Mavericks Dominate Timberwolves to Reach NBA Finals
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:03 The Mavericks had an opportunity to win a basketball game in advance of
00:07 the NBA finals for the first time in more than a decade since 2011.
00:12 When led by Dirk Nowitzki,
00:14 the Mavericks won their only Larry O'Brien trophy in franchise history.
00:19 And Dallas did that in a dominant way last night, winning by 20 plus on the road.
00:24 21 to be exact, 124-103 in the Twin Cities.
00:29 The Mavericks went outright as a five, five and a half point underdog,
00:33 depending on where you got that number.
00:35 When we discussed yesterday, Donnie,
00:37 it was a four and a half point spread in favor of the T-Wolves.
00:40 But so much of the public betting love coming on Dallas' side,
00:45 and it turns out sometimes we can't fade the public.
00:48 The public was correct, led by 72 combined points from Kyrie and Luca,
00:53 each Donchich and Irving scoring 36 points apiece.
00:58 Dallas wins the Western Conference crown in five games in the WCF.
01:03 I mean, we expected great performances here out of both Luca and Kyrie
01:07 because they're great basketball players and they've shown that they can do that.
01:10 I just didn't think in a closeout game in an opponent's building
01:13 that they would both give you 36 points.
01:16 And all of a sudden you're taking a look and saying, well, yeah,
01:18 they're going to win that game because my superstars,
01:20 talking about the Dallas Mavericks, were better than Minnesota's.
01:23 But even looking at Minnesota, 28 points and 28 points.
01:26 If you would have told me before that basketball game started,
01:28 hey, look, I'm not going to give you what happens with the Dallas Mavericks,
01:31 but you're going to get 28 from both Anthony Edwards and also Carl Anthony Towns.
01:35 That should be a win on your home court.
01:37 You should be able to close them out.
01:38 Secondary players probably stepping up as well, but sometimes it doesn't matter.
01:42 And also we talk about how you want to open basketball games,
01:45 where if it's the Dallas Mavericks and let's just say the blowout chances,
01:49 who I thought Minnesota had a much better chance to blow out Dallas,
01:52 but that wasn't actually what happened.
01:54 Dallas Mavericks blowing out the Minnesota Timberwolves because you always had
01:58 the game number six in your back pocket back in Dallas in case things didn't
02:02 go correctly.
02:03 That first quarter should have been 35 to 19.
02:05 Minnesota taking control of the advantage, riding that crowd here early in the game.
02:10 And it didn't happen.
02:11 It was the opposite.
02:12 Look at Donchich was on fire to start that basketball game.
02:15 If you're on social media last night, people talking about, oh,
02:18 he's going to threaten Jordan 63 points from back in the 1980s.
02:21 That looked like where it was headed at this point.
02:23 Look, he would have 40 points at the break.
02:25 My goodness, both of those guys, Irving and Donchich played so well last night
02:29 that they didn't even give the Minnesota Timberwolves a chance to even hang
02:32 around early, Ben.
02:33 That's what was impressive.
02:35 - And Donny, we thought maybe Minnesota could pull off the first blowout victory
02:39 of this series in the Western Conference Finals because if around eight minutes
02:43 remaining in regulation, Dallas was down and Jason Kidd decided, all right,
02:48 we're going back to Texas for game number six.
02:51 We'll pull our guys.
02:53 Completely different script last night.
02:54 The Mavericks took it to Minnesota early and often in Minneapolis.
02:59 In Dallas this postseason as an underdog, now seven games, six and one straight up.
03:06 Booked as a dog, of course, in games one, two, and five, all in Minneapolis.
03:12 And they win all of those games outright on the road in the Twin Cities.
03:17 That is the recipe for success because Dallas will be on the road or at least not
03:21 have that home floor advantage in the NBA Finals to begin in Beantown.
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