DALLAS – A year ago, Anthony Edwards sat silently at his locker after Minnesota went down 3-0 to Denver in the first round and stared into the mirror before eventually getting up and walking out without saying a word.

Two days later, he scored 34 points on the strength of five triples to lead the Timberwolves to a Game 4 victory over the Nuggets.

The win – while the only victory of last year’s playoffs for Minnesota – had meaning to Edwards.

“I don’t ever want to say I got swept in my career,” Edwards said.

Mike Conley sat at his locker after Minnesota’s dramatic Western Conference semifinals, Game 7 victory in Denver and was asked, “What’s next?”

Conley secured his first career playoff sweep in Round 1 against Phoenix. He notched his first Game 7 victory in Denver. Surely, there was another box to check on the horizon.

The veteran point guard’s answer: “Win a conference finals game.”

Conley’s goals are certainly higher than that – the 36-year-old yearns to win a title before he hangs up his sneakers. But it’s well documented by now that this is Conley’s second conference finals appearance – and first since 2013. And the Grizzlies were swept by San Antonio that season.

An identical exit would likely hit a little harder 11 years later.

No NBA team has ever rallied from a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-7 series in 154 tries – and both the Wolves and Indiana Pacers find themselves in such a hole. So no, it’s not likely Minnesota will reel off four-straight victories to reach the franchise’s first NBA Finals. Though, hey, who knows?

But just nabbing a win Tuesday in Game 4 would mean something. It would mean no sweep of Edwards. It would mean another small career achievement for Conley. It would also mean Minnesota gets to fight another day.

That’s the Wolves’ plan.

“I just told them to keep fighting. We fight. We’ve been fighting all series, and we’re not going to stop fighting,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said. “We’ll look at it, we’ll build it back up and we’ll be ready to go on Tuesday, and see what happens from there.”

It’s true, the Wolves have been resilient all year. When a player went down, another stepped up. When a deficit grew, the Wolves responded and rallied.

Lest we forget the defending NBA champions led Minnesota – at home – by 20 points in the second half of a Game 7, and the Wolves still won.

Perhaps the team that has routinely set new franchise marks will achieve an NBA first, as well.

One thing is for sure – if the Wolves go down, it will be swinging.

“If (there’s) a team that can do it, I think it’s us. We’re built to do that,” Wolves forward Naz Reid said. “Everybody still got their heads up. You don’t want to go down 0-3, but it’s part of life. We’re not going to hang our head about it. We’re going to go out there and fix it.”

It’s worth a try.

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“We ain’t got nothing else to do,” Edwards said. “We can’t do nothing but be positive at this point. We can’t be negative. Just try to get it one win at a time.”

DALLAS – Karl-Anthony Towns had seemingly bested his postseason demons through the first two rounds of this year’s playoffs.

Sure, there were a few offensive clunkers mixed in, but in general the all-star big man was great on defense – where he took on marquee matchups – and on the glass and delivered offensively when needed.

He helped slam the door on Phoenix in Game 4. He shot 51 percent from the floor and 39 percent from deep against Denver.

After his fair share of past playoff struggles, Towns had apparently found a comfort level on the sport’s biggest, brightest stages.

But the Western Conference Finals have told a different story. Through three games – all Wolves’ losses – Towns is shooting 28 percent from the field and 14 percent from 3-point range. His offensive struggles bottomed out in Game 3 on Sunday, when the big man went 0 for 8 from 3-point range.

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch admitted it was “hard to watch” Towns struggle at times Sunday.

“He had enough buckets here and there. Defensively, in the second half, I was really pleased with the way he played, rebounding pretty well,” Finch said. “But yeah, he’s struggling. There’s no doubt in that right now.”

Finch felt Towns was rushing his shots earlier in the series. He didn’t think that was the case Sunday. Which makes the results all the more inexplicable. One of the NBA’s premiere 3-point shooters missed the rim on multiple good looks from beyond the arc.

“He had a couple good looks and needed those to go down, particularly earlier in the game,” Finch said.

And Towns assumed they would.

“I feel every shot’s good. I’ve shot a lot of basketballs in my life. I’m the first one in the gym. I definitely am working. I’m shooting. Every time I’m shooting, it feels good,” Towns said. “I’m just having these very unfortunate bounces all the time. It’s annoying. The last game, first shot of the game goes in-out, in-out, in-out. This game, my first shot is a free throw and it goes in-out. I don’t mean to smile, but I’ve just got to laugh at it right now. It’s very disappointing.”

Towns said his confidence level remains “extremely high.” He noted he’s putting up “1,500 shots a day” – a fact the Inside the NBA crew vehemently disputed after Game 3.

