Anthony Edwards is the best player on the Timberwolves. The playoff run has illuminated that time and time again as Edwards has put the state of Minnesota on his back and taken it to places it hasn’t been in 20 years. He’s the heartbeat of the team, the lifeblood of the operation, the straw that stirs the drink.

Unfortunately for the Timberwolves, he wasn’t any of those things in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals on Wednesday night at Target Center, and they suffered a deflating 108-105 loss to the Dallas Mavericks as a result.

It wasn’t a horrible game for Edwards simply by looking at the box score. He finished with 19 points on 6-of-16 shooting while leading the team with 11 rebounds. He also got his teammates involved throughout the game by making the right play on the perimeter.

That said, Edwards should be held to a higher standard as he continues to ascend in his career. He wasn’t nearly aggressive enough with the ball in his hands throughout the game, routinely settling for jumpers rather than attacking the basket. He also struggled at times to stop penetration on the other end.

If the Timberwolves are going to bounce back in this series, Edwards has to be better. He’s their best player They need him to play like it.

On the flip side, Luka Doncic was tremendous for the Mavericks, doing everything a superstar is supposed to do when the lights are bright. He finished with 33 points on 12-of-26 shooting and most notably took over down the stretch with 15 points in the final frame.

In a lot of ways, Doncic was everything Edwards wasn’t across 48 minutes, and that proved to be the difference in the game.

As much as he seemed to be fighting it throughout the game, Edwards made arguably his biggest blunder before halftime.

With the Timberwolves in position to take what should’ve been the final possession, Edwards sailed a pass over the head of Mike Conley, gifting the Mavericks an extra possession. A few seconds later, Kyrie Irving converted a tough layup on the other end got fouled in the process, and he knocked down the free throw for good measure.

It was the latest example of the Timberwolves imploding amid a pivotal stretch before halftime.

The bad vibes from that mistake carried over after halftime as Edwards never truly got into a rhythm. There were times when he passed when he probably should’ve shot and times he shot when he probably should’ve passed. Though he still made a couple of big shots toward the end of the game, it wasn’t enough to lead the Timberwolves to a win.

Now if Edwards has proven anything over the past month it’s that he’s more than up for the challenge. He said he will be better in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals on Friday night at Target Center, and he deserves the benefit of the doubt given his resume to this point.

That doesn’t make up for the fact that the Timberwolves wasted an opportunity to take control against the Mavericks.

This is a heavyweight fight that will likely go the distance, meaning Edwards will have many more chances to punch back.

It seems like a pretty good bet that he will do exactly that.

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Three days ago, Minnesota was in a state of euphoria after rallying from a 20-point deficit in Game 7 to knock off the defending champs.

Now, the Timberwolves trail the Western Conference Finals 1-0.

Life moves fast in the NBA. Series change and you are asked to do different things stylistically and schematically to match your new opponent.

Minnesota was a little slow to the trigger in its 108-105 loss to Dallas on Wednesday at Target Center.

The Wolves took too long to find their defense against Dallas’ pick-and-roll heavy approach. Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving got to the paint at will, and with the game on the line, Doncic took over in the fourth to guide the Mavericks to victory.

While Minnesota couldn’t find its way in the final few minutes.

Minnesota took a 102-98 lead on an Anthony Edwards triple with 3 minutes, 37 seconds to play, punctuating a 13-1 run that appeared to have the Wolves en route to an impressive comeback victory.

But the offense ran cold from there.

The Wolves went more than three minutes before their next bucket — a Naz Reid putback with 10 seconds to play. In between the buckets were four missed shots and two turnovers. And that was the game.

“No composure,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said. “It was the same at the end of the first half. We haven’t really closed quarters very well, closed halves very well over the last handful of games. It cost us a game in the Denver series. It certainly had an impact on this game tonight, too. We’ve got to be better in clutch moments.”

As a whole, Mike Conley felt the team looked tired.

“In a sense that we weren’t moving without the ball, we weren’t setting screens, we weren’t getting guys open. We were holding onto the ball a lot. No matter what call we made or set we tried to get into, there was not a lot of energy put into it,” Conley said. “And you can’t effectively run anything without having that energy. We have to find that. We can not be that team that goes three minutes without scoring against a team like Dallas who has guys that are going to come at you and make you pay for it.”

