The Wolves dropped one on the road to the Dallas Mavericks in a high-octane showdown on Saturday night. With a final score of 140-136, there were no shortage of highlights for either team. Unfortunately, there was a shortage of defense, and great nights from Derrick Rose and Karl-Anthony Towns were not enough to overcome the Mavs’ inside-out duo of Luka Doncic and DeAndre Jordan.
The first half of this one was absolutely wild, with both teams putting on a show on offense. The score was tied at 69 at the break. In the first quarter along the two teams combined for 83 points with the Wolves up 46-37. It was the second-highest scoring quarter in Wolves history. The Wolves got 14 first-half points from Jeff Teague to lead the squad and had four players in double digits before halftime.
Not much changed in the third quarter, with the Wolves putting up 30 and allowing the Mavs to score 28. It was just one great offensive play after another, with seemingly every shot by both teams finding the bottom of the net. It wasn’t necessarily that the defense was bad, it was just that both teams executed their offense incredibly effectively.
The fireworks continued in the fourth but when the final buzzer sounded the Mavs had the upper hand. One Wolves’ announcers pointed out that it felt like the game would just come down to whoever had the ball last and this contest certainly had that feel. Rose did his best to carry the Wolves in the fourth quarter and finished the game with 28. Towns also shook off a rough first half and was great in the second half, including a few massive buckets down the stretch—the highlight being a three to make it a one-possession game with just over a minute remaining. Rose and Taj Gibson did some damage too, however Dennis Smith Jr. got a (questionable) and-one with 6.1 seconds left to put the Mavs up by three and a last-second full-court pass from Rose went nowhere.
At the end of the day the Wolves just couldn’t get enough stops down the stretch against a Mavs team that absolutely punished the Wolves on the offensive glass and shot an insane number of three-pointers. The loss certainly hurts, but the offensive production is nice. Now they just need to clean up the defense.
A few quick notes:
- Holy cow did both teams let it fly from deep. The Mavs, who have always shot a bunch of threes under Rick Carlisle, set a new franchise record with 50 attempts. The Wolves took 27 shots from deep and made 14 of them. That’s a real improvement on the Wolves’ end. The percentage won’t be that high every time, but the team got quality looks from beyond the arc. Additionally, eight different Wolves players attempted shots from outside. After only averaging eight threes per game last year, it certainly seems like things are changing.
- Josh Okogie got his first NBA minutes tonight as well as his first start! He had a solid debut. Though his numbers (six points, five rebounds, two assists and a steal) don’t jump off the page, he looked poised and didn’t make a ton of mistakes. Okogie doesn’t play like a rookie. He plays incredibly hard, looks to be an elite rebounder at his position and is a good defender. He had a tough matchup tonight in Doncic, but he’ll keep improving as the season goes on.
- Another area for improvement will be rebounding. The Mavs outrebounded the Wolves 42-to-33, and got way too many offensive rebounds. It’s easy to look at Towns as the one who needs to step up, but he was often boxed out by multiple Mavs players. Every Wolves player needs to be grabbing someone and boxing them out every time a shot goes up. Time to get back to basics.
- The Wolves have so much more firepower off their bench this year than they have in years past. Outside of Rose’s scoring, Tyus Jones looked great in 13 minutes of action, Gorgui Dieng had another double-digit scoring night and Tolliver let it fly from deep.
The Wolves are back in action on Monday night as they return to Target Center to take on the Pacers. In the meantime, enjoy these highlights from Rose's night.