The Dallas Mavericks lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves 118-105 Wednesday night in Dallas. It was a weird, disjointed game that saw Dallas trailing by double-digits for most of the second half, but never
letter Minnesota pull away. It was an ugly game, with lots of turnovers, fouls, and missed shots.
Dallas started feisty, like they always do, but it wasn’t enough. Trailing by only two after the first quarter despite tons of miscues, the Wolves won the second quarter 27-19 and never really looked back. The Mavericks made a few pushes in the fourth quarter to close the gap to around 11 or 10 points, but never threatened past that threshold. The loss is the second in a row for Dallas, after a four-game winning streak was snapped Saturday against the Lakers.
Here are the numbers to know.
19: Mavericks turnovers
Our recap highlighted this point and we try hard not to overlap the recap and the stats post, but this one was unavoidable: Dallas lost this game because they couldn’t take care of the ball, pure and simple.
Of the 19 turnovers, 14 of them were in the first half, and eight of those 14 in the first quarter. Hell, the Mavericks committed three turnovers within the first 90 seconds of the game. It’s honestly a miracle this game was never a blowout — the Mavericks did everything they could to spot the Wolves a sizeable lead in the first half.
Without Cooper Flagg and the only point guards in the rotation coming off the bench, the Mavericks struggled to initiate their sets cleanly. When the Mavericks did hang onto the ball, they scored well enough (60 points in the paint), but Dallas could never sustain a comeback because of the mishaps. Minnesota only scored 22 points off those 19 turnovers, as they played with their food way too much. This was really a 25 or 30 point blowout in disguise, thanks to the Mavericks just playing harder than the Wolves for most of the game.
3: Mavericks made 3-pointers
It’s really hard to win a game in the NBA in the year 2026 without being able to shoot. Dallas made only three 3-pointers, but what might be worse is they only shot 18.
Yes, the Mavericks went 3-of-18 from three. Both the makes and the attempts are appalling. Klay Thompson missed this game, and Max Christie went 0-of-5 from three. Dallas has no shooting behind those two players, and without Flagg, the Mavericks were cooked in generating any type of drive-and-kick attack. Dallas got to the free throw line a ton and scored a lot in the paint, but it didn’t matter. The Wolves made 12 three pointers. Sometimes three is greater than two is all you need to say about an NBA game nowadays.
14: Mavericks offensive rebounds
If the Mavericks couldn’t control the ball and couldn’t shoot, how in the hell was this only a 13-point loss against a winning team? Well the Mavericks competed, like they always do. Dallas had 14 offensive rebounds, more than Minnesota, which is saying something considering how big the Wolves are.
Despite Rudy Gobert and Julius Randle in the Wolves’ front court, Dallas beat this bigger Minnesota team up on the glass all night. It helps that Dallas did miss 15 three pointers, creating long-miss opportunities that can be hard for the defensive team to track down, but the Mavericks got a ton of boards simply because they were outworking their competition. I counted multiple instances of Daniel Gafford and Dwight Powell just wanting the ball more on close rebounds near the rim. It’s nice to see the Mavericks haven’t given up the fight, but it wasn’t enough in this game.
