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Timberwolves lose to Dallas in Game 3 of Western Conference finals

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Timberwolves lose to Dallas in Game 3 of Western Conference finals


DALLAS – Even at the lowest point of the Timberwolves season, Anthony Edwards was remaining upbeat.

A season ago, when the Wolves fell behind the Denver Nuggets 3-0 in a playoff series, Edwards sat at his locker, head in his hands and didn’t say a word. He left without speaking to the media.

Now, a year later, his team faces another 3-0 deficit. But Edwards was trying to radiate positivity in a moment some teammates could have been sulking following a 116-107 loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday night in the Western Conference finals series.

To the slumping Nickeil Alexander-Walker, two lockers over from Edwards, Edwards said: “One shot at a time, ‘Kiel, it’ll fall. Just trust it.”

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This came after Alexander-Walker, who can be hard on himself, had his head in his hands à la Edwards a season ago. Alexander-Walker, after a 1-for-4 shooting night, was rocking back and forth in his chair when media first entered the locker room.

Then Edwards was holding court with Mike Conley and Kyle Anderson, saying all the Wolves need is one game where everyone is clicking and they will be right back on track.

“We’re here now fellas, what are we gonna do?” Edwards said.

Then Edwards spotted the struggling Karl-Anthony Towns on the other side of the room. He wanted to hear a positive response out of Towns, who had another off night in this series with 14 points on 5-for-18 shooting, including 0-for-8 on three-pointers.

“We here now, Karl. What are we gonna do?” Edwards said.

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“Make history,” Towns responded.

That they will have to do, as no NBA team has ever come back from a 3-0 hole the Wolves are in after another awful stretch of late-game offense did them in against Dallas. NBA teams trailing 3-0 are 0-154 at winning series.

“We ain’t got nothing else to do. We can’t do nothing but be positive at this point,” Edwards said in his postgame news conference. “We can’t be negative. Just try to get it one win at a time.”

The Wolves had a 104-102 lead after Anderson hit a shot-clock beating jumper with five minutes to play, but the Wolves didn’t have another field goal until Edwards hit a meaningless layup with 15.3 seconds left. The Mavericks outscored them 14-3 as Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic again dominated a Wolves defense that has had no answer for the Dallas duo.

Doncic and Irving both scored 33 points.

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Double-team them and make them give it up? Dallas’ supporting cast like Derrick Jones Jr. (11 points) and P.J. Washington (16 points) were hitting shots early as the Mavericks shot 50% from three-point range compared to the Wolves’ 30%.

Don’t double them and guard them straight up? Then they were hitting shots, as when Doncic hit a shot over Jaden McDaniels as he was falling down in the fourth quarter and Irving made a contested layup late in the shot clock against Edwards as part of Dallas’ closing push. The Mavericks backcourt stars were a combined 22-for-40.

“It’s been tough for us to try to navigate that,” coach Chris Finch said. “We’ve been picking our poison here a little bit.”

The problem for the Wolves is that each poison they pick has been lethal.

Edwards had 26 points on 11-for-24 shooting, and he came through with a 10-point third quarter that brought the Wolves back from an eight-point halftime deficit. He found room to attack the rim after Mavericks rookie Dereck Lively II exited because of a strained neck when his head inadvertently met Towns’ knee after he fell going for a rebound in the second quarter. But the Wolves didn’t attack as much late, and Edwards and Towns were a combined 16-for-42.

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“You play into their hands when you hold the ball and you dribble out the clock and are fighting against the shot clock,” said point guard Conley, who had 16 points. “That was the issue we had a little bit tonight, where we were looking down 10, 11 seconds left on the shot clock and at that point you have to force it instead of being in an action early, playing a little bit more.”

Edwards was playing that way in the third quarter after Lively’s injury freed up space at the rim. Edwards took off for a thunderous dunk as part of a stretch when he scored six consecutive points, and the Wolves pulled ahead for the first time at 79-77 since they were ahead 5-3.

