Luka Doncic Rips Out The Hearts of The Timberwolves

Luka Doncic had another lights-out performance as he and the Dallas Mavericks took advantage of Minnesota Timberwolves Anthony Edwards and Karl Anthony Towns's poor shooting performance and drained a step-back 3-pointer with 3 seconds to go.

Doncic was cold as ice on the Mavs' last shot of the game, and it appears that the Mavericks have figured out how to slow down the Timberwolves defense just enough to squeak out wins in Game 1 and Game 2 of the Western Conference finals.

Outside of Naz Reid, the others on the Mavericks have outplayed the Timberwolves to this point with excellent performances in both games by Derek Lively Jr and Daniel Gafford.

While Kyrie Irving missed two consecutive free throws in the fourth quarter, he got hot in the third and fourth quarters and kept the Mavericks in the game. It's fascinating to watch Doncic take over a portion of the game and then have Irving step in to do the same thing.

POST GAME QUOTES:

"The play was to get Luka the ball and let Luka do what he does in those moments," Kidd said.

“When he got to dancing with Gobert, you could see that the stepback was coming,” Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd said.

"As you've seen, he loves that stage," Kidd said. "He doesn't run from it. He made a big shot. ... Luka is special. He loves those type of moments."

“Some of the greatest scorers to play this game—or the greatest offensive threats—have been able to play that in-between game,” Kyrie Irving said. “They’ve been able to make plays for others. And when they figure out how to make their teammates better, they become that much greater.”

“I don’t decide what I’m gonna look [for] before the play,” Doncic said. “I just see what the defense gives me.” That was true even in the endgame, after 41 minutes of teasing apart every variation in Minnesota’s coverage to clinical precision. “I told D-Live, come [screen] and we’ll just figure it out from there.”

"Like I always say, stay together, positive energy," Doncic said. "We believed until the end."

“I knew that sh** was good. I knew it was good. The way it left his hands,” Dallas Mavericks rookie Dereck Lively II said.

"I let my team down on that last play," Gobert said. "They believed in me to get a stop and he scored. And he scored a 3, which is something that he does very well. So I'm definitely taking that responsibility that I need to be better in that situation."

"We was up 2-0, then they came and won two at the crib and then won one at they crib," said Edwards, who averaged 20 points on 33.3% shooting in the two home losses to start the West finals. "So we've been here before. I don't think anybody in the locker room is panicking. I hope not. Just come out and play our brand of basketball."