MINNEAPOLIS— The Minnesota Timberwolves avoided the sweep with a win in Game 4 at the Mavericks in Dallas on Tuesday, which gave the fans a thrill and the “Inside the NBA” crew the shivers.
In their postgame segment, Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley and the rest of the TNT crew praised the Wolves while (jokingly) lamenting the return to Minneapolis.
“This evening [Anthony Edwards] And [Karl-Anthony Towns] played well and now we have to go back to cold Minnesota,” O’Neal said.
“It’s not exactly as cold as Chuck made it out to be,” Ernie Johnson said, referring to Barkley’s earlier joke about it snowing in Minnesota.
The current forecast for Thursday’s Game 5 actually looks quite pleasant, with an expected high of 79, no rain and some sunshine.
Before the series began, Barkley told Edwards in an interview that it had been 20 years since he had been in Minnesota.
“Bring your ass,” Edwards told him and gave fans a battle cry and social media managers in Minnesota an easy win.
While the Wolves bounced back from elimination with the win, they are still down 3-1 and one loss away from a trip to the offseason. No team in NBA history has done what they hoped to do: come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a series.
The “Inside the NBA” acknowledged that the Wolves still have a difficult path forward, but sounded optimistic about the Wolves’ chances on Thursday evening. O’Neal asked Barkley which team will win if the top four guys on each side play their best game. As Barkley circled and wailed the response, Kenny Smith jumped in.
“I think if they all play their best, Minnesota will be a 10-point favorite,” Smith said.
Barkley ultimately agreed. The entire team gave special praise to Towns for stepping up after a weak performance by the first three games of the series. Towns had 25 points and shot 4/5 from three in Tuesday’s game, although he fouled out late.
For the first time in the series, the Wolves duo of Towns and Edwards (54 points) defeated Dallas’ Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving (44 points). Four of the Wolves’ five starters had a positive plus/minus, while only one of the Mavericks’ starters did (Derrick Jones Jr.).
Will the Wolves make history and go to the NBA Finals? To do this, they need three more performances comparable to, or possibly even better than, Tuesday night’s.