Regardless, Towns has a large body of work upon which he can rely to know future shots will fall. Wolves forward Kyle Anderson agreed 3-point shots will go down for Towns. But there are certainly other ways he can get himself going in the meantime. That was evident in the third quarter on Sunday, when – after Dallas big Dereck Lively left the game due to injury – Towns started to go downhill aggressively in an effort to attack the rack.

“Put me in spots where I was getting the ball in the mid-post, Dallas action,” Towns said, “and I was utilizing that one-two step to the basket for my advantage.”

Perhaps more of that will be required until Towns regains his shooting touch. Because this much is apparent – if Towns can’t find ways to be an offensive contributor, it will be difficult for Minnesota to extend its season. There simply aren’t enough shooters nor offensive creators for Minnesota to survive these major lulls from its all-star big man.

Take the second half Sunday, for example. When Towns was 3 for 4 from the field with nine points in the third frame, the Wolves dropped 35 points in the quarter – its most impressive offensive segment of the series.

When Towns is rolling, it opens up the floor for everyone else – namely, Anthony Edwards.

But, in the fourth, Towns regressed again, going 0 for 4 from the field, and Minnesota scored just 20 points in the quarter en route to another crushing defeat. If Dallas doesn’t have to account for Towns on offense, the floor shrinks in Minnesota in short order.

Towns has shot below 35 percent from the floor in nine of his 30 career playoff games – Minnesota is 0-9 in those contests.

“I think KAT gotta just do a better job of maybe getting back to his old self, of finding himself around the basket more. Rim running, taking advantage of mismatches,” Anderson said. “He’s obviously a really good player, and he’s big time for us, so we need him to get going. So it’s our job to put him in the right position. … But I think if he gets back to rim running and catching the ball on the block and taking his time and going to finish, they got nothing for him. So we just gotta find him, put him in the right situations.”

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DALLAS — Dallas lost its third-best player to injury in the second quarter of Game 3 on Sunday, giving Minnesota a major matchup advantage.

And it didn’t matter.

Because Dallas has the best two players in this series — and that’s not particularly debatable.

With Minnesota holding all the momentum and size advantage heading into the final frame Sunday in Dallas — and the series on the line, Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic rose to the occasion.

The tandem hit one massive shot after another, fending off every Minnesota body blow in the process, and putting Minnesota’s season in major peril.

The Wolves trail the Western Conference Finals 3-0 after falling 116-107 in Dallas.

“Credit to them, they hit shots when they’ve got to hit shots,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “For us, we’re just not hitting the shots when we’ve got to. It’s tough. It’s tough, for sure.”

Irving went off for 12 points in the final frame, burying one tough shot after another. Doncic finished with seven points in the fourth, also delivering the game-sealing alley oop to Daniel Gafford for an and-1 to put Dallas up nine with 34 seconds to play.

With two minutes to play, Minnesota seemed to get a potential spark, as the Wolves wrestled away a potential rebound while down four. But all Doncic did then was rip it away from Edwards. A jump ball was called, and Doncic won the tip over Minnesota’s star player.

That defined the series.

Edwards and Towns combined for four points in the final quarter — all to Edwards. His third and fourth points were the product of a meaningless layup as the final seconds ticked off. That was Minnesota’s only field goal over the game’s final five minutes.

When the best is required, Dallas’ best has supplied all of it. Irving and Doncic combined for 66 points.

“They got to their spots, they would rise up (and score),” Wolves coach Chris Finch said. “They’re great players. They’re beating us 1 on 1 at the moment.”

Minnesota tried its best to take those two out of the game early with added defensive attention by both blitzing ball screens to get two on the guards, while then also squeezing in off the corner shooters to supply additional help.

That didn’t work, either.

“They threw the ball around and made a lot of great plays and then all the other guys started throwing in threes,” Finch said. “It’s been tough for us to try to navigate that. We’ve been picking our poison here a little bit. And, at times in the game, we do different things.”

And none of them prove to be successful.

Minnesota trailed by 10 early in the second quarter and was getting largely picked apart by Dallas, who’d seemingly solved the puzzle of anything the Wolves could present it.

But then the Mavericks lost a massive, massive chess piece. Rookie center Dereck Lively — who’d helped neutralize Minnesota’s size advantage in the series — was falling to the floor as a missed shot came off the iron. Karl-Anthony Towns crashed in for the rebound and, as he took off, his knee inadvertently mashed into Lively’s head.

The 20-year-old stayed on the floor for a lengthy period and, when he finally did get to his feet, was clearly unstable and had to be helped off the floor.

And everything changed. Minnesota’s offensive aggression jumped through the roof. Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns came alive as Dallas’ rim protection dissipated and, with it, the Mavericks’ excellent defense was compromised.

