Wolves Clinch Play-In 7th Seed

The Wolves comeback has reached a new level, last week the Wolves clinched no worse then the 7 seed. This week the Wolves clinched the Play-in tournament seed and will play the 8 seed Los Angeles Clippers next Tuesday, April 12th at Target Center! It will be quite the bopping game and I am expecting to see lots of excitement in the arena. 

The only game the Wolves have remaining is their regular season finale hosting the East 6 seed Chicago Bulls. 

After the finale, I will change the schedule tab so it has the April games and the Play-in tournament game. If Minnesota can best LA, they will move straight into the playoffs as the 7 seed to play the 2nd seed Memphis Grizzlies. If the Wolves lose, they will then host the winner of the New Orleans/San Antonio game on Thursday, yet again at Target Center. The full NBA Playoffs will start the week of April 18th. 

As far as Wolves history goes, while the play-in tournament isn't considered part of the playoffs, if they can pull out a win this will be only their second playoff appearance since 2004. Back in 2018, the Wolves made the playoffs as the 8 seed and were eliminated in 5 games by the 1 seed Houston Rockets. This team was comprised of star Jimmy Butler, Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins, Jeff Teague, and Taj Gibson. This team was built based on familiar talent to coach Tom Thibodeau. After the season, Butler pulled his "interview with Rachel Nichols" card and got himself traded to the Philadelphia 76ers. After the 2018-19 season; Jeff Teague and Taj Gibson were traded away. At the trade deadline in 2020, Andrew Wiggins and most of the Wolves role players were traded away to form the team we currently know and love now. That leaves only a few players on the Wolves roster that have any playoff experience. Karl-Anthony Towns started for the Wolves during the 2017-18 season, D'Angelo Russell also made the playoffs that same year with the Brooklyn Nets, and Patrick Beverley has made the playoffs several times over his career mainly with the LA Clippers. Now a player the Wolves just signed this week by the name of Greg Monroe, also has playoff experience. He played on the 2016-17 Milwaukee Bucks team that made the playoffs, he also played on the Boston Celtics in 2017-18. While he is mainly brought in for size, his playoff experience might help as well.

When it comes to Wolves playoff history, they have not played the Clippers, Suns or Grizzlies in the playoffs in their 9 appearances.

Lets hope this team can keep it up, they are very fun to watch!

Once the regular season ends, I will be posting updates after each postseason game with stats and game summaries and takes.

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