Anthony Edwards condemned the Dallas Mavericks to a 10th consecutive loss — their worst slump since 1998 — scoring 40 points in an ultimately convincing win Friday for the Minnesota Timberwolves.<\/p>\n
Fresh from winning MVP at last weekend’s All-Star Game in Los Angeles<\/a>, Edwards<\/a> also managed six rebounds, while Rudy Gobert<\/a> scored a double-double, with 22 points and 17 rebounds.<\/p>\n Down by 18 points in the second quarter, the ailing Mavericks<\/a> had nearly pulled off an improbable comeback.<\/p>\n Dallas showed resilience to draw level at 103-103 with just under seven minutes to go, only for Edwards to take the game away from them again, with a final score of 122-111<\/a>.<\/p>\n “We take pride in being able to win clutch games,” said Edwards. “We struggled with that last year.”<\/p>\n “We came out aggressive in the start, but it ended up going flat for us, and they found a run.<\/p>\n “Basketball is a game of runs, and they played real hard. So big shout out to those guys.”<\/p>\n Fourteen of Edwards’ points came in the final quarter. For the Wolves, it was an eighth win in 11 games, sitting fifth in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n For Dallas, a 10th straight loss leaves the Mavericks marooned in 12th in the Western Conference, and outside of playoff contention. Their rookie teen phenom Cooper Flagg<\/a> did not play, suffering a foot injury.<\/p>\n Around the league<\/p>\n Elsewhere, the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> stormed back from the NBA All-Star Game break with a 105-86<\/a> win over the lowly Brooklyn Nets<\/a>, consolidating their lead at the top of the Western Conference.<\/p>\n Having not played since last Thursday, the Thunder were still without reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a>, with an abdominal strain, and star guard-forward Jalen Williams<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the defending NBA champions showed their strength in depth, with half of their points coming from the bench.<\/p>\n Jared McCain<\/a>, traded from the Philadelphia 76ers<\/a> earlier this month, top-scored with 21 points, and praised the Thunder’s “chemistry.”<\/p>\n “Me coming in, just trying to learn the defensive principles… there’s a reason why they’re so good at it — so just trying to be aggressive on defense and create those turnovers on offense,” he said.<\/p>\n The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> won their seventh game on the trot, beating the Charlotte Hornets<\/a> 118-113<\/a>.<\/p>\n It extended a joint league-best hot streak that has gathered pace since the signing of former MVP James Harden<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n Harden, the NBA veteran known as “The Beard,” scored 18 points Friday, but was outshone by Donovan Mitchell<\/a>‘s 32, and Jarrett Allen<\/a>, who managed 26 points plus 14 rebounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Edwards condemned the Dallas Mavericks to a 10th consecutive loss — their worst slump since 1998 —…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-494071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}