Naz Reid hit the shots all night but missed the one that mattered.
Luka Dončić only made one shot all fourth quarter, but it was the only one he needed, a crowd-silencing, Gobert-on-skates, step-back, possible-series-dagger 3 with the Mavs down two and three seconds on the clock. And just like that, Dallas is up 2-0 heading home with a chance to go to the NBA Finals.
It certainly looked like a Timberwolves win early.
Minnesota led 32-26 after the first and went up by as many as 18 in the second quarter. The Wolves offense looked much crisper and more decisive from the jump. Minnesota players attacked the rim with aplomb and got to the line early and often, and the defense looked much more itself at the other end.
But, while many will focus on those final plays late, this game and ultimately Minnesota's season may well have been lost in the final three minutes of the first half.
The Timberwolves were up 58-40 and rolling. Minnesota was locked in, the fans were roaring, and a strong close to the half may have put the game on ice, especially with Dončić looking labored and Kyrie Irving exhausted.
Important next three minutes before the half here.
Minnesota has totally controlled this game in every facet. Close it out, go up 25, and the second half is an exhibition.
Let it go the other way even a little and you never know how this plays out.
— Brandon Anderson (@wheatonbrando) May 25, 2024
Instead, the Mavs closed the half on an 8-2 run, a run that included three offensive rebounds, something that's plagued Minnesota and its three highly-paid centers through two games of the Conference Finals.
Minnesota was still up 12 at the half, but Dallas had showed it was still in the game.
Halfway through the third quarter, the Mavs had cut the lead to six. A few minutes later, it was down to two. Minnesota has been an elite third-quarter team all season, especially at home, but the Mavs hit them right where it hurt the most.
Then in the fourth quarter, Dallas' stars finished the job. Irving hit a flurry of shots after doing precious little the first three quarters, he and Dončić continued to feed the Mavs bigs for dunks at the rim, and then Luka hit the dagger to end it.
There are a lot of ways to analyze this one, but in the end, the Mavs' stars showed up when the team needed them most, and Minnesota's didn't.
Irving entered the fourth quarter just 2-of-9 from the field but scored 13 points in the final stanza on four 3s and added a trio of assists. Dončić had a 32-point triple-double and picked apart Rudy Gobert and the vaunted Minnesota defense time and again, and he seems to have found his three ball again too.
Minnesota's stars were nowhere to be found.
Anthony Edwards has not looked ready for this challenge. He shot just 5-of-17 from the field and finished with a quiet 21 points, struggling to make his impact felt in the second half. Minnesota's offense that had such great process early in the game stagnated late with the ball too often in Ant's hands and not much good coming from it.
The aggression Edwards came out with attacking the rim didn't last long enough, and he's now scored 21 or less in five of the last seven Timberwolves games. That's just not enough for this team.
As for Karl-Anthony Towns, he was quite literally nowhere to be found.
Towns picked up two fouls in four seconds in the first quarter and went to the bench, and that was just about his last meaningful contribution to the game. He didn't play the final eight minutes and 40 seconds, watching from the bench as $93 million of Minnesota max centers begged their $14-million backup Naz Reid to bail them out.
Reid nearly did it, too.
He hit 7-of-9 treys on the night and added a nasty dunk, leading the Timberwolves in scoring and dragging them to and nearly over the finish line, but his final shot at the buzzer rimmed out and that was that.
Just like that, The Naz Reid Game became The Luka Shot.
Just the latest in a long series of heartbreak moments for Minnesota sports fans.
For all those expensive centers, Minnesota was dominated in the paint again. The Wolves allowed 11 more offensive rebounds and shot an abysmal 23-of-64 on 2s themselves, a horrifying 36% on a night when they just needed one more to fall.
And those Minnesota stars were the biggest culprits. Edwards and Towns shot a combined 9-of-33 from the field. Non-Naz Timberwolves made only 23% of their 3s.
For one half, the Wolves looked ready to tie this series up at 1-1, better rested and locked in, prepared to turn this into a long series. Then the offense stagnated, the defense got loose, and Dallas' stars did the rest.
The series is on life support for the Timberwolves at this point, but it's not over, even down 2-0 at home.
No one knows that better than Minnesota, who just took a 2-0 road lead itself last round before blowing the next three games to sit at the precipice of elimination before bouncing back late to win in seven.
That should be a fresh reminder to these young Timberwolves that they dare not give up just yet, when they just saw the nearly impossible happen in the other direction.
But the truth is that Minnesota has now lost five of its last seven. And unless Edwards and Towns can suddenly lock in like Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokić did last round, there will be no push or Game 7.
The Timberwolves are asking far too many questions and running out of answers.
And Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving are heading back home to Dallas, just two wins away from sending the Mavericks to the NBA Finals.
