Stephon Castle Scorches Timberwolves' Game Plan as Spurs Reach the West Finals

The San Antonio Spurs are going to the Western Conference finals for the first time since 2017.

Stephon Castle had 32 points, 11 rebounds, and 6 assists, and the Spurs rolled past the Minnesota Timberwolves 139-109 on Friday night at Target Center to close out the second-round series in six games.

San Antonio, the No. 2 seed, draws defending champion Oklahoma City in Game 1 on Monday night. The Thunder got there by sweeping their first two series.

The Spurs led wire-to-wire and pushed the margin as high as 37 points. They outscored Minnesota by 97 points over the six games and never trailed by double digits at any point in the series.

Victor Wembanyama had 19 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, and 4 blocks. De'Aaron Fox added 21 points and 9 assists, and rookie Dylan Harper chipped in 15 off the bench.

The series rarely strayed from that script. San Antonio used its pace to wear down a heavier, more physical Minnesota team, and Wembanyama said the Spurs won "almost by 30 every time" they grabbed an early lead.

Castle did not wait around. He scored 14 of his points in the first quarter, and by the time Minnesota found its footing the Spurs were long gone.

He finished 11-of-16 from the floor and 5-of-7 from 3-point range. The outside shot used to be the soft spot in his game. It is not anymore.

Minnesota changed its plan for Game 6, and it backfired fast. For the first time in the series, the Timberwolves put Rudy Gobert on Castle, keeping their rim protector close to home against Wembanyama and living with whatever Castle did from the perimeter. He buried them, and the Spurs said they had seen it coming.

"That was the first time that they put Rudy on Steph, and this is something that we've seen before in the past, not with this team but with other teams, and we were prepared," Fox said.

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch knew the trade-off going in.

"We flipped the matchups around and tried to do some things to maybe slow down their start," Finch said. "But it allowed Castle to get hot early. That certainly wasn't the plan, though we knew we'd be giving up some clean looks to him."

Wembanyama saw it as confirmation of something San Antonio already understood.

"We already know, but now it's even more obvious why they didn't do that the first five games," Wembanyama said of Castle's shooting.

The Spurs shot Minnesota out of the building. San Antonio knocked down 18 of its 38 tries from 3-point range, a franchise postseason record for 3-pointers made.

Fox went 3-of-3 from deep and 8-of-10 overall. Julian Champagnie scored 18 points and hit 4 of his 9 from beyond the arc. Harper added 15 on 6-of-8 shooting.

Minnesota had no answer for the size and shooting of the San Antonio backcourt, not with Wembanyama already pulling the defense apart inside. The Spurs shot 55.7% from the field and assisted on 34 of their 49 baskets.

Wembanyama did not have a big night on the scoreboard, and it did not matter. The 7-foot-4 center scored 19 points in 27 minutes against a Minnesota defense built to take him away, but he blocked 4 shots and made the Wolves think twice every time they got near the rim.

It came a game after he answered his Game 4 ejection with 27 points, 17 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 blocks in the Game 5 blowout.

"Of course we're confident, but we need to keep the right confidence level," Wembanyama said. "Right now, I'm not even thinking about it. I'm just thinking about recovering."

The Spurs have not had to grind for this. They knocked out Portland in five games in the first round, then took down a Minnesota team that had reached the conference finals each of the past two years.

"It shows that we already gained a little bit of experience from our short playoff time," Wembanyama said. "I feel like we put ourselves in the best conditions, as simple as that."

Minnesota could not keep up. Anthony Edwards scored 24 points but needed 26 shots to get them, going 9-of-26 as San Antonio threw double-teams at him for most of the series.

The bench did most of the rest. Terrence Shannon Jr. had 21 points and Naz Reid added 18. The starting frontcourt gave them next to nothing. Julius Randle went 1-of-8 for 3 points, and Gobert did not score at all, missing all 4 of his shots.

"It just felt like we kind of ran out of bullets as this series went on," Finch said.

The Wolves shot 37.7% for the game. San Antonio scored 58 in the paint, hit Minnesota for 17 fast-break points, and turned 12 offensive rebounds into 21 second-chance points.

This is the third year in a row the Timberwolves have trailed by 30 or more in an elimination game. They were down 29 at halftime when Dallas closed them out in Game 5 of the 2024 Western Conference finals, and 33 at the break in a Game 5 loss at Oklahoma City in last year's conference finals.

It got lopsided enough Friday that Edwards walked all the way down to the San Antonio bench with about eight minutes left, shaking hands while both coaches cleared their rotations.

"I just tip my hat to them," Edwards said. "They were just the better team."

Edwards traced the problem back well before the playoffs.

"We've just got to listen to the coaches," he said. "We had a hard time processing stuff and going out there and doing it. We tried to do stuff on our own. I think that's our problem. You're supposed to build championship habits during the regular season."

Minnesota finished 49-33, the same record it posted a year ago.

San Antonio's reward is the defending champion. Oklahoma City finished with the best record in the league, and the Spurs went 5-1 against the Thunder in the regular season while winning 62 games of their own.

The series puts two of the three MVP finalists on the same floor, with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander matched against Wembanyama. Game 1 is Monday night in Oklahoma City.

Spurs coach Mitch Johnson credited a group that bought in.

"Those guys in that locker room have given themselves to the team and each other," Johnson said. "It's been pretty fun when you see a group of guys do that."

Wembanyama was still catching up to all of it.

"Just the words 'conference finals' is crazy," he said. "It's like something I heard my whole life, and now being in it is just special."

San Antonio was careless with the ball and still won by 30. The Spurs turned it over 16 times and gave Minnesota 21 points off those mistakes, the only category the Timberwolves clearly won. It bought them nothing.

San Antonio never trailed, and the game featured no lead changes or ties. The Spurs could afford the giveaways because they were better everywhere else, including at the rim, where they blocked 13 shots. Luke Kornet had 4 of them to go with 6 points and 6 rebounds off the bench.

San Antonio opens the Western Conference finals at Oklahoma City on Monday night. The Spurs went 5-1 against the Thunder in the regular season. Oklahoma City reached this round without losing a game, sweeping its first two series.

Minnesota heads into an offseason full of questions about a veteran core of Gobert, Randle, and Mike Conley, with Donte DiVincenzo recovering from a right Achilles tendon repair. Edwards, who played a career-low 61 games this season, turns 25 in August and remains the player Minnesota builds around.

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