The Timberwolves and Mavericks played in Dallas on Sunday night, and the Mavs won the seven-game Western Conference finals series 3-0. Staff writer Chris Hine filed these reports from the American Airlines arena:
Stats and play-by-play from Game 3
9:36 pm: Mavericks control the final minutes and cruise to victory
To continue their season, the Timberwolves must do what no other NBA team has done: come back from a 3-0 deficit in a playoff series.
They blew a late lead and fell to the Mavericks 116-107.
Dallas had two of its best players in the series, and the Wolves were outplayed late, as they went 4 minutes, 50 seconds without a field goal in the fourth quarter.
Kyle Anderson hit a jumper with 5:05 left in the shot-clock that put the Wolves ahead 104-102, but the Mavericks had no answer as Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving dominated on a 12-1 run. Dallas couple. Doncic and Irving both finished with 33 points.
Donczyk hit a midrange fadeaway with 2:16 to play to give the Mavericks a 109-105 lead. After a pair of Wolves empty possessions, Irving hit a fadeaway jumper to put Dallas up 111-105 with 1:02 to play. The Wolves stopped driving to the basket without Derek Lively II for Dallas, who had been working for most of the quarter. Lively left with neck pain in the second quarter after making contact with Karl-Anthony Towns’ knee.
Anthony Edwards finished with 26 points for the Wolves as Towns struggled again with 14 points on 5-of-18 shooting, including 0-of-8 from three-point range.
With Dallas going small without Lively in the lineup, the Wolves attacked the rim and got layups and buckets from Naz Reed and Anderson, who scored eight points in the opening minutes of the quarter, to start a fourth run. Irving scored on the other end for Dallas to open the quarter with the teams tied 100-100 with 7:06 left.
Anderson beat the shot clock with a one-handed runner to give the Wolves a 104-102 lead with 5:05 left before Irving connected on the end of the shot clock at the other end following a tough Wolves defensive possession. Anderson’s bucket until a late, pointless layup from Edwards would be against the Wolves.
9:01pm: Edwards comes back to tie the game after three quarters
Anthony Edwards promised to be aggressive in Game 3, and he found his aggressiveness in the third quarter as he led the Wolves back into the game with 10 third-quarter points, and the teams tied 87-87 heading into the fourth.
With the Wolves trailing 76-77, Edwards scored eight of Minnesota’s next 11 points, including a thunderous dunk at the line that sent shockwaves through the Dallas crowd. The dunk seemed to energize Edwards, who stepped up his defensive intensity as he hit his next two jumpers and forced a Derrick Jones Jr. turnover. He then motioned to the bench to take a timeout with 4:10 left.
The Wolves took their first lead after a 5-3 run when Naz Reed made a driving layup to make it 79-77.
The Wolves couldn’t stop sending Dallas to the free-throw line in the third. The Mavericks were in penalties by the 8:36 mark of the quarter and Mike Conley went to the bench with four fouls. Dallas was 14-of-17 from the free-throw line in the third quarter. Luka Doncic was 26 at the end of the third, 8-of-10 from the free-throw line.
Jaden McDaniels and the Wolves’ Rudy Gobert also start the fourth quarter with four fouls each.
Minnesota took advantage of the absence of Derek Lively (Lively was officially ruled out with a sprained neck) to open the half. Jones, Dallas’ go-to perimeter defender, left the game briefly after absorbing a hard illegal screen from Nickiel Alexander-Walker.
8:09 p.m.: Wolves pull back at half, but Mavs lose a key player
Karl-Anthony Towns missed his first seven shots of the night and went 2-of-10 in the first half as the Wolves trailed Dallas 60-52 at halftime. Towns missed five of his three pointers.
But Dallas suffered a significant injury to its front line when Derek Lively left the game with a neck injury 8 minutes, 35 seconds into the second.