But the Wolves could never build and maintain a lead, as Irving and Doncic seemed to respond each time the Wolves got ahead. A backbreaking moment came when Washington hit a wide-open corner three to put Dallas ahead 107-104 with 3:38 left when the Wolves had what Finch called a “mental breakdown” on defense.

“We have belief against anyone. But we are our worst enemy, every time,” said center Rudy Gobert, who had nine points and six rebounds. “And it’s a great thing, but it can also be a thing that’s not great when we beat ourselves.”

The memo for the Wolves to Towns was to play more under control on Sunday after he struggled the first two games. But nothing he did worked. His reliable three-point shot has been non-existent.

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“I feel every shot’s good,” Towns said. “I’ve shot a lot of basketballs in my life. I’m the first one in the gym. I definitely am working. I’m shooting. Every time I’m shooting, it feels good. I’m just having these very unfortunate bounces all the time. It’s annoying.”

Also annoying to the Wolves was the officiating, especially in the third quarter, when Dallas shot 17 free throws. That was as many as the Wolves shot in the game. (Dallas finished with 31.) The Wolves felt the Mavericks were committing the same fouls to them that they were to Dallas.

“It’s about consistency on both ends,” Conley said. “That’s all we ask for at the end of the day.”

BOXSCORE: Dallas 116, Wolves 107

That’s also what the Wolves are asking of themselves.

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About the only constant, win or lose, is the positivity emanating from Edwards, who is convinced the Wolves still have a great game in them against a Dallas team that has so far figured them out.

Edwards was asked how he can keep from having a sky-is-falling attitude. It’s who he has always been, he said.

“I never seen the sky falling,” Edwards said. “I don’t know, I’m always positive, always happy. I’ve been through the worst, so the sky is never falling for me.”



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Dallas, TX

Don Stone, Dallas philanthropist and arts advocate, dies

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Don Stone, Dallas philanthropist and arts advocate, dies


Don Stone, a Dallas civic leader and strong supporter of the arts, died on Sunday. He was 96.

Angela Stone, Don’s youngest child, said her father was one of a kind, a rare mix of sweet and tough.

“He was just the most wonderful man I ever knew, just generous to a fault, smart, charming. He influenced so many people,” she said.

Stone gave widely across North Texas, including $500,000 to endow college scholarships for musically gifted Dallas ISD students. Stone also held leadership positions at several North Texas arts organizations, including the Dallas Public Library, Voices of Change, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Fine Arts Chamber Players, Orchestra of New Spain, the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra, Shakespeare Dallas and Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.

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“He just believed that all of our lives would be so much poorer without music, art and theater. He said in our country we have the freedom to support whatever we want and that we needed to support the arts so that they would continue to exist,” Stone said.

Stone, a businessman who lived in Turtle Creek, worked for Sanger Harris, which later became Macy’s. He was a 2018 TACA Silver Cup Award honoree for his arts and culture advocacy in North Texas.

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Maura Sheffler, president and executive director of The Arts Community Alliance (TACA), said in a statement that Stone’s legacy will continue to inspire the local arts community.

“We are deeply saddened by the passing of Don Stone, a devoted champion of the arts whose leadership and generosity,” she wrote.

Stone’s wife of over 72 years, Norma, died in June. She was the one who first got her husband involved in the arts, according to their daughter Angela.

Michelle Miller Burns, the DSO’s president and CEO, said the Stones had a profound impact on the DSO.

“It is with such a heavy heart that I received news of Don Stone’s passing earlier this week. Don was a devoted patron, a donor and a board member of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and his leadership and generosity really have helped shape the Dallas symphony across five decades,” she said.

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In 1980, Stone served as DSO’s chairman of the Board of Governors and helped launch efforts to raise $80 million for Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center and secure architect I.M. Pei.

In 1997, the Stones launched the Norma and Don Stone New Music Fund and committed $1 million to continuously support new works. Some of the works supported through the fund include this year’s world premiere of Angélica Negrón’s requiem For Everything You Keep Losing. The fund also supported a Grammy award-winning violin concerto by Aaron Jay Kernis co-commissioned with the Seattle Symphony, Toronto Symphony and Melbourne Symphony.

