Coming off of the first game of an eight-game home stand and a rare three full days of rest after a busy start to the season, the Timberwolves seek their fifth win in a row as they keep chugging along without Anthony Edwards.
Minnesota has taken care of business so far without Ant as their superstar, as he works his way back from injury. They’ve gotten wins against some subpar teams and stamped this winning streak with a statement win against the Houston Rockets last Wednesday. The backcourt hasn’t
skipped a beat, with LaMelo Ball shooting at an elite clip and Ayo Dosunmu filling plenty of cracks as the replacement starting guard.
The Mavericks pose a threat to the good vibes as the red-hot Cooper Flagg comes to town after a blazing-hot start to the season. Flagg has been averaging 24/6.6/7 and looks worth every bit of being the number one overall pick just a year ago. Kyrie Irving is also back in action, averaging over 20 points per game and complementing Flagg’s ascendance at the point.
After riding the crowd’s wave on Sunday and with a few days to prepare, the Timberwolves will look for another notch in the win column.
Game Info
- Who: Minnesota Timberwolves (8-3) vs. Dallas Mavericks (6-4)
- When: Thursday, November 9 at 7:00 PM CT
- Where: Target Center – Minneapolis, Minnesota
- TV: NBA TV, DAZN
- Radio: 830 WCCO
Injury Reports
What to Watch for
Cooper Flagg – A Big Power Forward
Much has been talked about how the Minnesota Timberwolves have struggled over the past few years to guard the aggressive, physical fours who love to body up and take it to the rim. Zion Williamson is the one that comes to mind the most, but there have been others that also fit this mold and have given the Timberwolves fits. With his improvement this year, Cooper Flagg enters that category as well. The Mavericks run a ton of their actions through Flagg, who is very good at using his size to exploit mismatches and get to his spots.
Enter Jonathan Kuminga. JK will be the one tasked with guarding Flagg on the defensive end and matching the physicality that the young forward brings to the table. Kuminga has had success so far this season in providing resistance to those types of players – Giannis Antetokounmpo, Paolo Banchero, and Zion Williamson, to name a few.
The best way to show his impact is to look at what happened when one of those big power forwards was on the floor while Kuminga was off. The Timberwolves tried Jaylen Clark on Zion this past Friday in their matchup against the New Orleans Pelicans and barely made it a few minutes before they realized that would be unsustainable as Williamson started to get his.
A True PG Duel
Lots of positional discussion in this one. In the offseason, everyone knew that the Timberwolves were searching for a true co-star point guard to pair with Anthony Edwards. Plenty of speculative tweets, aggregators, and more put Kyrie Irving on the list of potential trade candidates to pair with Ant. The Mavericks’ position in the NBA, plus the question marks around a 34-year-old coming off an ACL tear, had insiders and fans alike discussing a deal to bring Irving to Minnesota. While there is no way to know how truthful those rumors were, Irving is playing well in Dallas, and Minnesota got their guy in LaMelo Ball.
It is hard in this day and age of the NBA’s positional versatility to find the true point guard that everyone references from years past. In the modern day, Irving and Ball are two of the players in the league that fit that mold as best as possible. With the injury to Edwards and the centering of everything around Ball and Irving settling back into a second-fiddle role with Dallas, it will be fun to watch the orchestration that comes with players of their caliber tasked with organizing the offense.
Ayo Dosunmu Surging
A great aspect of the Minnesota Timberwolves is that a lot of their players, specifically their guards and wings, have great scalability. When there is more usage out there due to injury, they have guys that can pick up the slack. This was no more apparent than in the Denver Nuggets series last year, but it has continued into the start of this season without Ant or Donte Divincenzo. Ayo Dosunmu is one of those guys.
Dosunmu has been a revelation for this team, slotting into the starting lineup without Anthony Edwards. In the seven games without Edwards, he has averaged 21.6/5.4/4 while carrying a large load on offense next to LaMelo Ball.
His straightforward, no-nonsense approach has been a welcome part of the four-game win streak. One of his best regular season games last season that put Timberwolves fans on notice was his triple-double against Dallas closer to the end of 2025-26. He showed the flash that has become closer to the norm. Fast-forwarding to this season, Dosunmu has been a joy to watch as he sprints out in transition to find ways to put the ball in the hoop with ease.
This will be a game defined by which team’s role players can best support their stars, and with Ayo playing at the level he’s been playing at, there’s no reason that the Wolves can’t pull away in a vital Western Conference matchup.