Just like that, Dallas has stolen home court.

Minnesota fell on a night where its two star players — Karl-Anthony Towns and Edwards — struggled to get going offensively.

Towns was 6 for 20 from the field. Edwards was 6 for 16, though he did grab 11 boards to go with eight assists. Still, his defense wasn’t as assertive as it was over the first two postseason series. Perhaps the guard was a bit fatigued after the battle with Denver.

But that’s not an allowable excuse at the moment. The page must be flipped. Especially with a trip to the NBA Finals on the line.

While the stars struggled, Minnesota’s role players stepped up in a big way. Jaden McDaniels and Kyle Anderson were a combined 10 for 12 from the floor to start the game. McDaniels finished with 24 points on 9-for-15 shooting, burying six triples.

But Dallas will likely take its chances with those guys knocking down outside shots if it means the big guns aren’t firing on all cylinders. The Mavericks had the opposite, with Doncic and Irving combining for 63 points, while its role players struggled to knock down shots.

But, come winning time, it was Doncic who carried the torch. He finished with 15 points, four rebounds and two steals in the final frame alone. Included in that was a tough, contested triple to cut Dallas’ deficit to one in the final five minutes when it looked like Minnesota — which stormed back from eight down earlier in the quarter — was starting to seize control.

Still, Minnesota had a chance late. Trailing by four with two seconds to play, Conley was fouled on a 3-point attempt, meaning if he could make the first two free throws, he could miss the third intentionally and perhaps the Wolves could make something happen on the glass with their size advantage.

But he missed the second free-throw attempt. It was that kind of night for the Wolves.

Game 2 is Friday at Target Center. The importance of that one is suddenly heightened for Minnesota.

“I think we haven’t been tested like this where we’ve had to trade basket to basket, late-game free-throw situations or fouling situations, stuff that we have to be better at,” Conley said. “But we’ll learn from it. I think each game we’ve learned a lot about ourselves, a lot we can get better at. Obviously, it’s going to be a long series, regardless of what happened tonight.”

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At legal loggerheads with state regulators, operators of the Northern Iron & Machine foundry in St. Paul pulled out of a public meeting scheduled for Wednesday evening with representatives of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and plan instead to complete a court-ordered legal mediation.

The community meeting took place without company representatives from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at the East Side YMCA on Arcade Street.

Northern Iron, which was established in St. Paul in 1906, came under new ownership in 2022 and has been under pressure from the MPCA to resolve what the company has described as “a pre-existing air permitting issue” while it attempts to modernize its metal casting plant with new air emissions control equipment. Northern Iron LLC was fined $41,500 by the MPCA last fall for air quality violations and a 15-year history of related problems, such as swapping out air quality control equipment without a permit.

The company, which is owned by the Lawton Standard companies of suburban Green Bay, Wis., was also required to produce updated emissions modeling and apply for a permit amendment. Lead monitoring in the Payne-Phalen area began in April, around the time the MPCA issued an administrative order giving the Forest Street foundry 30 days to reduce emissions and comply with its air quality standards.

Based on preliminary data, the MPCA found that the “foundry is very likely emitting lead and particulate matter at levels above national ambient air quality standards,” reads a statement released last month by the agency.

Company officials say the MPCA’s most recent orders would require a significant reduction in production, which could cost jobs, and requested a temporary injunction against the MPCA last week in Ramsey County District Court. A judge on Tuesday ordered both sides to complete third-party mediation by May 31. The company has maintained that MPCA regulators have violated the terms of a stipulated agreement through their enforcement actions.

The MPCA has installed its own air emissions monitors near the foundry, but Northern Iron maintains that the data from the monitor does not sync with the foundry’s hours of operation and “is inconsistent by day.”

“For the past 18 months, Northern Iron has been working with the MPCA to correct permitting issues that occurred under Northern Iron’s previous ownership,” reads a statement issued by the company Wednesday evening. “Northern Iron has repeatedly met with MPCA staff to address these concerns and find ways to upgrade its facilities and equipment. In 2023, Northern Iron and the MPCA entered into a stipulation agreement that allowed Northern Iron to continue to operate while it upgraded its equipment and continued to meet compliance standards.”

Calls to an MPCA spokesman and a representative of the Payne-Phalen Community Council were not immediately returned Wednesday evening.

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