Game Preview #82 – Timberwolves vs. Pelicans

Minnesota Timberwolves vs. New Orleans Pelicans
Date: April 12th, 2026
Time: 7:30 PM CDT
Location: Target Center
Television Coverage: FanDuel Sports Network – North
Radio Coverage: KFAN FM, Wolves App, iHeart Radio

There’s something about Game 82 that always feels a little like the last day of school. Half the class is mentally checked out. The teacher is rolling in the TV cart. And yet, somehow, it still matters, just not in the way you thought it would back in October.

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That’s where the Minnesota Timberwolves find themselves heading into their regular season finale against the New Orleans Pelicans.

Eighty-one games down. One to go. Playoff ticket punched.

And yet… it doesn’t quite feel like a celebration.

Because if you’ve been watching this team all season you know the story. This wasn’t a climb. It was a drift. A weird, uneven, occasionally brilliant, occasionally maddening drift where the Wolves spent long stretches looking like a team that had already been to back-to-back Western Conference Finals and decided, consciously or not, that the regular season was more of a formality than a proving ground.

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They had nights where they looked like a top-three team in basketball. They had nights where they looked like they forgot the game started at 7:00. And when you zoom out, that’s how you end up here, not in a disastrous position, but not in the one you know was there for the taking.

Let’s be honest. This team could easily be sitting in the three seed right now. Flip two or three of those late-game meltdowns. Close out a couple of those “how did we lose that?” nights. Show up with urgency on a random Tuesday in January. Suddenly, we’re talking about a completely different bracket.

But here’s the twist: it’s not even clear that the three seed would’ve been better.

The Standings Irony Nobody Saw Coming

If the Wolves had climbed into that three spot, they’d likely be staring at a first-round matchup with the Houston Rockets, a team that turned every Wolves game into a coin-flip knife fight this season.

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Winnable? Sure.

Comfortable? Not even a little.

Instead,…

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Publish date : 2026-04-11 23:00:00

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