Rush to greatness:<\/strong> With their rout of the Timberwolves, the Spurs joined some elite company by becoming just the fifth team in\u00a0NBA history to reach the conference finals after missing the postseason for six or more seasons.<\/p>\nIn their first playoff appearance since 2019, the Spurs reached the Western Conference finals by vanquishing Timberwolves in six games. The other teams to make such an impressive leap after similar long droughts are the 1976-77 Portland Trail Blazers, the 2001-02 Boston Celtics, the 2019-20 Los Angeles Lakers and the 2020-21 Phoenix Suns.<\/p>\n
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Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (5) gets the fans fired up with a big play as San Antonio Spurs guard Devin Vassell (24) looks away during the first half of Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals at Target Center in Minneapolis, Friday, May 15, 2026.<\/p>\n
Sam Owens\/San Antonio Express-News![\"San]()
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San Antonio Spurs guard Dylan Harper (2) reacts after Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (5) fouled him during the second half of Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals at Target Center in Minneapolis, Friday, May 15, 2026. The Spurs defeated the Timberwolves 139-109 and will advance to the Western Conference Finals to face the Oklahoma City Thunder.<\/p>\n
Sam Owens\/San Antonio Express-News![\"San]()
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San Antonio Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama (1) gets the layup past Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (5) during the first half of Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals at Target Center in Minneapolis, Friday, May 15, 2026.<\/p>\n
Sam Owens\/San Antonio Express-News![\"Minnesota]()
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Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (5) goes up for a shot over San Antonio Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama (1) during the second quarter of Game 6 in the Western Conference semifinals at Target Center in Minneapolis, Friday, May 15, 2026. The Spurs defeated the Timberwolves 139-109 and will advance to the Western Conference Finals to face the Oklahoma City Thunder.<\/p>\n
Sam Owens\/San Antonio Express-News![\"San]()
<\/p>\n
San Antonio Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama (1) gets the layup past Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (5) during the first half of Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals at Target Center in Minneapolis, Friday, May 15, 2026.<\/p>\n
Sam Owens\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
The Bill Walton-led Blazers team and the LeBron James-led Lakers squad went on to win the NBA championship.<\/p>\n
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The Spurs think they can do the same after becoming the first team in NBA history to win three separate games in a playoff series by at least 29 points.<\/p>\n
“We’re a really talented group that plays together and plays very selfish and we’re all young,”\u00a0Castle said.<\/p>\n
Offense sizzled in close-out game:<\/strong> The 139 points the Spurs scored in Game 1 marked the third-most points tallied in a playoff game in\u00a0franchise history.<\/p>\nThe Spurs had 152 in Game 1 of the 1983 West semifinals and 145 in Game 7 of those same West semifinals against Denver.<\/p>\n
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“We have a lot of young guys that are very talented,” Castle said. “It could be anybody’s night on any given night. We’re just very selfless and the way we move the ball is just fun to play.”<\/p>\n
Barnes praised:<\/strong> Johnson held up Harrison Barnes as an example of the unselfishness that has been a trademark of the Spurs all season.<\/p>\nThe 33-year-old forward’s numbers dwindled against the\u00a0Timberwolves to the point that he didn’t enter Game 6 until the start of the fourth quarter, but the coach made sure to praise him for his team-first attitude.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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“It’s been pretty fun when you see a group of guys willing to give themselves to the team, the process, regardless of what that means for themselves,” Johnson said. “Harrison Barnes tonight didn’t play to the fourth quarter, but had monster plays again. I know the score was what it was, but you need every single possession.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (5) pleads his case to referee James Capers (19) during the first half…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":801018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,7202,7203,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-801017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-san-antonio","10":"tag-sanantonio","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116585395824843637","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}