Anthony Edwards Expected to Play Game 1 vs. Spurs — What His Return Means for Wolves Props

Anthony Edwards is expected to suit up Monday night for Minnesota in Game 1 of its second-round series against the San Antonio Spurs, per ESPN's Shams Charania. The return comes just nine days after Edwards badly hyperextended his left knee and sustained a bone bruise — an injury that knocked him out of the final two games of the Nuggets series. He was spotted at shootaround in San Antonio Monday morning with a sleeve on the knee, working through a shooting routine that included dribble stepbacks to test the joint under game-like stress.

Earlier in the week, Timberwolves sources were pointing to Game 3 as a realistic return target, so this is an accelerated timeline. Edwards has a well-documented reputation as a fast healer — Julius Randle, speaking to reporters Monday, called him a 'Wolverine,' recounting how the star guard routinely absorbs hits that look serious and bounces back within minutes. That track record gave the franchise confidence to push the envelope here. Still, the team's own cautious phrasing — 'barring a pregame setback' — signals this remains fluid right up until tip-off.

The Spurs went 62-20 this regular season, the best record in the West, and represent a significant step up in defensive sophistication from the Nuggets. Minnesota is already without guard Ayo Dosunmu, who missed Game 6 of Round 1 with a right calf issue after dropping 43 points in Game 5. That's two backcourt contributors carrying injury tags heading into a series where depth and ball movement will be tested every night.

For prop bettors, the critical variable isn't whether Edwards plays — it's how much Edwards plays and at what efficiency. Books have already priced his scoring line assuming full participation; if he's limited to 30-32 minutes on a managed workload while protecting that knee, the over on his points prop becomes a much thinner edge than the number implies. His regular-season scoring average of 25.9 points and first-round output prior to the injury were built on 36+ minutes of aggressive, attacking basketball. A player protecting a bone bruise tends to shy away from contact — fewer trips to the line, fewer pull-ups off hard stops. Watch his assists and playmaking lines too: when Edwards is managing an injury, his shot attempts dip and his pass-first tendencies occasionally surface, which can inflate assist numbers slightly while deflating scoring ones.

The smarter angle tonight may be the PRA total. If Edwards is genuinely limited — even subtly — and the Wolves lean on Karl-Anthony Towns' replacement production and Randle's physicality to compensate, the team's offensive distribution shifts in ways that compress individual ceilings across the board. Fade Edwards' points prop if it's set at 24.5 or higher for Game 1, and monitor in-game minutes as the clearest real-time signal of how much Minnesota is actually trusting that knee.