Timberwolves get final two regular season games added to schedule

In the old days, before the introduction of the In-Season Tournament (now NBA Cup), the NBA would release the full 82-game schedule for every team in the association every August. Now, Minnesota Timberwolves fans and other fanbases from around the league must wait a few weeks into the season before the final games on the schedule are added.

The reason for this lies in the formatting of the NBA Cup games. As most are aware by now, NBA Cup contests count as regular season games, so they are woven into the typical schedule for every team. But with how the tournament's knockout round works, most teams do not end up competing in the tournament following group play.

What this means is that for the 22 teams that do not advance, two additional games are added to the schedule to make their full slate for the year 82 games like usual. However, these games cannot be added until late November or early December when the group play results have already been determined.

Now that we have reached that period in the current season, the NBA has officially added the final two games in the regular season for the Timberwolves. During what had previously looked like an inexplicable 10 days in a row off, Minnesota will now have two additional contests.

Minnesota will face the Lakers and Spurs one additional time each

On Friday, December 13 at 7:00 PM, the Timberwolves will host the Los Angeles Lakers at Target Center. Then, on Sunday, December 15 at 6:00 PM, Minnesota will travel to San Antonio to face the Spurs at Frost Bank Center. These two contests will mark the fourth game on the Wolves' schedule against the Lakers as well as the Spurs.

Oftentimes, educated guesses can be made as to which teams will be selected based on the initial scheduling released in August. Obviously, a team will not play every single team in their conference four times, but seeing an initial schedule release that features only three games against a conference foe or especially a division foe means that team is likely a candidate to be added to the regular season slate later.

Honestly, these are probably two favorable opponents for the Timberwolves to see added to their schedule. The Lakers are seriously struggling at the moment, and the Spurs are still young and not quite as talented overall as other teams in the West. Considering that as well as their improved defense as of late, I'd say they got a solid draw here with their new games added.