It was clear form the way they spoke even as the series unfolded that the Timberwolves felt as though they were the better team in the Western Conference Finals.

It was an earned arrogance. Minnesota won 56 games during the regular season. It grounded Phoenix to a pulp in the first first. It rallied past the defending champ in Round 2 — behind a dominant second-half performance on the road in Game 7 in which it physically wore Denver down.

After that performance, many pegged the Wolves as a lock to reach the NBA Finals, and perhaps even win the whole thing. The Wolves clearly believed this much — if they played their brand of physical, defensive-minded basketball, they could not be beaten.

Dallas proved it all wrong on all accounts in this series — never more so than Thursday, when the Mavericks blitzed Minnesota from start to finish at Target Center en route to a 124-103 victory to close out the West Finals with a 4-1 series victory.

The Mavericks led by 36 points at one point in the third quarter.

After Dallas’ Game 4 defeat, Kyrie Irving lamented the lost opportunity to celebrate an NBA Finals berth in front of the home crowd.

“Sorry, fans,” Irving said in his postgame press conference.

It’s like he knew what was coming. Dallas played Thursday as though it was ready for this series to wrap, and there was nothing Minnesota could do about it.

Dallas had to settle for holding its trophy presentation at Target Center, which, to be fair, proved to be awfully friendly confines for the Mavericks in this series. Dallas didn’t lose a game in Minneapolis.

Minnesota’s only victory in the series — Game 4 in Dallas — came with Mavericks’ center Dereck Lively II sidelined with a neck injury. He was back Thursday, meaning the Mavericks were again at full strength. And when the Mavericks were at full strength, they generally out-played Minnesota.

And it always started up top.

Luka Doncic sucked the life out of a raucous Target Center in the first frame Thursday. He scored 20 points in the first quarter, going 4 for 6 from the 3-point line. The most impressive hit of the quarter came when Doncic smoothly pulled up from 32 feet and hit nothing but net.

If there’s such a thing as a statement shot, that was it.

Doncic and Irving were Batman and Robin all series. It was true again Thursday, as Doncic went off for 36 points, 10 rebounds and five assists, while Irving tacked on 36 points of his own.

Doncic was easily the best player in this series. But that was likely to be expected. But what killed Minnesota was that Irving was right behind him in the series ranks.

Those two rendered Minnesota’s defensive pressure — which demoralized Phoenix and Denver — effectively moot. The two were too skilled and two crafty to have the ball just taken away from them by a hounding defender. Irving blew by Minnesota’s perimeter pressure, while Doncic either got a guy on his hip and slowly walked to the paint, or drilled a step-back triple.

They were consistent offense in this series from start to finish.

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said at various points throughout the series that Minnesota would simply need to score alongside the Mavericks at times. But that’s never been the Timberwolves’ M.O. Their defense almost always sparked their offense.

The Wolves struggled in half-court sets against quality defenses. Dallas’ defense over the past three months has been the best in the NBA, even superior to Minnesota.

So when Minnesota had to generate offense in key spots, it almost never met the challenge.

That will be something for Minnesota to address in the offseason. The offensive end is what needs to round into form for the Timberwolves to take the next step and build upon this historic season.

The Timberwolves won a series for the first time in 20 years. Then they won another. They were the NBA’s best defense over the course of the full season by a mile and knocked off the defending champs when few gave them an opportunity to do so.

Anthony Edwards — who scored 28 points Thursday to tie Karl-Anthony Towns for the team high — ascended to become one of the best, and perhaps most liked, players in basketball. Rudy Gobert won another Defensive Player of the Year honor. The Target Center crowd was treated to an enjoyable brand of basketball all season long.

After booing at points in the third frame as the season unraveled before their eyes, fans sent Minnesota out with a sea of cheers — and one more “Let’s Go Wolves!” chant — as the final horn sounded Thursday.

But the bad taste of the final game fans saw up close and personal will likely linger for awhile.

It’s roughly 1:30 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, and tipoff between the Timberwolves and Dallas Mavericks is quickly approaching.

As the hustle and bustle in downtown Minneapolis slowly picks up ahead of Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals, well over 100 employees of the Timberwolves are working feverishly inside Target Center making sure everything is set up for the occasion.

There are pockets of people in different sections throughout the building draping shirts on seats and laying towels on top of that. The scene resembles something out of National Geographic, like various ant colonies working in unison to complete a task.

This is how every seat gets a shirt and towel for Timberwolves playoff games. The giveaway for fans has produced immaculate vibes at Target Center over the past month. It’s spectacular to see more than 18,000 fans wearing the same shirt while waving the same towel.

That’s exactly what the Timberwolves are going for as vice president of fan experience Jeff Munneke is concerned.

He doesn’t want fans thinking about the work that went into the moment. He just wants them to soak in every second of it.

“Just being able to do something like this helps create even more of an atmosphere inside the building,” said Munneke, the organization’s longest-tenured employee, who was hard at work in Section 110 in the hours leading up to tipoff. “You’ve got people walking into the Target Center, and they’re howling and chanting. There’s already a bounce to everybody’s step, and then they come in here and it’s so vibrant with the shirts and towels. It’s a lot of fun.”

The planning process for the Timberwolves started with casual conversations in late February and early March.

What did they want the giveaways to entail?  What was the aesthetic going to look like? What were they going to do to promote whatever they decided on?

