3 Studs, 2 duds from Dallas Mavericks' narrow win over Timberwolves

2. Dud - Tim Hardaway Jr.

Despite a slew of good shooting games over the last five games or so, Tim Hardaway Jr. unfortunately reverted back to the mean on Sunday night against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Hardaway Jr. came off the bench for Dallas as usual and finished with 12 points off of 4-13 shooting from the field in 32 minutes of playing time.

Hardaway Jr. looked particularly rough offensively tonight for whatever reason, as he even missed a near wide-open layup during the first half of the contest. The Mavericks played an extremely tight rotation tonight as head coach Jason Kidd didn’t want to leave anything on the table against the Timberwolves, so Dallas was desperately looking for Hardaway Jr. to step up as a scorer in a game where Dallas was almost devoid of any offense that wasn’t catalyzed by Irving or Doncic.

Hardaway Jr. was getting to his spots tonight and did a great job finding the pockets in the defense to spot up for catch-and-shoot 3-pointers off of attacks from Doncic or Irving all night, but his looks simply just weren’t dropping tonight for the most part. Hardaway Jr. is a microwave scorer so it’s been good to see him get back on track recently after a slight slump derailed an extremely hot start to the season for him.

Hardway Jr. is bound to have some rough shooting games but as long as his shot diet doesn’t consist of abysmal attempts and he plays average defense, then Dallas will have to take what they can get from him sometimes as tonight showed.