Towns heats up, powers Timberwolves to 105-100 win over Mavs

Karl-Anthony Towns broke out of a shooting slump Tuesday night, and his performance meant the Minnesota Timberwolves have lived to see another day.

Towns scored 25 points and snatched five rebounds as the Timberwolves stayed alive in the Western Conference Finals by scoring a surprising 105-100 victory over the Dallas Mavericks at American Airlines Center. After blowing a chance to sweep this series, the Mavs now lead this best-of-seven series, 3-1, with Game 5 slated for Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in Minneapolis.

Towns entered Game 4 with a lowly 15-of-54 shooting from the field for 27.8 percent, including just 3-of-22 for an awful 13.6 percent in the first three games of this series from three-point range. But he was right on target in Game 4, finishing with nine baskets in 13 attempts, including converting 4-of-5 three-pointers that really were just devastating to the Mavs and kept Dallas from sweeping this series and advancing to the NBA Finals.

Before the game, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said he had a chat with Towns on Monday with the idea of getting his mind back on the task at hand.

“I just told him the past is unrelated to the future,” Finch said. “Trust your talent, stay confident.

“We have every confidence in you, and the shots will fall. That’s how shooting is. You just kind of wait until the cards turn in your favor.”

Well, the cards definitely turned in Game 4. Towns tallied 20 of his points in the pivotal second half, including a three-pointer that put Minnesota up, 95-90, with 5:04 remaining.

Towns added another bucket from downtown which increased the Timberwolves’ lead to 98-92 with 2:54 left before he fouled out with Minnesota nursing a 100-92 cushion following a short bank shot from Anthony Edwards.

“You have to give him credit,” Mavs coach Jason Kidd said of Towns. “He was aggressive, he was posting up, he was driving the ball.

“He got some great looks at threes that he had missed early in the series that he knocked down, so give him credit.”

It was one of those disappointing games that the Mavs obviously didn’t see coming. Dallas shot 42 percent from the field and was just 14-of-40 from three-point land.

On the flip side, the Mavs’ vaunted defense that has been a source of pride since March 7 didn’t live up to its high standards as the Timberwolves shot 52.7 percent from the field (39-of-74) and 45.8 percent from downtown (11-of-24).

“You know how we’ve been doing it the majority of the second half of the season,” guard Kyrie Irving said. “That’s on the defensive end. You know the offensive end is going to take care of itself.

“But defensively, that’s where we have to make our presence be felt. And I think it also starts in terms of matching their physicality or overpowering their physicality.”

Despite a late eight-point deficit by the Mavs, Luka Dončić drew the sixth foul on Towns while attempting a three-point shot, and promptly made all three free throws as Dallas closed to within 100-95 of the Timberwolves. The Mavs inched even closer (100-97) on a basket by Irving with 1:02 to go.

However, Edwards, who had 29 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists, nailed a crucial three-pointer to pad the Timberwolves’ lead to 103-97 with a mere 38.8 seconds left. But after Mike Conley (14 points, seven assists, four steals) missed a pair of free throws with 20.8 seconds to go, that left the door wide open for the Mavs to walk through it and possibly sweep this series.

And when Dončić was fouled while he tossed in a wild three-pointer with 13.2 seconds remaining to draw the Mavs within 103-100 of Minnesota, Dallas was looking to possibly steal this game and close out this series. But Dončić missed the follow-up free throw, and Naz Reid closed out the scoring with a layup with 11.3 seconds left.

Dončić finished with a triple-double as he collected 28 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists, but was not pleased with his overall performance.

“I think that game is on me,” said Dončić, who was 7-of-21 from the field. “Just didn’t give enough energy, kind of. So, we got to do better.”

Irving finished with 16 points and was only 6-of-18 from the field and 1-of-6 from three-point territory. And P.J. Washington made just 3-of-13 shots, including only 2-of-9 baskets from downtown while collecting 10 points and five rebounds.

Meanwhile, Jaden Hardy came off the bench and provided a spark for the Mavs. In just 12 minutes Hardy was 5-of-8 from the field – and 3-of-4 from beyond the three-point arc – and scored 13 points.

A dunk by Hardy coupled with two more hoops from the second-year guard was the impetus the Mavs used to crawl within 78-76 of the Timberwolves early in the fourth quarter of a game that was tied at 49 at halftime. But the Mavs just didn’t have extra push to get them over the finish line.

“(The) first and third (quarters) we were not very good tonight,” Kidd said. “So, we’ll look at that to see how we can be better.

“The second and fourth (quarters) we put ourselves in position to win the game, but we got to be better for four quarters. Give Minnesota credit. They came out and fought and found a way to win.”

Irving, who now is 14-1 in his career in close-out games, scored just 10 points and committed three turnovers through the first three quarters when he was 3-of-11 from the field. He admitted he can be more effective.

“I got to start off the game a lot better and just get a shot up at the rim instead of turning the ball over,” Irving said. “We feel like we put ourselves in a great position to win the basketball game.

“We obviously fell short. We failed at that.”

Mavs center Maxi Kleber returned and played for the first time since sustaining a right shoulder AC separation suffered on May 3 in Game 6 of the first-round series against the Los Angeles Clippers. Kleber contributed two points in 13 minutes on 1-of-3 shots, but the Mavs clearly missed backup center Dereck Lively II, who suffered a neck sprain in Sunday’s game against Minnesota.

With Lively sidelined, the Timberwolves outscored the Mavs in the paint, and also out-rebounded them, 40-38. In the meantime, that celebration the Mavs were hoping would have happened on Tuesday had to be put on hold.

“Yeah, understanding that if we won this game, we do close it out, but it’s hard to close in this league,” Kidd said. “We didn’t play our best, and give Minnesota credit. They did (play their best). so we are headed to Minnesota tomorrow to play Game 5.”

X: @DwainPrice