The Dallas Mavericks defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves 116-107 in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals on Sunday night to take a 3-0 series lead. Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic led the Mavs with 33 points each. PJ Washington added 16 points in the win.
Dallas entered the 2024 NBA playoffs as the No. 5 seed in the Western Conference. They have had to overcome the Los Angeles Clippers and Oklahoma City Thunder so far in the postseason. Now, the Mavs are one win away from defeating the Timberwolves. If they accomplish that feat, Dallas will have taken down the No. 4, No. 1, and No. 3 seeds in the West.
So how have the Mavericks played with so much confidence? After all, there were a number of critics who did not believe in this Mavs team.
“If you look at our regular season, I don’t think it tells the whole truth of who we are, or who we were,” Kyrie Irving said after Sunday’s victory. “I felt like the second-half of the season, everybody got to see what we were made of. But if you look at the beginning of the season, we were on pace for having a great season still. I think we would have finished one through three. That’s playing hypotheticals, if I don’t get injured or if Luka (Doncic) is not laboring a little bit… I take all that into account when I look at who we are now.
“We’ve grown over the past few months. This has been a journey for us. I like to think that being in fifth took some pressure off of us coming into this postseason. Everybody was looking at the top three seeds… The guys in the locker room have always had the utmost confidence in one another.”
