The Mavs are extremely short-handed tonight and when Daniel Gafford gets heavy minutes, he usually responds -- 31 points and 15 rebounds last time out in 34 minutes. He might have to play that many tonight.

The Mavs keep dealing with serious injuries and it's showing up in the perimeter defense. They are bottom 9 in NBA defending the three ball over the last 10 games. Reid is in great form from deep, going over this 6 straight games. He has 15 made 3s in the last 3 games and 26 in the last 6 games. He is averaging more than 3/G this month. Oddly, he did not attempt one from behind the arc when facing the Mavs last months. I don't see that happening again. Wolves seemingly play nothing but close games and Reid has been getting upwards of 30 mins lately as they try to right a suspect season. One of few things they can count on these days.

Donte DiVincenzo (toe) is set to miss his fourth straight game for the Timberwolves. He had become the team’s starting point guard, averaging 5.3 rebounds and 4.7 assists in that role. Julius Randle is also a good passer, which has resulted in him dishing out at least six assists in all three games since DiVincenzo went down. Randle also had a least 13 combined rebounds and assists in all three games. Randle has faced the Mavericks twice already this season and he combined for at least 14 rebounds and assists in both games. Expect him to thrive in both areas again.

Both the Minnesota Timberwolves and Dallas Mavericks are dealing with injuries. For the Timberwolves they have lost three out of four games as they adjust to being without Donte Divencenzo. Rookie Rob Dillingham has started to emerge off the bench averaging twelve points over his last three games. This matchup still has bad blood from the Twolves postseason loss, and we saw Minnesota get revenge on Christmas at Dallas 105-99. Take the road favored Twolves.