Luka Dončić makes very specific demand after Minnesota Timberwolves are told they only have to pay $76.2 million to sign…
The Dallas Mavericks defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals in just five games, completely flipping the script on a Timberwolves team coming off a Game 7 victory against the defending champion Denver Nuggets.
Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving were able to completely dismantle the Timberwolves league-best defense while Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford were able to slow down Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns and the Wolves’ offense.
Through two games of the 2024 NBA finals, they have not been able to find nearly the same level of success as the Boston Celtics have taken a 2-0 series lead heading into Game 3 on Wednesday night in Dallas.
For all the struggles the Timberwolves had on both sides of the ball against the Mavericks, the Celtics have maintained complete control of the series to this point.
Boston has completely shut down the Dallas offense, holding them under 100 points in each of the first two games. The Celtics have limited the Mavs to only 6.5 made 3-pointers per game, down significantly from the 12.2 per game they made against the Wolves.
On offense, Head Coach Joe Mazzulla’s group has used their spacing and ball movement to generate good looks far more often than the Timberwolves, especially from long range. Boston has made 13 3-pointers per game on an astounding 34.5 attempts per game, 85% of which have been considered open or wide open by the NBA’s tracking data.
