SAN ANTONIO _ On other nights in years past, the Wolves might have let their anger at the officials get the best of them, and they might have let foul trouble to Karl-Anthony Towns sink any chance of winning.
But Wednesday in San Antonio, the Wolves overcame all that and finally picked up a 113-101 victory in one of their hardest places to play. The Wolves won for the first time at the AT&T Center since April 17, 2013 and it came after Towns, Robert Covington and Ryan Saunders all picked up third-quarter technical fouls and Towns had to go to the bench in the third and fourth quarters with foul trouble.
Towns still finished with 23 points and 14 rebounds while Andrew Wiggins overcame missing his first five shots to score 26. DeMar DeRozan had 20 and LaMarcus Aldridge 22 for the Spurs.
At the 8:08 mark of the fourth, the Wolves got the bad end of a challenge from Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. Officials called DeRozan for a block on a Towns drive, but after Popovich challenged, the NBA's replay center overturned the call and it turned into Towns' fifth foul with the Wolves ahead 91-86. Within two minutes, the Spurs had the lead 92-91.
But the Wolves clawed back. Robert Covington his a three, Wiggins drove for a layup and Gorgui Dieng hit a jumper on a 7-0 run. The Wolves were just getting going. Eventually Towns would rejoin the party as the Wolves went on another 9-2 run that made the score 107-96 to clinch the victory. The finished shooting 18 of 40 from three-point range.
The first quarter was Towns and not much else for Minnesota. He started the game hitting his first two threes from deep and scored 12 in the quarter on 5 of 8 shooting. His hot start helped the Wolves open a 16-7 lead. But his cast mates had trouble finding their shots and were just 2 of 13.
The second quarter went much smoother for the Wolves. It began with two of the heroes from Monday's victory over Atlanta, Gorgui Dieng (10 points) and Keita Bates-Diop (16 points), providing some much-needed scoring off the bench with Towns resting.
The Wolves kept building their lead, turning a 33-30 game into 40-32 after a three from Bates-Diop.
Towns would re-enter halfway through the period and the Wolves didn't let up, increasing their lead to as much as 13 as Wiggins got a few shots to fall after going 0-for-5 to start the game. The Wolves lead 57-47 at halftime as San Antonio shot just 39% in the first half and 2 of 15 from three-point range.
The Wolves got a little heated in the third quarter and after they did, the Wolves made their run. It began innocently enough, and the Wolves were cruising along maintaining their lead. Then DeRozan pushed Covington during a battle for a loose ball. It went uncalled.
Then on the next Spurs possession, Covington got called for a foul on the perimeter, and got whistled for a technical complaining about that.
A few moments later, the officials called an offensive foul on Towns against a backpedaling DeRozan. Towns disagreed with the call, his fourth foul, and he got a technical. Seconds later, Ryan Saunders got a technical and Towns headed to the bench. But that wouldn't be the end of the night.
