Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals is in the books, and it was an instant classic.
Minnesota led Dallas 62-59 at the half as the teams traded body blows and scored points in bunches, but the scoring dried up in the second half and a tired Wolves squad fell late as the Mavs stole home-court advantage with a big fourth-quarter push to win, 108-105.
The Timberwolves were coming off an epic comeback road Game 7 victory against the Nuggets, but it was clear that victory in altitude took a lot out of the team.
Coming into the night, favored seeds coming off a Game 7 win were just 5-8 straight up in the following Game 1 over the past decade. They're 5-9 now, and overs move to 13-1 in that spot. Tired legs let Minnesota down late, and this one went exactly according to the post-Game-7 script.
Kyrie Irving came out firing in the first half.
He scored 24 in the first half, atypical for a player who has typically waited until late for his scoring this postseason. He admitted after the game that he was motivated by Anthony Edwards calling him out live on national TV after Minnesota's Game 7 win.
Those points didn't just keep Dallas in the game — they also exhausted Edwards.
Edwards was clearly gassed late. He had nothing left in the tank over the final five minutes and repeatedly stood in the corner or near half court on offense as Minnesota's attack stalled when it needed its star most. Edwards finished with 19 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists, a good line for a 22-year-old making his Conference Finals debut, but not good enough.
The Wolves rained fire from deep in the first half, hitting 11-of-25 3s (44%), but the Mavs kept pace by doing the exact opposite. Dallas made an incredible 24-of-33 2s, a shocking 73% against the league's best 2-point defense, in what was perhaps another sign of Minnesota's tired legs.
Those numbers regressed hard for both teams in the second half — Dallas dropped to 13-of-29 on 2s (45%) and Minnesota to 7-of-24 on 3s (29%) — and the scoring dropped accordingly, from 121 first-half points to just 92 after the break. The defenses tightened up, shots didn't fall quite as freely and every bucket became more of a grind.
Irving scored only six after halftime, but Luka Doncic stepped up with a big fourth quarter to carry Dallas and finish with a game-high 33 points.
Doncic had a personal 7-0 run as part of a 13-0 Dallas run early in the fourth before Minnesota fought back with a 13-1 run of its own to take a four-point lead late. But the Mavs had one final push against a Wolves squad that had little left to give and closed out the game on a 10-3 run as Minnesota's offense missed desperate shots and ran out of answers.
Minnesota came into the game with the more ballyhooed defense, but it was Dallas that had the more impressive defensive effort in Game 1. The Mavs also won the battle on the glass by eight, including four offensive rebounds each by Dereck Lively and Daniel Gafford — effort plays.
Lively was outstanding off the bench with nine points and 11 rebounds in 27 minutes — an impressive +19 while on the court. Many of those minutes came with Rudy Gobert off.
Gobert finished +10 in a three-point loss, but Dallas attacked the rim relentlessly the second Gobert left the floor. Karl-Anthony Towns was poor in his Western Conference Finals debut. He shot 6-of-20 and had only four defensive rebounds, never really making an imprint on the game outside of a loud put-back dunk that would've tied it, but was questionably called off in the final two minutes.
As for the Timberwolves, their defensive strategy will be questioned.
The Wolves got demolished in the paint in the first half, allowing an uncharacteristic 44 points and getting beaten at the rim time and time again. The strategy was clearly built around taking away corner 3s, and Dallas missed handfuls of above-the-break 3s, but Minnesota played a ton of drop late and Doncic carved the Wolves up.
In many ways, this was an outlier game in favor of the Timberwolves.
Jaden McDaniels shot 6-of-9 on 3s. Edwards hit five of his own. Kyle Anderson scored 11 off the bench, found money for Minnesota.
Perhaps most importantly, Dallas was abysmal on its 3s, making just 6-of-25 for an ugly 24%. That's probably not going to happen again — and Dallas won anyway, on the road, coming from behind twice late.
The series is far from over — it's only just begun — but the Mavericks have struck the first blow.
Game 2 is only 48 hours away, and a tired Wolves squad has to pick itself up off the mat, make some real adjustments on both ends, get Edwards and Towns more involved in the offense and find a way to win.
Teams don't go down 0-2 at home and come back to win many series.
Of course, teams don't often win on the road against the defending champs after being down 20 in the second half either.
Historically, Game 2 looks like a great spot to back the Timberwolves. Home teams coming off a Game 1 loss by more than two points are 44-24-2 ATS (65%) in Game 2 since 2004, and that leaps to 39-14-2 ATS (74%) for just the top-three seeds. But games aren't won on trends alone.
Once again, the Timberwolves' backs are against the wall, but the series still has a long way to go.
