Timberwolves rally to win Game 4, tie Western semifinal with Spurs

Minnesota didn’t just survive Game 4. The Timberwolves grabbed a series that was starting to tilt away from them, beat San Antonio 114-109 on Sunday, May 10, and turned this West semifinal back into a best-of-three. Anthony Edwards closed it, Naz Reid gave them needed edge, and the whole thing changed when Victor Wembanyama got ejected in the second quarter for a Flagrant 2 after catching Reid in the neck with an elbow. (nba.com) ### Why did this game swing so hard? Because Minnesota was staring at a 3-1 hole, and then the night got weird. Wembanyama went out with San Antonio still very much in it, and the obvious read was that the Spurs would fold. They didn’t. San Antonio actually pushed ahead by eight in the fourth even without its best player, which made Minnesota’s response matter more than the ejection itself. The Wolves still had to execute late — and this time they did. (nba.com) ### What did Edwards actually do? He was the closer. NBA.com’s series page lists him with 36 points in Game 4, and that tracks with how the game felt — Minnesota needed one player to settle the offense and create clean looks once the Spurs turned it into a grind. Edwards has now been the biggest scoring force in the series for Minnesota, averaging 24.5 points through four games, and Game 4 was the sharpest version of that yet. (nba.com) ### Was this only about Wembanyama’s ejection? Not really. The ejection was the hinge, but not the whole door. San Antonio had already shown in Games 2 and 3 that it could overwhelm Minnesota with pace, size, and shotmaking. Even in Game 4, after losing Wembanyama with more than half the game left, the Spurs stayed organized enough to threaten a road win. So the bigger takeaway is that Minnesota finally matched the desperation of the moment instead of waiting for talent to bail it out. (nba.com) ### Why was Minnesota in trouble to begin with? Because the Spurs had owned the middle of the series. San Antonio answered Minnesota’s 104-102 Game 1 win with a 133-95 blowout in Game 2 and then a 115-108 win in Game 3. That’s not a fluky split. That’s a favorite taking control. Minnesota’s Game 4 win matters because it stopped the series from becoming a short one and erased San Antonio’s home-court edge from here forward only in the loosest sense — the Spurs still get Game 5 at home. (nba.com) ### So what changes going into Game 5? Pressure, mostly. The series is 2-2 now, and Game 5 is set for Tuesday, May 12, in San Antonio at 8 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock. That means the Spurs go from “one win from command” to “back in a coin-flip series,” while Minnesota goes from near-collapse to having a real path again. In playoff terms, that’s a huge emotional swing — even if the bracket now looks neat and symmetrical. (nba.com) ### What’s the real basketball question now? Whether Minnesota can create this version of the game without chaos helping it. The Wolves want a physical series with Edwards deciding late possessions and Reid punishing smaller lineups. The Spurs want the cleaner version — Wembanyama on the floor, their young guards attacking downhill, and Minnesota’s offense forced into tougher half-court possessions. Game 4 showed Minnesota’s ceiling in this matchup. It did not prove that ceiling is easy to reach twice more. (nba.com) ### Bottom line? Game 4 didn’t finish the story. It reopened it. Minnesota got the rally it absolutely had to have, but the catch is simple — now it has to do the hard part on the road, with San Antonio likely getting a calmer and far more dangerous version of Wembanyama back in Game 5. (nba.com)