purposes, were cooked.
The basket put the Timberwolves ahead by 15 points. The Spurs were 0-7 this season when trailing by at least that much.
That’s what made the Spurs’ comeback to a 111-108 victory so thrilling.
That rally also made their tepid first-half start all the more maddening.
Having been blasted by a combined 48 points in consecutive games against Memphis, the Spurs came out against lowly Minnesota - and promptly coughed up 64 first-half points to trail by 11 at intermission. They eventually fell behind by 16 points in the third quarter.
Give the Spurs credit for sticking in their on an otherwise ugly night.
Boosted by DeMar DeRozan’s 30 points and a season-best 19 points with four blocks from fill-in starting center Jakob Poeltl, the Spurs came roaring back in the fourth quarter.
The Spurs also gave up 18 points in the fourth quarter, after giving up 33 and 32 in the opening two frames.
Poeltl’s basket off a pass from Derrick White completed a 20-2 run that put the Spurs ahead 101-99 with 4:16 to play.
It was their first lead of the night, but they would never trail again.
The Spurs survived a 3-point heave from D’Angelo Russell at the final horn - which, unlike most of the Wolves’ 13 made 3-pointers, was well contested - to pocket the victory.
With it, the Spurs finished a seven-game homestand 4-3, and pushed their overall record to 12-10.
Here are three takeaways from the Spurs’ had-to-have-it win over the Western Conference’s last-place team:
All hands on deck in the frontcourt
The Spurs’ frontcourt rotation came into Wednesday with more hip injuries than a retirement home.
Starting center LaMarcus Aldridge missed the game with soreness in his right hip flexor soreness. Rudy Gay, the small-ball power forward on the Spurs’ second unit, sat out with tightness in his left hip flexor.
That meant the fourth start of the season for Poeltl, and increased minutes off the bench for Drew Eubanks and Trey Lyles.
All three of those players contributed to the Spurs’ victory.
Poeltl’s contributions were most glaring. He within a couple missed foul shots of surpassing his career high of 20 points - more on that later - grabbed eight rebounds and anchored the Spurs’ defense at the rim during their fourth-quarter surge.
Eubanks chipped in five points in eight minutes, while also supplying a block and three rebounds.
Lyles played 13 minutes - his most since Jan. 12 at Oklahoma City - and added a season-high nine points.
He had seven of those points in the fourth quarter as the Spurs mounted their comeback, and was part of Gregg Popovich’s closing unit. Lyles’ nifty driving layup with 2:02 to play put the Spurs ahead 110-106 - their largest lead of the game.
Aldridge is likely to miss a few more games, with Gay due back sooner. The Spurs were able to patch together a productive frontcourt rotation without them Wednesday.
Hak-A-Jak backfires
With 2:37 to play in a tie ballgame, Minnesota coach Ryan Saunders instructed his team to put Poeltl at the line on purpose.
Given Poeltl’s epic woes at the foul line this season - he was 7 for 28 heading into the game - the strategy made sense.
This time, it boomeranged on the Timberwolves in a sequence that put the Spurs ahead for good.
Poeltl made the first of the two shots to put the Spurs ahead by one point. He missed the second, as Minnesota hoped, but White poked the ball to DeRozan for the offensive rebound.
DeRozan followed with a tough jumper over rookie Anthony Edwards to give the Spurs a 108-105 lead.
Poeltl has never exactly been Steph Curry from the free-throw line, hitting a 51.4 percent for his career. Nevertheless, he has never been as errant as he has been this season.
He had to come out of the game down the stretch Wednesday because the Spurs couldn’t take a chance on him going to the line again.
On the bright side, Poeltl ended the game 1-for-3 from the foul stripe, raising his season percentage.
DeRozan paints a fourth-quarter masterpiece
It was shaping up to be another disastrous night for the Spurs until the fourth quarter.
That’s when DeRozan went Incredible Hulk. The indelible moment of his 16-point final frame came in the middle of the Spurs’ decisive run, a vicious driving dunk with 6:29 that also drew a foul on Minnesota’s Josh Okogie.
That 3-point play brought the Spurs within six, but the avalanche was already rolling downhill on the Wolves.
DeRozan’s huge fourth quarter resulted in his third 30-point game of the season, and his second to come against Minnesota. He had a season-best 38 in the Spurs’ overtime victory in Minneapolis on Jan. 9.
Having averaged 34 points in two meetings with the Timberwolves - DeRozan missed the Spurs’ Jan. 10 loss on personal business - his only regret might be the Spurs are finished with their season series against Minnesota.
jmcdonald@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN
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