DALLAS — After Anthony Edwards stole the ball, Luka Doncic pounced on it and smashed it far away, creating a scramble that earned the Dallas superstar a jump ball.
The Mavericks once again produced big plays on both ends of the court and are now one win away from reaching their first NBA Finals in 13 years.
Doncic and Kyrie Irving scored 33 points apiece and Dallas went on a decisive run in the final five minutes to beat the Minnesota Timberwolves 116-107 on Sunday night and take a 3-0 lead in the Western Conference finals.
The Mavs, who finished with a 14-3 record, recorded their fifth straight playoff win despite rookie center Derek Lively being forced to leave the game with a sprained neck after receiving an errant knee to the back of the head from Karl-Anthony Towns.
No team in NBA playoff history has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win Game 4, which will be played Tuesday night in Dallas.
“We just need one more point, one more point,” Doncic said. “Nothing's over yet. They're a great team, so nothing's over yet. We just need to get one more point. And once we get one more point, we need the rest.”
P.J. Washington started the decisive stretch with a 3-pointer from the corner after Doncic passed to Irving, who fed Washington the ball.
From there, the co-stars took over.
Doncic made a shot in the lane for a four-point lead, Irving sent the crowd into a frenzy with a falling jumper, and then Doncic set up Daniel Gafford for an alley-oop dunk with 34 seconds left for a 113-105 lead after Gafford blocked a Mike Conley layup at the other end.
“They doubled me the whole game, they doubled Kai the whole game, so that made us stronger,” Doncic said. “Everybody touched the ball, everybody made plays. It was a great win. We gave it our all down the stretch.”
Edwards scored 26 points for the Timberwolves, but just four points after Minnesota scored eight straight points in the third quarter to tie the game for the Timberwolves.
“I've never thought about the sky falling,” Edwards said. “I've always been positive, I've always been happy. I've been through so much that the sky is not falling for me.”
Towns scored 14 points but missed all eight of his 3-point attempts, including one with 1 minute, 25 seconds left when the game was down by four.
Minnesota, which led 104-102 on a Kyle Anderson floater with five minutes left in the game, missed seven straight shots to hold an 18-point lead in the first half and a five-point lead in the final 90 seconds of Game 2.
“We've got to be right up there with them and try to score,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said. “We've struggled throughout the whole series to close games out. In the three minutes that we're playing, we're losing.”
Doncic, whose game-winning 3-pointer in the final seconds of Game 2 in Minnesota put Dallas firmly in control of the series, made 10 of 20 shots and 5 of 11 from the 3-point line.
Irving, who won a championship with LeBron James in Cleveland in 2016, scored 14 points in the fourth quarter, making 12 of 20 shots from long range and 3 of 6 from beyond the arc.
With 2011 NBA Finals MVP Dirk Nowitzki watching from center court, the Mavs came the closest they've come to playing on the NBA's biggest stage since the hulking German led the franchise to its only championship.
Edwards shot 11 of 24 from the field, but only attempted three shots in the fourth quarter, making two of them. The 22-year-old star, who admitted to feeling fatigued after the series, also had nine rebounds and nine assists.
“At this point, all we can do is stay positive,” Edwards said. “We can't stay negative. We're just going to try to take it one win at a time.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
