A dominant Victor Wembanyama propelled the San Antonio Spurs to a 115-108 victory over Minnesota and a 2-1 lead in their NBA playoff series, while the red-hot New York Knicks beat Philadelphia again to take a 3-0 lead.
A defensive threat all night on Friday, French superstar Wembanyama took a tight, tense and physical game out of the Timberwolves' reach with impressive fourth-quarter offense, scoring 16 points.
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The 7-foot-4 prodigy, playing in his first NBA postseason, finished the night in Minneapolis with 39 total points to go along with 15 rebounds and five blocks.
“I'm made for this. I love this more than anything else,” Wembanyama said.
He added: “We have the talent. We have the depth. We don't have the experience, but we don't care… We can reach the top if we play consistently like tonight.”
Minnesota had been boosted by the return of its own talisman, Anthony Edwards, to the starting lineup.
Edwards shined in the Timberwolves' upset Game 1 victory, but still recovering from a knee injury, he had managed just 12 points off the bench in the Game 2 rout.
He immediately returned to his inspired form, playing aggressive but patient basketball to finish with 32 points, 14 rebounds and six assists, but in the end it wasn't enough.
The Timberwolves started poorly, missing their first 12 field goal attempts.
Wembanyama shined defensively, with two big early blocks setting the tone and forcing Minnesota to score from outside the paint.
The Timberwolves fought back and the game was tied 51-51 at halftime.
Superstars Edwards and Wembanyama dominated first-half scoring, going for 19 and 16 apiece, and everyone else combined to shoot just 30 percent from the field.
After the break, the game got angry. As Jaden McDaniels and Dylan Harper fought over a ball, Harper's falling head collided with McDaniels' knee.
Moments later, McDaniels and Stephon Castle shoved each other, leading to a fight between several players on both sides.
But Wembanyama stayed calm and finished strong, hitting two long-range three-pointers to seal the victory.
“Greatness,” said teammate De'Aaron Fox of Wembanyama's performance.
“Teams are going to come out here and try to be physical with him. He fights through it, he doesn't complain, he knows what he's going to endure,” he added.
“He comes here and produces.”
The Knicks win 3-0
Jalen Brunson starred again as the in-form Knicks beat the Philadelphia 76ers 108-94 to move within one win of the NBA Eastern Conference finals.
It was the sixth straight win for the Knicks, who haven't lost a game since rallying from a 2-1 deficit in their first-round playoff series with Atlanta.
After pushing New York over the line in a tense second game, Brunson looked composed as he scored 33 points and added nine assists.
It was backed by strong defensive performances, including a combined 23 rebounds from Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Hart, to put the Knicks up 3-0 in the best-of-seven series.
No team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit in a seven-game NBA series.
Playing in front of a loud home crowd for the first time in this series, the Sixers came out with tremendous energy from the start.
Philadelphia's Paul George scored 15 points in the first quarter alone as his team led by 12 against a Knicks team missing the injured OG Anunoby.
But the Knicks immediately fought back, stepping up defensively and scoring 33 points while shooting 57 percent in a stellar second quarter, to take the lead at halftime.
Towns and a returning Joel Embiid were locked in a feisty physical duel, with each player committing three fouls before halftime, in what at times looked like a wrestling match.
The Sixers briefly closed the gap to two points late in the third quarter before missing six straight shots, including a pair of bad aerials.
Buoyed by another late show from talisman Brunson, the Knicks pulled away in the fourth quarter and the Sixers gave up hope.
The third-seeded Knicks will try to sweep the best-of-seven series when the teams meet for Game 4 on Sunday in Philadelphia.
“All you can do is try to get the next one and see what happens.” Sixers coach Nick Nurse said. “If you can get one, it becomes 3-1 pretty quickly and you don't have to think about it being 3-0 anymore. But we're really going to have to dig in, regroup, make some adjustments and do things better.”
Embiid said his team can't “back down” as they face a daunting task.
“Know, [after coming back from 3-1 to beat the Celtics]this is more difficult. “Just understanding that we can’t get it all back in one game,” he said.
“One win, focus on the next one, win the next one, that should be the mentality. That's the mentality we had last week.”
