Mavs Game Preview: Game 30 vs Timberwolves [Game of the Week]
A Christmas special
First, let me wish a Merry Christmas to all of you! I’m truly grateful for your support this season and hope you’re all enjoying the holidays with family, friends, and maybe even some hoops.
Here at digginbasketball, we’re all about the Mavs diehards, and what better way to wrap up Christmas Day than with some Mavericks basketball. This game promises to be a fun one. Christmas games are the highest stage for regular season matchups, and this year, the Mavericks take the early 1:30 PM Dallas time slot—which also means prime time in Slovenia. The game will be nationally televised there, and we’ll do a special pre- and post-game studio show for the first time this season, featuring Luka’s dad and others. Safe to say, Luka will have some extra motivation. And so will Kyrie Irving, who missed last year’s Christmas game in Phoenix.
This was another easy pick for the Game of the Week. As always, Game of the Week previews and post-game notes are fully available to everyone. For other games, some insights will be exclusive to paid subscribers, so if you’re enjoying the content and able to, please consider upgrading to support the work!
Mavs (19-10) vs Timberwolves (14-14) game facts
Rest: DAL on 1 day of rest; MIN on 1 day of rest
DAL vs MIN 2024-25 record: 1-0 DAL (see first matchup observations here)
DAL 2024-25 home record: 10-4
MIN 2024-25 away record: 6-8
DAL injuries: Jaden Hardy (questionable), Dante Exum (OUT)
MIN injuries: Joe Ingles (OUT), Luka Garza (OUT)
MIN projected starting 5: Mike Conley (G), Anthony Edwards (G), Jaden McDaniels (F), Julius Randle (F), Rudy Gobert (C)
MIN key reserves: Donte DiVincenzo, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Naz Reid, Rob Dillingham
MIN Rotation:
Three key questions heading into the game
Can the Mavs defense step up and further deepen the Wolves' frustrations?
Will the Mavs’ starting five provide enough on-ball resistance against Ant Edwards?
Can the Mavericks overwhelm the Wolves’ short rotation with their pace and depth?
What we saw / what's changed since last game
The first early-season matchup was a fun game that brought flashbacks to the Western Conference Finals. Anthony Edwards exploded early, scoring 24 points in the first quarter, but in the end, the Mavericks’ shot-making duo of Dončić and Irving took over in the fourth.
What changed for the Wolves since?
Rotation-wise, not much. If you look at their rotation chart, they probably have the most consistent eight-man rotation in the league. Aside from Mike Conley missing four games, they’ve had almost no injury absences. This is why their struggles and bad vibes are surprising. The Wolves are still trying to figure out their identity following their big offseason trade that brought in Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo.
The Wolves’ identity crisis is tied to the offensive end. They rank as the NBA’s worst offense over the last two weeks and sit 27th in December. The frustrations of figuring out spacing with Rudy Gobert, Julius Randle, and others have recently led to some telling quotes from Anthony Edwards, such as:
“We don’t have shit on offense. We don’t have no identity. We know I’m gonna shoot a bunch of shots, we know Ju (Julius) gonna shoot a bunch of shots, and that’s all we know.”
However, the Wolves have found their defensive mojo, which made them the NBA’s best defense last season. They currently boast the best defense in the league for December, propelling them to 5th overall in defensive rankings for the season.
The Mavericks, on the other hand, have been firing on all cylinders offensively. Dallas ranks as the best offense in December, setting up an intriguing clash of styles.
Mavs on offense | Timberwolves on defense
Minnesota is back to their elite defensive ways, built on being aggressive and forcing turnovers (they rank 5th in opponent turnover rate), protecting the rim, and forcing a lot of mid-range shots. The latter is exactly what they did against Dallas in the last matchup and during the playoff series. So, Dončić (against McDaniels and others on his hip out of pick-and-roll) and Irving’s (against Gobert in drop) mid-range shot-making is the first prerequisite to forcing adjustments from the Wolves’ defense.
