Despite a good fighting performance, in which Maxi Kleber convinced above all, the Dallas Mavericks (7-20) had to admit defeat against the Minnesota Timberwolves (16-11) – 97:92 (Boxscore). After an outstanding first phase of Karl-Anthony Towns, the Wolves could rely on a clutch performance by Jimmy Butler.
For the second time in a row, Dennis Smith Jr. left the Mavs because of a hip injury. not with the hopeful rookie, but with Yogi Ferrell in the game and got off to a lively start. However, Dallas allowed far too many second chances in the first quarter and thus sabotaged himself in building a larger leadership.
The Mavericks’ mid-term lead of 48:47 would have deserved a bigger lead, but the Timberwolves were able to make up for their numerous ball losses and defensive problems with a good outside quota and continued dominance on the boards. Offensively, Karl-Anthony Towns overtook the first 24 minutes and compensated for the weak throwing rates of his fellow players.
All in all, the lead changed 21 times until Jimmy Butler and Andrew Wiggins put their team in the lead with two buckets – with just one more minute to play – 93:90. JJ Barea cut back on his former side, but with only 24.9 seconds remaining, Dallas had to foul – Jamal Crawford kept his nerves on the line and Wesley Matthews missed a threesome from a promising situation.
Minnesota Timberwolves vs. Dallas Mavericks: This way to the BOXSCORE!
With 28 points (10/15 FG), Towns was his team’s top scorer – after an initial dominance, however, KAT overstretched a bit (7 turnover) and then lost some ground in the second half. Jimmy Butler scored 22 points (9/17 FG), 7 rebounds and 5 assists.
Despite the defeat, Dallas showed a convincing team performance. The most prolific man was Harrison Barnes, who scored 11 of his 19 points (8/15 FG) in the third quarter. Maxi Kleber showed a very strong performance, scored a new career high with three goals from outside and scored a total of 16 points (6/9 FG) and 5 rebounds. Dirk Nowitzki scored half of his throws for 10 points (4/8 FG).
Minnesota dominated mainly in the first half on the offensive board. In the first 24 minutes, the Wolves were able to earn 8 offensive rebounds and scored 16 important second chance points, which prevented them from falling behind in the break. The rebound duel went 45:33 to the Wolves.
The Timberwolves handled the ball sloppily and allowed themselves a whopping 18 ball losses. However, the Mavs could not use this effectively enough and scored only 15 points after losing the ball. Minnesota was much more successful and scored 16 points from 11 Mavs turnovers.
The biggest shortcoming of the Mavericks in this game? Free throws! Dallas was not aggressive enough during the train into the zone and only went nine times to the free-throw line. As a reference value, the NBA’s weakest team in this area – the Chicago Bulls – takes an average of 16.8 free throws per game.
Minnesota took almost half of their own throws from the middle distance (45 percent). 17 of these 34 throws hit the target – a very high quota for this rather than inefficient litter.
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Jimmy Butler. While Towns was slowing down, Jimmy Buckets got really warm. As so often in the last few games, he took over in the fourth quarter and scored 10 of his 22 points.
Wesley Matthews. Matthews didn’t deserve the title “Sniper” today. At 2/8 he showed a weak quota from outside and also overall it didn’t look much better (14 points, 6/17 FG).
Tom Thibodeau showed himself to be unimpressed by the criticism in the last few days, relying on his eight-man rotation once again, and gave his starters plenty of time on the stage: Butler, who was complaining about the large number of minutes, had 41 minutes left. Taj Gibson had the “lowest” value of the Timberwolves starters with 34 minutes.