Mikal Bridges scored a season-high 41 points, and the New York Knicks overcame 42 from Victor Wembanyama in a monster Christmas debut to edge the San Antonio Spurs 117-114 on Wednesday in New York.

Wembanyama set a Spurs’ record for points on the holiday and added 18 rebounds, four assists and four blocked shots. The reigning Western Conference player of the week made six 3-pointers.

But Bridges shot 17 for 25 from the field, 6 for 9 behind the arc, to make sure the Knicks had just enough offense to win their fifth in a row and improve to 20-10.

Karl-Anthony Towns added 21 points and nine rebounds, and Jalen Brunson scored 20 points. Josh Hart finished with 12 points, 12 boards and six assists.

Jeremy Sochan had 21 points and nine rebounds for the Spurs.

Twins

Reliever Moran traded for Boston’s Gaspar

It’s been a slow-moving offseason for the Twins, who have done little in the way of adding to their major league roster. But they did upgrade their position player depth on Tuesday, swinging a trade between two minor leaguers.

The Twins acquired utilityman Mickey Gasper from the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday, trading away left-handed reliever Jovani Moran, who spent all of last season recovering from Tommy John surgery.

Gasper, 29, debuted last season and played in 13 major league games, going hitless in 23 plate appearances. He spent most of the season between Double-A Portland and Triple-A Worcester, where he hit a combined .328 with a .970 OPS. He split his time last season catching as well as playing first and second base.

To get him, the Twins parted with Moran, who has a 4.15 career earned-run average with 112 strikeouts in 91 innings in parts of three seasons with the Twins.

-- Betsy Helfand

Gophers football

Nebraska receiver Coleman coming to U

The Gophers football program has added a second receiver commitment in two days via the NCAA transfer portal.

Nebraska transfer Malachi Coleman pledged to Minnesota on Tuesday and will have three years of eligibility at the U.

“Let’s rock,” he posted on social media.

Coleman was a top 70 recruit in the nation out of Lincoln (Neb.) East in the class of 2023, but didn’t play much in 2024.

Listed at 6-foot-4 and 190 pounds, Coleman played in only one game in 2024, using his redshirt season. As a true freshman in 2023, Coleman had eight receptions for 139 yards and one touchdown.

In 2023, he received an average grade out 58.0 by Pro Football Focus and was primarily a split receiver for 332 out of 335 total offensive snaps.

Coleman follows two other wideouts to Minnesota: Logan Loya (UCLA) on Monday and Jaovn Tracy (Miami of Ohio) on Dec. 15.

-- Andy Greder

College football

Playoff TV ratings trumped by NFL

A pair of Saturday NFL games drew a larger viewing audience than college football for the rollout of the sport’s 12-team playoff.

The playoff game between SMU and Penn State averaged 6.4 million viewers on TNT networks, compared with the Texans-Chiefs game on NBC, which averaged 15.5 million viewers.

Later, Clemson-Texas drew 8.6 million viewers on TNT, compared with 15.4 million for Steelers-Ravens on Fox.

ESPN, ABC and others aired the other two college games — Indiana-Notre Dame (13.4 million) on Friday night and Tennessee-Ohio State (14.3 million) on Saturday night. There were no competing NFL games.

The overall average of 10.6 million viewers was higher than all but four college games.

Briefly

NBA >> Miami forward Jimmy Butler is expected to miss his third consecutive game when the Heat face Orlando on Thursday.

— From news services