“I think it is rare for a couple who so firmly believes in the future of classical music and creating opportunities for new musical voices to be heard to really put support behind that in a meaningful way to fuel that process, to ensure that it can come to fruition,” Burns said.

She said the DSO will continue the Stones’ legacy by commissioning new works through the Norma and Don Stone New Music Fund.

Stone is survived by his children Michael, Lisa and Angela, six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. The family will have a private funeral.

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Arts Access is an arts journalism collaboration powered by The Dallas Morning News and KERA.

This community-funded journalism initiative is funded by the Better Together Fund, Carol & Don Glendenning, City of Dallas OAC, Communities Foundation of Texas, The University of Texas at Dallas, The Dallas Foundation, Eugene McDermott Foundation, James & Gayle Halperin Foundation, Jennifer & Peter Altabef and The Meadows Foundation. The News and KERA retain full editorial control of Arts Access’ journalism.



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Daniss Jenkins sparks rally but Detroit Pistons fall in OT to Dallas

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Daniss Jenkins sparks rally but Detroit Pistons fall in OT to Dallas


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DALLAS — A late comeback attempt fell short for the Detroit Pistons.

They fell to the Dallas Mavericks in overtime, 116-114, after recovering from a third-period 18-point deficit. A dunk by Anthony Davis gave the Mavericks the lead for good with 1:32 to play in overtime.

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Cade Cunningham (29 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists) missed a short jumper with 7 seconds left that would’ve tied the game at 116, and Jalen Duren (17 points, 13 rebounds) couldn’t convert two offensive rebounds into a tip-in basket. Davis corralled the rebound with 0.9 seconds left, and the Mavericks called timeout.

The Pistons fouled Davis after the inbounds pass with a foul to give. Daniss Jenkins, who scored 11 points after halftime, stole the second inbounds pass with 0.6 seconds left but didn’t have enough time to get a shot off.

The Pistons trailed by 18 points with five minutes to play in the third quarter. Their bench unit was instrumental during a 31-11 run that gave the Pistons the lead again, 99-97, midway through the fourth quarter. They held Dallas to 38.5% shooting and forced nine turnovers in the second half.

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No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg gave his Mavericks the lead, 110-109, with under 20 seconds to play with a midrange jumper. Isaiah Stewart was fouled by Davis on the other end with 3.4 seconds left, and he split the trip to the line to tie the game at 110. Klay Thompson missed a floater at the buzzer, sending the game into overtime.

‘Dallas’ unit leads Detroit back from big deficit

Down 86-68 with 4:57 to play in the third quarter, coach J.B. Bickerstaff looked to the end of his bench for a spark. Jenkins, Marcus Sasser and Paul Reed checked into the game for the first time in consecutive order, joining Ron Holland and Javonte Green. The Pistons have a Dallas-centric roster — Holland, Sasser and Jenkins are all from the city, and Cunningham is from nearby Arlington.

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They led an 11-3 run to cut the deficit to 10, tallying four steals during the stretch — two for Green and one each for Jenkins and Reed. Cunningham checked in for Green to open the fourth quarter, and the run continued. A 3-pointer from Jenkins, coast-to-coast layup by Holland and midrange jumper from Jenkins extended the run to 21-7, cutting the deficit to 93-89 with under 10 minutes to play.

As he has done several times this season, Jenkins rose to the moment in the final period. An entry pass from Jenkins to Holland created an open layup to slash Dallas’ lead to two, and Jenkins made a layup over three Mavericks defenders to tie the game at 95 with 7:46 remaining and push the Pistons’ run to 27-9.

With 59 seconds left in the fourth, a pair of free throws from Jenkins extended the Pistons’ lead to 3, 109-106. He played 11 minutes and 32 seconds in the final period, second only to Cunningham, and overtime.

Ausar Thompson ejected in second quarter

The Pistons lost Thompson — their primary defender on Flagg — midway through the second period after an exchange with an official. 

