Takeaways: Timberwolves enjoy a laugher all the way, roll past shorthanded Mavericks 120-96

Naz Reid was saying all the right things as he was working through his early-season inconsistency: How he had to stick with it, not press, do the little things like rebound and hustle and eventually the scoring would come.

After his second consecutive good scoring night, this time 22 points in a 120-96 Timberwolves victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Monday at Target Center, Reid sounded relieved the ball is going through the net and slightly agitated it has taken this long.

“It’s about time,” he said.

Reid had 19 points in the first half as the Wolves dispatched with another struggling team, a Mavericks squad that was without several key players, including Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis.

Reid scored 19 against Denver on Saturday night, and after a bumpy start to the season, he looks more like the player who won the NBA Sixth Man of the Year award two seasons ago.

“We know the type of player that he is,” center Rudy Gobert said. “... When he comes in, we just have this mental toughness and just this aggressiveness. It’s been huge for us. I keep trying to tell him to not let the offense affect his mindset. He can get discouraged sometimes when he misses shots or things like that. He can impact the game in so many ways. Rebounding, his passing, running the floor.”

Reid can be an emotional player, and you can see when offensive struggles or officiating are getting to him on the floor, but if you want an indication whether he’s about to snap out of one of his funks, look at other places on the stat sheet. For instance, the 12 rebounds he had Monday. When Reid can do that, the scoring tends to follow.

BOXSCORE: Wolves 120, Dallas 96

NBA standings

Now, to keep it going. The Wolves will need his consistency on offense when the competition inevitably gets tougher on their schedule.

“Take good shots, trust that your teammates are going to continue to find good shots for you,” coach Chris Finch said of Reid. “... When [players are] struggling a little bit, they kind of chase it, especially scores, and they end up taking harder shots than they need to. Take good shots, play within the flow, and then keep doing a lot of the little things.”

The Wolves have done well to win the games they should win, and Monday’s contest was never in doubt, even with Anthony Edwards struggling to start. The Mavericks committed 20 turnovers, and five players on the Wolves had at least two steals. With Dallas down its two starting centers, the Wolves were able to feed Gobert, who had 15 points, nine rebounds and four assists. He was 6-for-8 from the field.

The Wolves improved to 9-0 against teams under .500. They are 0-5 against teams above .500.

Before the season, Edwards said he would motivate himself against lower-level opponents by trying to score as much as he could against them. But he looked disengaged from the opening minutes. He picked up two fouls that cut his first quarter short, when he typically plays the entire 12 minutes.

Instead, he played all of the second quarter, but he could never find a rhythm in the flow of the offense in the first half. He went 0-for-5 and didn’t score his first point until 2 minutes, 49 seconds were left in the second quarter when he hit a pair of free throws. His first field goal came 49 seconds later. He wound up with eight points in the first half before finishing the game with 13.

Dallas, which dropped to 4-11, came into town after a slow start to the season and about a week after the team fired General Manager Nico Harrison, who made the controversial decision to trade Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Davis.