“We decided to do both a shirt and a towel,” said chief marketing officer Mike Grahl, who was bouncing around Section 108 helping anywhere he could. “There was so much energy around, so we wanted to give fans something to wear and something to wave.”

The design for each shirt and towel has come from within the organization. That allowed the Timberwolves to stray from the plainness that is usually associated with giveaways.

“We’ve had a lot of fun with it,” Grahl said. “We’ve gotten to lean into a little bit of Wolves culture.”

It’s gotten pretty weird at times — in the best way possible — as the Timberwolves have catered to the diehard fans.

They had a shirt with niche mascot Air Crunch flying over downtown Minneapolis for a home game last round against the Denver Nuggets. They opted for a more traditional “WOLVES BACK” insignia with the Timberwolves hosting the Mavericks in Game 5.

“We always talk about this could be on somebody’s bucket list,” Munneke said. “We want to make sure it’s a great experience, because that’s what it’s all about.

There’s actually an art to the setup at Target Center. In fact, the Timberwolves sent out a tutorial video to their employees prior to the playoffs, detailing how to properly place the shirt on the seat with the towel on top. The techniques vary.

“I’ve been doing this for 35 years,” Munneke said. “I figured I’ve laid down almost 200,000 shirts in my life. That doesn’t include playoff games like this where we’re doing both shirts and towels. I’ve worked on every type of technique imaginable to figure out what works.”

The way the shirts and towels end up on the seat doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters to the Timberwolves is that the fans enjoy it.

“Nobody in the organization is above it,” said Kelley Wollak, a partnership and marketing executive, who took a moment to look around Target Center after finishing up her portion of the set up in Section 112. “We do it because we know it’s going to make a big impact for our fans. Just seeing how much joy each shirt and towel brings the fans makes it all worth it. It’s incredible to see it all come together in that moment when it’s tipoff, and everybody is wearing their shirt and waving their towel.”

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Former Vikings defensive end Everson Griffen has been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and cocaine possession after a traffic stop late Tuesday in Minneapolis.

Griffen, 36, of Mound, was pulled over by a Minnesota state trooper for driving 82 mph on southbound Interstate 35W near Lake Street, the charges say. He failed sobriety tests, and a small vial with cocaine was found in his back pocket during his arrest.

Everson Griffen (Courtesy of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office)

Griffen was released from the Hennepin County jail Thursday afternoon after posting a $12,000 bond. He’s scheduled to make a first court appearance on the charges June 13. Court records do not yet list an attorney for him.

The charges are the latest in a string of legal trouble for Griffen, who is on probation for a reckless driving conviction that stemmed from a DWI arrest in Chanhassen in July.

According to the latest charges, the trooper pulled over Griffen, who was driving a Bentley Bentayga, at 11:35 p.m. He had watery eyes and smelled of alcohol. A passenger was in the front seat. Griffen said he had one drink and they were headed to Mystic Lake Casino in Prior Lake.

A preliminary breath test showed Griffen’s blood-alcohol content was 0.10. The vial found during his arrest contained 0.02 grams of cocaine. A breath test taken just before 12:30 a.m. also registered a 0.10 BAC. The legal limit in Minnesota is 0.08.

Griffen faces two counts of gross misdemeanor third-degree DWI and one count each of gross misdemeanor fifth-degree drug possession and misdemeanor careless driving.

During his July DWI arrest, Griffen’s blood-alcohol content registered 0.09, according to court documents. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor reckless driving after striking a plea deal with Carver County prosecutors and was sentenced to a year of probation in February.

Three months after the arrest, Griffen crashed his 2017 Mercedes-Benz into a car, then a fence and gazebo in Mound on Oct. 28. He was convicted of failure to drive with due care, a petty misdemeanor.

Griffen was cited for speeding Dec. 7 after a Shakopee police officer caught him on radar driving his 2020 Bentley truck at 55 mph in a 30 mph zone.

The former All-Pro has struggled with mental health issues over the years.

While he was with the Vikings, Griffen was placed on the non-football illness list following an incident at his Minnetrista home on Nov. 24, 2021, in which he posted a since-deleted disturbing video on Instagram that showed him holding a handgun and expressing concern for his safety.

He called 911 to report an intruder, but none was found. Police and mental health officials worked for several hours to get Griffen to come out of his home before he was taken by ambulance to a mental health facility.

Griffen also missed five games in 2018 because of a mental health situation. He wrote in an Instagram post Dec. 3 that he is “bipolar” and will “be an advocate for mental health.”

Griffen played with Minnesota from 2010-19, making four Pro Bowls, and rejoined the team in 2021 after spending the 2020 season with Dallas and Detroit.

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Rochester starter DJ Herz allowed one run on two hits over 5 1/3 innings in the Red Wings’ 6-3 win over the St. Paul Saints in a Thursday morning game in Rochester, N.Y.

Herz, who struck out 10 and walked one, came out after allowing a single and getting a strikeout in the sixth. Reliever Orlando Ribalta struck out Royce Lewis, then gave up a two-run homer to Matt Wallner, his seventh of the season.

The Saints’ Yunier Severino hit a solo home run, his ninth of the season, in the ninth inning.

Lewis, who is on a rehab assignment from the Twins, started at third base and went 0 for 3 with two strikeouts. Alex Isola went 2 for 4 for St. Paul.

Saints starting pitcher Jordan Balazovic allowed two runs on five hits in two innings, and Austin Schulfer followed by giving up two runs on three hits over two innings.

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