Spurs' Ginobili suffers broken left hand

The San Antonio Spurs will be without one of their top players for the next few weeks after Manu Ginobili broke his left hand in Monday night's 106-96 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The injury occurred with 2:38 remaining in the first half when Timberwolves forward Anthony Tolliver tried to strip Ginobili of the ball as he attempted a shot from near the arc.

"I have the 5th metacarpal of my left hand fractured. I guess I'll miss a few weeks. Sad day 4 me," Ginobili tweeted after the game on his account, @manuginobili.

X-rays taken at the arena confirmed the break, according to the San Antonio Express-News. The two-time All-Star will be examined in San Antonio on Tuesday.

Ginobili leads the Spurs in scoring this season at 17.4 points per game and was shooting a team-high 59 percent from the field.

''It's going to be tough for us because he was playing at an All-Star level,'' said point guard Tony Parker, who had 11 points and nine assists. ''And now we're going to have to have everybody pick it up.''

The Spurs will get over the loss to Minnesota quickly. The loss of Ginobili could linger for a while.

The team's leading scorer is the emotional and fiery center of this proud, veteran team. With Tim Duncan getting older and having his minutes limited to save him for the postseason, the offense revolves around Ginobili's perimeter shooting and slashing to the basket.

''Manu is pretty important to us and we lost him,'' Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. ''We'll just have to deal with it.''

''He means a lot to the team,'' said James Anderson, who figures to get a lot of the playing time in Ginobili's absence. ''He's one of the biggest plusses to the team. Without him we lose a lot of stuff, and that's on both ends.''

The Associated Press contributed to this report.