Sunday’s game in Minnesota was a bit of a full-circle moment for Antonius Cleveland.
It was against those same Wolves, three weeks earlier, that the rookie earned his NBA debut merely hours after signing a two-way contract with the Mavericks. He spent the morning and afternoon hours of Nov. 17 meeting his coaches and teammates and learning the playbook, and he used the precious few minutes in-between his warmup and tipoff to watch as much film as possible at his locker. He got into the game in the third quarter that night tasked with the tough responsibility of defending Andrew Wiggins.