The Dallas Mavericks will face the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals, marking the second time Minnesota has reached the conference finals as a franchise. Despite their lack of experience, the Timberwolves had Vegas on their side early on.
Minnesota opens FanDuel as the favorite to make the NBA Finals, with -170 odds to win the series and the Mavericks at +138. He's also two spots lower on exact game odds, with Minnesota winning five games at +370 and Minnesota winning seven games at +400. The Mavericks' win minimum is he has won 6 games and is listed as +450.
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Timberwolves phenom Anthony Edwards also has the lowest odds of winning Conference Finals MVP at -150, followed by Luka Doncic at +165. Edwards has averaged 28.9 ppg so far in the playoffs, scoring 40 points three times, but has been held to 20 points or less in four of his nine games. We're going to see a lot of Derrick Jones Jr. in this series.
Dallas hasn't been a favorite in any postseason series this year and is used to being the underdog, but they have won both of their opening games in six games. They have also lost every Game 1 during Jason Kidd's tenure as the Mavericks' coach, and going into Wednesday's game, Minnesota is only a -4 favorite with a -178 prize line.
It will be a series featuring two outstanding defensemen. Minnesota had the league's best defensive rating throughout the regular season and had just held the reigning champions to 97 PPG. They lost every game they allowed 100 or more points to the Nuggets, but this could be something the Mavericks could take advantage of. Dallas has the league's best defensive rating over the final 20 games of the regular season and is coming off a dominating series in which they held the league's best shooting team to 33.5% on 3-on-3 shooting. He has a tough defense.
Game 1 between the Timberwolves and Mavericks will begin at 7:30 p.m. CT at Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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