As Lively fell to the ground to recover, her head hit Townes’ knee, snapping her neck forward. Lively was on the floor for several moments during the timeout and needed help getting off the floor as she struggled to maintain her balance. He left with six points on 3-for-3 shooting with three rebounds and would not return.
Lively was 13-for-13 in the series before leaving; Earlier in the game, he took a Downs knee to the groin as the Wolves big man drove to the rim.
Mavs’ Luka Doncic and Rudy Gobert exchanged cheers after they got caught on a rebound and around a screen on consecutive plays late in the quarter. Doncic had a few words after hitting the game-winning three against Gobert in Game 2. In the first half, both teams faced unsuccessful challenges.
Edwards and Jaden McDaniels led the Wolves with 12 points apiece.
Dallas shot 54% from the field as Doncic led the way with 15.
7:33 p.m.: The Wolves go one after the other and Conley heads to the locker room
Before Sunday’s Game 3, Wolves coach Chris Finch said the message for Karl-Anthony Downs was to play slow, while Anthony Edwards needed to play quickly.
Edwards had nine first-quarter points, but Towns couldn’t get on track as Towns outscored Dallas 33-28.
Wolves point guard Mike Conley went to the locker room during the quarter; Despite a calf injury, he was playing. He came back shortly.
Edwards was 3-for-6 from the field, while Towns went 0-for-3 in the quarter. Luka Doncic had eight early points for Dallas.
Dallas came out with a bang in its own arena as the Mavericks hit their first three threes of the night, and Edwards got the Rockies started with one of two free throws after a turnover, a brick and a run.
Edwards hit his next two shots and the Wolves got three runs from Conley and Jaden McDaniels to pull within 15-13 with 6:01 left.
The Wolves got seven first-quarter points from McDaniels, who hit his mid-range jumper from about 10 feet, but the Wolves defense had little answer for the Mavericks offense on 11-of-19 shooting.
6:36pm tip-off approaches
Dallas starters are point guard Luka Doncic (playoff stats: 28.0 scoring, 9.4 rebounds, 9.3 assists), shooting guard Kyrie Irving (21.6 points, 5.4 assists), small forward Derrick Jones (10.1 points), power forward PJ Washington (13.9 points) and center Daniel Gafford (9.2 points, 5.7 rebounds). Center Derek Lively averaged 8.7 points off the bench.
For the Wolves, it’s point guard Mike Conley (11.4 points, 6.1 assists), shooting guard Anthony Edwards (27.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, 6.2 assists), small forward Jaden McDaniels (12.5 points), power forward Karl-Anthony Towns (18.3 points). ). , 8.9 rebounds) and center Rudy Gobert (12.5 points, 10.5 rebounds). Nas Reed averaged 11.7 points off the bench.
The referees were Tony Brothers (Chairman), Ben Taylor and Curtis Blair. The last time they had the Wolves was Game 3 of the Denver series, which the Wolves lost at home.
The game airs on TNT with a tip schedule at 7 p.m
Morning shootaround recap: Anthony Edwards says he’ll be ultra-aggressive
One of Anthony Edwards’ defining characteristics on and off the court is the infectious joy with which he approaches every aspect of his life. No matter the circumstances, you’ll rarely find Edwards in a bad mood.
But after the first two games of the Western Conference finals, Edwards said he lost a little bit of his joy in playing basketball as he had some scoring struggles.
“I probably wasn’t having fun out there. In my face,” Edwards said in the shootaround before Game 3.
Edwards is 11-for-33 so far in the series and vowed to be more aggressive, attack the basket more and take more shots than he has so far in Game 3.
“You’re going to see tonight. It’s going to be a lot of shooting,” Edwards said. “… I’m going to be very aggressive. I’ve never taken more than 16 shots in every game. So, I’m going to be very aggressive coming out, for sure.”
Although the Wolves have lost two games at home, Edwards said the atmosphere around the team is still positive and upbeat.
“Everybody’s in a good mood, especially myself,” Edwards said. “We dropped two games. We gave them two games. We’re very confident.”
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