SAN ANTONIO _ Timberwolves three-time All Star Jimmy Butler predicted Wednesday's season opener at San Antonio might not be pretty, but it might begin to reveal his team's nature.
He's 2-0 in predictions while the Wolves are now 0-1 in the standings after a 107-99 loss to the Spurs at AT&T Center.
Before Wednesday's game, Butler wasn't prepared to promise aesthetics so soon.
"I'm not going to say this is going to be the most pure, beautiful basketball you've ever seen," he said. "I'm not going to say that's what is going to happen. But as long as we compete, do the right things out there on the floor, we'll be in a great position to win. Obviously, going against a phenomenal team and a phenomenal coach, I'm not going to say anything is going to be easy. That's for sure."
He also said he didn't have any "question marks" about his new team, but added, "I just want to know if we're going to be the toughest team night in and night out."
They weren't tough enough Wednesday, when they lost to the Spurs for the 12th consecutive time, dating to 2014.
Debuting three new starters and eight new faces on the opening-night roster, the Wolves trailed by as many 13 points and couldn't hold a fleeting one-point lead with five minutes remaining.
It wasn't pretty and it wasn't tough enough to beat a Spurs team that just kept going even with injured stars Kawhi Leonard and Tony Parker out.
Trailing 87-74 late in the third quarter, Wolves forward Nemanja Bjelica ended the quarter with a 3-point shot with three-tenths of a second remaining and then started an 8-0 run that began the fourth quarter by completing a three-point play.
Veteran Jamal Crawford provided a three-point play of his own and Shabazz Muhammad finished off the eight consecutive points when he gathered a shot that teammate Karl-Anthony Towns had blocked and on the full run soared and dunked it down with nine minutes left in the game.
When Spurs forward Kyle Anderson answered back, Bjelica followed with yet another three-point play that brought the Wolves within 89-88 with 8:01 left.
Butler's jump shot with five minutes left briefly pushed the Wolves back into the lead at 92-91, but the Spurs scored the next nine points, including Danny Green's corner 3-pointer, to push their lead back to 100-92 with 1:42 left.
With Leonard out, Spurs veteran David Aldridge's 25 points led his team while young star Andrew Wiggins' 26 points led the Wolves.
Butler delivered a 12-point, 4-rebound, 3-assist game in his Wolves' debut.
Wiggins scored 12 of those 26 points in the third quarter.
Even without Leonard and Parker, the Spurs still put forth a team that _ with players such as Manu Ginobili, Danny Green, Pau Gasol and LaMarcus Aldridge, _ that knows each other and coach Gregg Popovich's long-standing systems.
The Wolves haven't beaten them since they won an April 2014 game that was rescheduled after a game set to be played in Mexico City was smoked out by a fire 90 minutes before the opening tip.
Before Wednesday's game, Crawford called both Popovich and the Spurs the game's "gold standard."
"It doesn't matter who's in, who's out, the find a way and I think that's what makes them special," Crawford said. "They're the blueprint. They've been the blueprint. They have been the last 15 years in the NBA. It doesn't matter who's playing for them."
