The Minnesota Timberwolves aren’t going to win many games with Anthony Edwards and Anthony Karl-Anthony Towns shooting a combined 28.6 percent from the field in the first half of a Western Conference Finals game.
The Timberwolves won’t win many series either, with Edwards and Towns shooting a combined 33 percent from the field in three games.
That’s the situation in the West Finals where the Dallas Mavericks took complete control of the series, defeating the Timberwolves, 116-107, in Game 3 on Sunday for a 3-0 series lead.
Trailing 104-102 with 5:04 left in the fourth quarter, the Mavs outscored the Timberwolves 12-1 for a 113-105 lead with 34.8 seconds left.
No team in 154 scenarios has come back from a 3-0 NBA playoff deficit and won a series.
The Mavs can pull off a stunning sweep in Game 4 Tuesday in Dallas (8:30 p.m. ET, TNT). In the East, Boston has a 3-0 lead against Indiana and the NBA Finals are headed to a Celtics-Mavericks showdown.
The Timberwolves who finished off Denver in the conference semifinals don’t look like the same team on the brink of elimination against Dallas.
A combination of the Mavs and such deep playoff inexperience overwhelmed the Timberwolves, and they couldn’t stop Dallas stars Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving.
Doncic had his third 30-point game of the series, compiling 33 points, seven rebounds and five assists, and Irving, who is enjoying a basketball revival with Dallas, scored 14 of his 33 points in the fourth quarter. Doncic and Irving become the first backcourt players to each score at least 30 points in the same game three times in the playoffs in the last 50 years.
“This is the most talented backcourt in NBA history,” TNT analyst Stan Van Gundy said.
Mavs coach Jason Kidd said: “There’s a lot of confidence when you talk about Ky and Luka. … Those two guys are winners. They want to win. They want to help the team. … My job is to inform them of what I see and try to put these guys in a position to succeed.
In the final five minutes of the fourth quarter, the Timberwolves missed eight of nine, including four 3-point attempts. “Terrible offense down the stretch. Bad shooting. Turnovers. No composure,” Minnesota coach Chris Finch said.
Edwards had 26 points, nine rebounds and nine assists, and Towns finished with 14 points and 11 rebounds. But they were a combined 16 of 42 (38.1 percent) from the field and 0 of 10 from 3-point range.
The Mavs are concerned about the health of rookie center Derek Lively II who took an inadvertent knee to the head from Karl-Anthony Towns with 8:35 left in the second quarter. He did not return with what the team calls a neck strain. Lively, the No. 12 pick in the 2023 draft and a rookie winner, was 13 of 13 from the field in the conference finals, and the Timberwolves took advantage of his absence.
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