The 2017-18 NBA schedule has been released and the Minnesota Timberwolves look like they’re one step close to making a playoff run.
The Minnesota Timberwolves have a tremendous amount of hype around their team right now. They are gaining respect around the NBA. The hype is warranted, but right now everything looks good only on paper.
No one truly knows how good this team will play together until the season is underway. We are getting closer to that every day, and with the 2017-18 NBA schedule officially being released, the countdown has begun.
Before the start of last season, there was a lot of optimism surrounding the Minnesota Timberwolves. It was supposed to be the year they finally made the playoffs. Despite looking better on paper, they failed to reach the playoffs or even secure a winning record for that matter.
The Wolves did have an injury to Zach LaVine, which caused a setback. This offseason, the Wolves decided they were done waiting for their ship to set sail and made aggressive trades and free agency signings that currently has them as the talk of the NBA.
Wolves projected to finish high
Based on the roster improvements they made this offseason, Kevin Pelton of ESPN projects the Wolves to finish fourth in the Western Conference. That projection has them winning just over 50 games, which would be a large improvement over their 31 wins during the 2016-17 season. With the schedule officially released, let’s look at how the Minnesota Timberwolves can get there.
This season the NBA cut down on back-to-back games and eliminated the four games in five nights stretches. That should help with the healthy scratch issue the league faces.
We broke the schedule down into four quarters. The first three quarters have 20 games each and the last quarter has 22 games.