Here we go, Canis Hoopus faithful – Timberwolves basketball is officially back! No more scrimmage vibes. No more International Friendship Games Against Teams Who Just Lost by 58 to the Clippers. Starting tonight\u2026 the games actually count.<\/p>\n
And the stakes have never been higher.<\/p>\n
Back-to-back Western Conference Finals appearances pushed this franchise out of \u201chopeful upstart\u201d territory and firmly into \u201cstop flirting and finally ask the trophy to prom.\u201d Last season was chaotic from the jump. Karl-Anthony Towns shipped to New York in late September, the fanbase briefly holding nightly candlelight vigils, the team sleepwalking through the first 60 games, only to finally assemble, Voltron-style, in April and bulldoze the Lakers and Warriors before falling to the Oklahoma City Thunder.<\/p>\n
This time? No seismic trades. No chemistry crisis. This team enters 2025\u201326 already knowing who they are.<\/p>\n
The question is whether they can start like the team they finished as.<\/p>\n
Because make no mistake, the Western Conference is an absolute gulag this year. There are no gimme games. The difference between the 2 seed and the Play-In will probably be one poorly defended second-quarter possession in March. Minnesota cannot afford the slow-start habit they\u2019ve had for, well\u2026 37 years.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re already armed with NBA League Pass or have FanDuel Sports Network North as part of your TV package, you\u2019re good. If you don\u2019t, FanDuel Sports Network – North is offering Canis Hoopus readers a 30-day free trial, which is honestly the best \u201ctry before you inevitably give in and subscribe anyway\u201d offer you\u2019ll see all season. FanDuel Sports Network – North is the Wolves\u2019 broadcast home this year, including tonight\u2019s opener in Portland, tipping at 9:00 p.m. CDT.<\/p>\n
Prefer the theater of the mind? Wolves App and iHeart Radio have you covered on the audio side. But this feels like a night you want Ant\u2019s scowl and Rudy\u2019s armspan on a giant 4K screen.<\/p>\n
So buckle in. The trilogy is entering film three.<\/p>\n
Stop knocking on the door.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here we go, Canis Hoopus faithful – Timberwolves basketball is officially back! No more scrimmage vibes. No more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,6,687,471,3967,1369,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-358481","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-portland","12":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","13":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","14":"tag-timberwolves-game-previews","15":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115417712617476376","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}