Mavericks vs Wolves Preview, Injury Report, and Game Thread: Dallas hosts Minnesota on Christmas Day!

Basketball on a Wednesday afternoon!

The Dallas Mavericks (19-10) host the Minnesota Timberwolves (14-14) in a rematch of the Western Conference Finals for a Christmas Day game. The matchup will be broadcast on ABC and starts at 1:30 pm. Dallas has won two in a row and hopes to turn this into a real winning streak by defeating the Wolves. Minnesota is in a bleak place, losing three in a row with a lot of drama. Let’s get to the key things this game:

• WHO: Dallas Mavericks vs Minnesota Timberwolves
• WHAT: Christmas Day game!
• WHERE: American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas
• WHEN: 1:30 p.m. CST
• HOW: WFAA (or your local ABC affiliate) and Playback with Kirk, Matthew, and David

The injury report is as close to clean as it can be for the Dallas. Jason Kidd said before the game that both Luka Doncic and Jaden Hardy are suiting up. That leaves Dante Exum as the lone hold out as he recovers from wrist surgery. For the Timberwolves, both Luka Garza and Joe Ingles will miss this game with lower body injuries.

Christmas Day games always feel like a mixed bag. With guys playing at a more unique time, the players can sometimes be out of rhythm. Hopefully, everyone’s ready to go because a dominant Dallas performance on national television would do a lot for the Dallas narrative. It’s time to kickstart the Luka for MVP campaign in a big way is what I’m saying.

As you can tell below, you can join me and some other Mavs Moneyball guys in a room on Playback (embedded below) during the game (though I may not be able to start it until halftime). Also, consider joining Josh and I on Pod Maverick live after the game on YouTube, we should start around 8:30 pm. Thanks so much for spending time with us here at Mavs Moneyball. Let’s go Mavs!