Second-half collapse dooms Wolves against Mavericks

Timberwolves rookie center Karl-Anthony Towns posted season and career highs in rebounds and assists Sunday against Mavericks.

It didn't matter.

Once again, a bigger, older, stronger team took the Wolves to school late in the game. Dallas pulled away in the third quarter and dominated the fourth on the way to an 88-78 victory at Target Center.

Towns finished with 11 points, 21 rebounds, nine assists and three blocks, but the frustration from a long year was evident.

"I don't feel good at all," he said. "You've got to get W's, you've got to win. We're doing a great job taking steps every day, progressing, being the team that we want to be, but I don't feel good about having stats like that and not winning."

There was no ambiguity as far as why the Mavericks (39-38) won. Dallas had 15 offensive rebounds compared to only six for Minnesota. The Mavs turned several long rebounds into three-point baskets. They tied a Target Center record with 40 three-point attempts and made 14.

The Wolves were only 4-for-21 from beyond the arc.

"The offensive rebounds they had, that changed the whole game," Wolves forward Andrew Wiggins said.

Wolves interim coach Sam Mitchell delivered a postgame message that was nothing new. In case you haven't heard, the Wolves are young.

"The hard thing to do is learning how to play on the fly in the NBA," Mitchell said. "It's just hard. There's no training ground for it. College don't get you ready for the NBA. Europe don't get you ready for the NBA. The only thing that gets you ready for the NBA is playing in the NBA.

"You're going get your butt kicked sometimes when you're young. That's all it is. No other way around it."

The positive Mitchell pointed to was Minnesota holding Dallas to 38.6 percent shooting. That defensive effort helped the Wolves (25-52) stay in the game, even leading with three minutes to go in the third quarter.

Dallas managed to close that period up 68-63 and opened the fourth on a 15-2 run.

"Thirty-eight percent, I'll take it all day," Mitchell said. "There's nothing we can do right now when teams physically maul us at times."

Wiggins was at his best offensively, scoring 30 points on 12-for-21 shooting. He had two thunderous dunks in traffic in about a two-minute span and shot well from midrange.

Zach LaVine added 11 points, Ricky Rubio had nine and Gorgui Dieng had eight. The Wolves' reserves, though, combined for only nine points on 3-for-12 shooting.

The Wolves also committed 10 of their 16 turnovers in the first half, leaving one to wonder what damage those turnovers did to the team's first-quarter momentum.

"Everything adds up," Towns said. "We didn't do what we were supposed to do. We kept making mistakes, and it cost us at the end."

On the other side, Dallas' J.J. Barea had 21 points and Wesley Matthews scored 19.

Minnesota held Dirk Nowitzki to 13 points on 4-for-18 shooting, but Devin Harris scored 16 in 31 minutes, sparking a collective bench performance that led the Mavs' third-quarter surge.

At his locker after the game, all Towns could do was repeat the theme of this season.

"We just got to grow," Towns said. "We have to continue to get better. We're playing for something that's bigger than us this year."