Three-point shooting has played a bigger role for the Spurs vs. Wolves than it seems

The second round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs has been … interesting. On one hand, there’s been two yawner series, with the Thunder comfortably (albeit not dominantly) sweeping the short-handed Lakers, while the Knicks swept a tired, limping 76ers team in the East. On the other, you have two thrilling (but not “beautiful”) series heading into Game 6’s on Friday, with the Spurs up 3-2 on the Timberwolves, while the Cavaliers upset the Pistons in Detroit in Game 5 to take the series lead (in part thanks to a controversial no-call at the end of regulation).

Spurs-Timberwolves has been by far the more interesting series (of course, I could be biased) in large part thanks to its unpredictability, differing factors in each game, and strange outliers. It all started with no one knowing that status of Anthony Edwards coming in, and everything has stayed weird since. For example in Game 1, Victor Wembanyama set an NBA playoffs record with 12 blocks, which you would think would doom an offensively-challenged team like Minnesota, but instead, the overexertion he caused himself chasing blocks robbed him of any energy on the offensive side, and a historic defensive performance still resulted in a Spurs loss.

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Then, Wemby getting himself ejected early in the second quarter of Game 4 was arguably the biggest factor leading to that loss, but otherwise the Spurs have won the other three games in which he has stayed within himself by a combined 74 points, playing like the superstar he is without doing too much or too little.

However, Wemby isn’t the only factor that has helped determine how the games have gone. It certainly helps when at least two of the guard trio of De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper have above average games, and Keldon Johnson finally having his postseason breakout was huge in putting Game 5 away after Minnesota had rallied back, but perhaps the most interesting stat line to follow for both teams has been three-point shooting.

Both are shooting a poorly from the arc in this series, with the Wolves hitting 53-156 (34%) and the Spurs an even worse 55-166 (33%). It isn’t too…

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Publish date : 2026-05-14 18:29:00

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