Jaden McDaniels is the only Wolves defender with enough length to bother Dončić, making their matchup—and McDaniels’ potential foul trouble (a consistent issue throughout his career)—is always something to keep an eye on.
If the game turns into a playoff-like back-and-forth, you can expect Dallas to hunt for favorable matchups. It often starts with Dončić testing the Wolves’ coverage and working his step-back against big men; if his three is falling, we’ll likely see plenty of blitzes and doubles from Minnesota. In the last game, Irving was great at hunting Randle on switches, while the 37-year-old Mike Conley is another target for Dončić and Irving in guard-guard pick-and-rolls involving Klay Thompson or Quentin Grimes.
Pace will be another big factor in this game. The Mavericks thrive in an up-tempo style (7th in pace), while the Wolves prefer to slow things down and operate in the halfcourt (24th in pace), where their elite defense is toughest to crack. However, the bigger Gobert, Randle and others struggle to defend in transition—a weakness the Mavericks successfully exploited in the first matchup.
Timberwolves on offense | Mavs on defense
The Wolves’ struggles on offense stem from two main issues: a lack of spacing and limited playmaking.
The spacing was already a concern, but replacing a very good shooter in Karl-Anthony Towns with the much more inconsistent Randle has predictably made it worse. Add in McDaniels’ shooting struggles (just 32 percent from three this season), and the paint becomes heavily clogged for Edwards.
Ant’s rim frequency (the share of his shots at the rim) has dropped from 31 percent last season to just 23 percent this season. Edwards has replaced many of those attempts with three-pointers, which he’s hitting at an impressive 41 percent. For the Mavericks, the key will be providing early on-ball and on-screen resistance against Edwards, avoiding the easy off-screen looks they surrendered in the last game—when Ant torched them for 24 first-quarter points. Thompson struggled in that role early in the last game, so it will be interesting to see how Jason Kidd approaches the Ant matchup challenge with his starting lineup.
The Mavericks game plan needs to be to make Edwards a playmaker and a passer, something that they did in the playoffs, and an area of his game he still struggles with (only four assists per game and very low assist to usage ratio).
Lack of passing is not only Edwards’ problem, it’s Wolves overall theme. At 4.7 assists per game Conley is their lead setup man, but it seems that his age is finally catching up with him (8.3 points per game and 35 percent field goal are both career lows). The Wolves, who don’t have a true backup point guard—Alexander-Walker and DiVincenzo are both combo guards—are feeling the impact of Kyle Anderson’s departure. He served as an alternative option to defend Dončić and act as a secondary playmaker.
I expect the Mavericks to focus on loading up against Edwards and forcing the Wolves to beat them with passing and three-point shooting. All of Minnesota’s key rotation players, except Gobert and Randle, take 40 percent or more of their shots from beyond the arc, so their shooting tonight will be a crucial factor. DiVincenzo (33 percent), Conley (37), Reid (35), Randle (35), and McDaniels (32) have all struggled from deep this season, but as we know, things can turn around quickly in just one game.
The last area to watch is rebounding. The Mavericks’ defensive rebounding has been trending in the wrong direction again, and Gobert caused problems in the first matchup, outmuscling Gafford and Lively for several offensive boards. However, the Mavericks’ center duo did an excellent job collectively battling Ivica Zubac in the last Clippers game, countering his size and strength with speed and athleticism. They’ll need to replicate that effort tonight by being active on the offensive glass and attacking Gobert with rim runs in transition.
Final thoughts
All analysis aside, this game should be a lot of fun. Watching this good Mavericks team play on Christmas is fun.
And if we’re lucky, we might get even more. Maybe anotherc special performance from Dončić or Irving on the big stage—just like last Christmas, when Dončić lit up the Suns with 50 points, 6 rebounds, 15 assists, 4 steals, and 3 blocks.