Minnesota took full advantage, scoring 35 points in the third quarter — 19 of which belonged to Edwards and Towns. The game was tied with 12 minutes to play. It looked like the Wolves were primed to get back into the series. In that stretch, the Wolves played quicker, more decisive basketball than they’ve exhibited for most of the series.

But, as they’ve done all series when Minnesota found morsels of success, Dallas adapted and resolved its issues in short order. The Wolves offense devolved back into sticky-ball, slow-paced junk when the game was on the line.

“You play into their hands when you hold the ball and you dribble out the clock and are fighting against the shot clock. That was the issue we had a little bit tonight, where we were looking down 10, 11 seconds left on the shot clock and at that point you have to force it instead of being in an action early, playing a little bit more force going down hill making plays, which we’re capable of doing,” Mike Conley said. “The last couple days, we’ve proved to be more than capable of making these adjustments, making these reads. We gotta want to do it, and we gotta want to do it every single time against a team like this who’s very long, athletic, smart and calculated in what they do.”

And, of course, the Mavericks’ greatest solutions of all are No. 77 and No. 11 — those answers have proven correct every time Minnesota has presented a question.

“We just gotta figure out a way to slow both of them down, and Luka and Kyrie, as well as those other guys. They can’t all play well like that,” Anderson said. “We’re gonna have to pick and choose (who has advantageous matchups). That’s what we’re gonna do in Game 4.”

 

Nearly 18 minutes into the second overtime Sunday night at Xcel Energy Center, Minnesota finally got what it so desperately wanted. An announced crowd of 13,104 finally got what it came for and was calling for throughout the night.

Or so they thought.

Minnesota defender Sophie Jaques scored from the slot to apparently give Minnesota a 1-0 victory over Boston and the first Professional Women’s Hockey League championship. With Minnesota players celebrating along the boards to the right of the Boston net, it soon became clear that the play was being reviewed for possible goaltender interference.

A few anxious minutes later, the goal was wiped out. Just over a minute later, Boston scored to pick up the 1-0 victory and keep its season alive, leaving “The State of Hockey” in a state of shock.

A deciding Game 5 of the best-of-five series will be played in Boston on Wednesday.

“That one hurt,” said Minnesota coach Ken Klee. “When the confetti’s going and the gloves are coming off — then you have to try to refocus real quick.”

The overturned goal was set up by a strong move to the net by Minnesota center Taylor Heise down left wing. As Heise leaned to her right to cut in front of the net, she lost her footing and went sliding into Boston goaltender Aerin Frankel.

Frankel was down on the ice when Jacques swooped in to bury the loose puck.

Klee said it was a call that could have gone either way.

“In real time it doesn’t look like (interference),” he said, “but when you slow it down and see the replay, she definitely loses an edge. It’s tough to tell if because of a Boston players’ stick or she just loses an edge.

“It’s just one of those things that happens. We had lots of chances to win the game. For us, we get to play another game. That’s the way you’ve got to look at it.”

Boston’s game-winner came on a high wrist shot from the slot by Alina Muller that beat Minnesota goaltender Nicole Hensley.

The home team’s celebration, while appropriate, proved to be premature. Time will tell if the sting of what came next will linger.

“It’s a high of a high to us having to balance the situation, pick up our sticks and get back to work,” said Minnesota captain Kendall Coyne Schofield. “It’s not easy to come back from by any means, but that’s what we had to do.”

Minnesota center Kelly Pannek was on the ice for the first shift after the goal was disallowed, and she said she didn’t notice any shift in momentum.

“It was just a hockey play that happens after two overtimes,” Pannek said. “I think we did a good job resetting. Sometimes the bounces don’t go your way, which wasn’t for us tonight.”

Boston played with the desperation needed from a team on the brink of elimination, but Minnesota matched that effort. Both teams had a number of good scoring chances throughout regulation and into the overtimes, with Hensley and her counterpart, Aerin Frankel, making a number of big saves.

“I don’t think it’s just tonight, I think it’s been that way all year,” Coyne Schofield said of the strong goaltending. “You look at our last series with Toronto and Boston’s series with Montreal, you’re not seeing a lot of high-scoring games. So you’ve got to expect that.

“You’ve got to be OK winning 1-0.”

Minnesota would have been OK with winning 1-0. And before the cruelest of twists, it thought it had done just that.

Briefly

Minnesota general manager Natalie Darwitz was inducted into the International Hockey Federation Hall of Fame on Sunday in Prague, Czechia. Merlin Ravndalen, Darwitz’s coach at Eagan High School, attended the ceremony in her place.

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