Mavericks vs. Timberwolves: Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving are too much for Anthony Edwards and an absent KAT

After losing Game 3 in Dallas on Sunday, 116-107, the Minnesota Timberwolves find themselves down 3-0 to the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference finals despite being outscored by total of just 13 points across the entire series to this point. 

To look at the numbers, you would think this has been an incredibly close series. And it has in some ways. But in others, the chasm between the Wolves and Mavericks feels vast, notably along the superstar ledger. 

Through the first three games, Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving have outscored Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns, who has been absolutely miserable, by 70 points (181-111). The rest of the Wolves have outscored the rest of the Mavericks by 57 points. 

And there’s your 13-point disparity for the series. 

This has been a separation of the stars so far. 

I’ll start with Towns, because this won’t take long. He was 0-for-8 from 3-point range in Game 3. His last miss was a terrible shot at a crucial point of the fourth quarter. He’s shooting 27.8% in this series, including 3-of-22 from 3. It’s a testament to Minnesota’s grit that it’s played Dallas this tightly with its second-best scorer laying this kind of egg, but that’s just not tenable. Minnesota’s offense is limited enough. 

Meanwhile, Doncic and Irving, who both went for 33 points in Game 3 and, together, are averaging almost 60 in this series, are now the first starting backcourt over the last 50 years to each score at least 30 points in the same game three different times during the same postseason, per ESPN Stats. 

There are levels to this superstar stuff, and Doncic and Irving are on a higher one than Edwards right one, particularly when it comes to scoring inevitability. 

With Edwards, despite him probably being the best athlete in the league, there are holes in the arsenal — namely the lack of a consistent jumper. It’s not to suggest he can’t shoot; of course he can, and when he has it going, he’s as deadly as anyone. There’s not a shot on the court he can’t make on a given attempt. 

In fact, Edwards,…

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Author : Brad Botkin

Publish date : 2024-05-27 06:20:00

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