Wolves Wednesday: Spurs without Duncan

MINNEAPOLIS – Andrei Kirilenko is out for the Timberwolves’ game against the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday. San Antonio will be missing Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan. Kirilenko strained his right quad in the final two minutes of the first quarter of Monday’s loss to Portland. The timetable for his return is not precise, but the small forward said he thinks he’ll miss three to four days, which would put his return likely for the game in Memphis on Sunday or Cleveland on Monday. He seemed hesitant to say he’d be ready in time for Friday’s game against the Knicks. Some daunting Spurs stats: The Spurs are on a 10-game winning streak despite missing Duncan and Ginobili during part of the stretch. (Each has missed five of the team’s past 10 games.) In fact, over the past three seasons, the Spurs have had six 10-plus game winning streaks; all other teams combined have had seven over that time period. The Spurs have also been allowing an average of 90.8 points per game to opponents over those 10 games, which is the fourth-lowest of any team in the league over that stretch. That’s not good for a Timberwolves offense that’s already struggling, to say the least. Two days left: Wednesday will be the last game on the 10-day contracts of Mickael Gelabale and Chris Johnson. The deals expire after Thursday, and the Timberwolves will have to make a decision. They cannot sign either to a third 10-day deal per league rules, and the injury exception, if extended, only permits the Timberwolves to sign a player to a 10-day contract in that 16th spot. Thus, in order to keep both, they’d have to sign them for the rest of the season and waive a player on the current roster, most likely Lou Amundson. Gelabale said at Wednesday’s shootaround that he’s not 100 percent and has been suffering from a quad problem, but that he’ll play through it Wednesday in his last shot to make an impression. He said he hasn’t heard that there have been any talks between his agent and the Timberwolves yet but that those should come in the next day or two.
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