Minnesota will open the regular season on Wednesday, Oct. 29 against the Sacramento Kings at Target Center. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. CDT. The game will be telecast on FSN North with Tom Hanneman and Jim Petersen calling the action and can be heard on KFAN AM 1130 with Alan Horton and Kevin Lynch.
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Kevin Love’s got six family members — mom, dad, sister, brother, aunt and uncle (yes, Uncle Mike from Beach Boys fame) — coming in for his NBA debut.
Wittman still hasn’t named his starting lineup for tonight’s game, but based on this week’s practices it’s likely to be the same five that started the final exhibition game against Milwaukee.
That would be Foye and Mike Miller at guard, Al Jefferson at center and Corey Brewer and Ryan Gomes at forward.
Guard Sebastian Telfair (suspended) and center Jason Collins (elbow) will be two of the three inactive players, with forward Brian Cardinal a likely candidate for third.
The man who won the Timberwolves’ competition for their third point-guard position becomes No. 2 tonight against Sacramento, and for two games beyond that, because of Sebastian Telfair’s season-opening, three-game suspension.
Veteran Kevin Ollie, playing for his 11th team in 11 NBA seasons, backs up starter Randy Foye against the Kings and will also do so Saturday against Dallas and Sunday at Oklahoma City.
The Timberwolves’ 20th season begins with the hope that it starts better than the 19th, when the team lost its first five games on its way to a 5-34 start. The first victory of last season came at home against Sacramento, and the Wolves wound up going 2-1 against the Kings last season, one of only two teams — the Clippers are the other — they had a winning record against in 2007-08.
The Timberwolves, who won 22 games last season, report new season-ticket sales of 880 and full-season equivalents of about 6,000. As of late Tuesday, the Wolves were about 1,200 tickets short of a 19,356 sellout for tonight’s season opener against Sacramento at Target Center.
Santosh Venkataraman/STATS previews the game.