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With 5:09 remaining before halftime, Thompson tied up Mavericks guard Ryan Nembhard under the rim and was whistled for a foul. Thompson didn’t like the call and got in the ref’s face, and was instantly ejected. NBA rules make it an auto-ejection when a player makes physical contact with an official. 

It was a strong start for Thompson prior to the ejection, as he had eight points, two assists, two rebounds and a steal in nine minutes of play. Stewart entered for him in the second quarter. 

In all, it was a rough night for the Pistons regarding the officials. Cunningham was whistled for a tech late in the second quarter after disagreeing with a call, and Bickerstaff was whistled for a tech during halftime after arguing with an official.

Duncan Robinson exits with left knee injury

With 11:08 to play in the third quarter, Robinson suffered a knee-to-knee collision with Mavericks wing Naji Marshall. Robinson limped off of the floor and was initially ruled “questionable” to return until he was downgraded to “out” in the final period. 

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Robinson finished with two points and two rebounds, shooting 1-for-7 overall and 0-for-5 from 3. He missed two games in early December with a right ankle sprain. 

[ MUST WATCH: Make “The Pistons Pulse” your go-to Pistons podcast, listen available anywhere you listen to podcasts (Apple, Spotify) ] 

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Change In Eagles’ Red-Zone Philosophy Opens Opportunities For Dallas Goedert

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Change In Eagles’ Red-Zone Philosophy Opens Opportunities For Dallas Goedert


PHILADELPHIA – It was evident in July and August that Dallas Goedert was going to be a big part of the Eagles’ offense in the red zone. It felt that way most summers, but this time, with first-year offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo in place, the Eagles are dialing up plays for the tight end.

“I think when I get a ball in my hand down there, I’m tough to tackle, I can find my way in, fight my way in,” said Goedert. “It’s just that our red-zone philosophy has changed a bit. We used to run a lot, a lot of quarterback sneaks, things like that down there. We’ve tried to find ways to get me the ball, which is really cool, and I’m gonna keep trying to make them work.”

So far, Goedert has nine touchdown catches. According to NFL Research, five of his touchdowns were thrown behind the line of scrimmage this season, the most by a non-running back in the Next Gen era.

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“He’s such a physical guy,” said Patullo. “His determination to just get yards and have an impact on anything, whether it’s in the pass game, whether it’s gadgets, whatever it may be. He’s really dynamic with the ball in his hands. So anytime you can get the ball in his hands, obviously, that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

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However, the touchdown math didn’t add up for Goedert. He thought eight was the magic number to break the record for most TD catches by a tight end in franchise history, owned by Pete Retzlaff, but Retzlaff had 10 in 1965, meaning Goedert needs one more to break that dusty, 60-year-old mark.

“I thought it was eight, but I was wrong, so I thought I already had it,” he said.

Reminded that he would have had it already had he not dropped a wide-open throw to him in the end zone on Sunday, which would have given him a career-high three in one game, he winced, then answered.

“Yeah, scars right there,” he said. “That one hurts.”

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Dallas Goedert Has Eye On Record

Dec 14, 2025; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert (88) walks off the field after win against the Las Vegas Raiders at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images | Eric Hartline-Imagn Images
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With three games left, and with his heavy involvement in the red zone, it is reasonable to expect that the record will at least be tied, perhaps even broken.

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“It’s pretty cool,” he said. “Anytime you can break a record, obviously things are going well for you. Obviously, winning is the most important thing and I want to do whatever I can to help win. If they’re giving me the ball down there, I’m gonna try to score. It would be a cool thing to have.”

Goedert’s production in the low red zone is a reason the Eagles lead the NFL in red-zone success, converting close to 70 percent of their trips (25-for-36) inside the 20 into touchdowns. The tight end has nine of those 25 red-zone TDs.

“We’ve had different things for me in the red zone throughout my career here, a lot of them just haven’t got called,” said Goedert. “Once they started calling them, I tried to make sure they worked so they could keep designing and calling other ones. Any time you go in the huddle and hear that play, knowing you have the opportunity to get in the end zone, it gets you kind of excited, for sure.”

Nore NFL: Eagles’ Backup Staying Patient, Takes First-Team Practice Reps

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