The Minnesota Timberwolves lost a heartbreaking Game 2 to the Dallas Mavericks 109-108 on Friday night.
While all of the talk postgame was about Luka Doncic's amazing step back 3-pointer with three seconds left to win it for Dallas, the Timberwolves got a little bit of vindication in the NBA's Last 2 Minutes report.
The league ruled that the officials missed a foul committed by Kyrie Irving that would have sent Timberwolves guard Jaden McDaniels to the foul line. Instead, after a challenge by the Mavericks, the ball was ruled out of bounds off of the Timberwolves and awarded to Dallas.
In the report, the NBA makes note of the review process, saying “Replay review of the out of bounds called on Irving (DAL) pursuant to a coach's challenge was deemed successful. McDaniels (MIN) is the last player to touch the ball before it goes out of bounds and play resumes with Dallas possession. A personal foul is not a reviewable matter when instant replay review of an out-of-bounds violation is triggered by a Challenge, nor is a no-call a challengeable event.”
Unfortunately for the Timberwolves, that missed call cost them a chance to go up by two possessions with under a minute to go. Should that have happened, Doncic's 3-pointer would have left the Mavericks still trailing 110-109.
Luka Doncic puts Timberwolves in 2-0 series hole
The Mavericks narrowly earned a 109-108 victory over the Timberwolves on Friday night to take a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference Finals. Minnesota led for a significant portion of the game, but Dallas never gave up despite being down by as many as 18 points. The Mavs made things especially interesting in the fourth quarter but found themselves trailing by two points in the final seconds of the game. Luka Doncic then connected on an eventual game-winning three-pointer to give Dallas a 109-108 lead with just over three seconds remaining.
The Timberwolves got a decent look at a possible game-winning 3-pointer, but Minnesota ultimately missed the shot and Dallas walked away with a 2-0 series lead.
The Mavericks needed a more consistent all-around effort from Doncic in this series following his up-and-down Western Conference Semifinals effort. Of course, his performance against the Oklahoma City Thunder was still elite by most players' standards, but Doncic knew he was capable of more – which he's shown throught the first two games of the series against the Timberwolves.
Despite dealing with injury trouble once again in Game 2, Doncic did more than enough to lead the Mavericks to the win. Kyrie Irving even referred to Luka as a “warrior” while speaking on TNT after the game following the 25-year-old's stellar effort.
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