As we officially begin the March towards the NBA playoffs (some pun intended), the Minnesota Timberwolves find themselves at 34-29, good enough for 7th in the Western Conference. With only 19 games left in the regular season, the Wolves are officially two wins away from surpassing their 2021-22 win total projection of 35.5 games.

Again, it’s only March 2nd.

Minnesota’s current win percentage (.540) is the second best mark for this franchise since... wait for it... 2004-05 (as we all know, they finished the 2017-18 season with a .573 winning percentage). While the team has definitely benefitted this season from some good injury luck (in regards to opposing teams), there’s no doubt that this season has quickly evolved into one of the best seasons in Timberwolves franchise history (which is simultaneously pretty cool and also pretty sad).

With all of that said, I wanted to use this off day in the schedule to take a look at some of the updated gambling lines for Minnesota, primarily their adjusted regular season win projections, team seeding odds, championship odds (“ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!”), and Coach of the Year odds.

(all odds are courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook)

Regular Season Wins

• Over 44.5 (-145)
• Under 44.5 (+110)

Of all the future odds currently available for the Timberwolves, this one stood out the most. Simply put, the oddsmakers over at DraftKings believe that Minnesota — which is currently 34-29 — is more likely than not to finish at least 11-8 over their final 19 games. If the Timberwolves did go on to win 45 games this season, it would mark only the second time they’ve done so since 2003-04, when they went 58-24 and lost in the Western Conference Finals to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Can they successfully pull this off? 10 of Minnesota’s final 19 games are 1) at home and 2) against opponents currently below .500. The Wolves are 9-2 at home since the start of the new year, and Target Center has quickly morphed into a House of Horrors for opposing teams.

Final note on this one — Minnesota’s longest winning streak of the season is five games. Coming off their first successful back-to-back of the season, the Wolves will now square off in five consecutive games against the Oklahoma City Thunder (twice), the Portland Trail Blazers (twice), and then the Orlando Magic. IF they can take care of business over the next week or so (and I know that’s a fairly sizable “if”), the Wolves could keep a lot of pressure on the teams directly above them in the standings, most notably the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks.

Team Seeding

• Over 6.5 (-550)
• Under 6.5 (+350)

This one is pretty straight forward — the fine folks in Las Vegas continue to believe that the Timberwolves will fall somewhere outside of the top 6 seeds by the end of the regular season, which means Minnesota will likely host at least one game at home as part of the NBA’s Play-In Tournament.

As mentioned previously, I wouldn’t completely rule out the Wolves making a late push to chase down Denver or Dallas, but considering how well those two teams are playing at this moment (both are 8-2 in their last 10 games), it seems more likely than not that Minnesota will finish 7th (or possibly 8th, depending on how the Los Angeles Clippers play down the stretch).

Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports

Coach of the Year

• Monty Williams (-350)
• JB Bickerstaff (+340)
• Taylor Jenkins (+550)
• Erik Spoelstra (+600)
• Billy Donovan (+1100)
• Steve Kerr (+2200)
• Ime Udoka (+5000)
• Doc Rivers (+6000)
• Michael Malone (+8000)
• Quin Snyder (+8000)
• Chris Finch (+8000)

As you can see from the odds above, there are more than a handful of coaches right now with much, much better odds than our beloved Chris Finch. Parsing through line by line, it’s hard to argue against guys like Billy Donovan and Taylor Jenkins, both of whom have led their respective squads to top-4 seeds in their conferences. Monty Williams (the current odds on favorite and coach of the best team in the NBA) probably should have won the award last year over Tom Thibodeau, but that’s another topic for another day.

Overall, unless the Wolves rattle off something like 16-3 over their final 19 games (which would give them 50 wins on the season), it’s very unlikely that Chris Finch finds himself in the running for the Coach of the Year award. Nevertheless, it’s still cool to see his name listed with some of the best coaches in the NBA, and is yet another reminder of how important Finchy is to everything the Timberwolves are trying to do as a franchise.

Photo by Jordan Johnson/NBAE via Getty Images

2021-22 NBA Champions

• Minnesota Timberwolves (+15000)

Alright, this one is definitely crazy, and even though a $10 bet would potentially pay out $1,510.00, it is my duty as your friendly Site Manager to advise you not to bet on this one.

I did just want to mention potential Finals odds because somehow, someway the Los Angeles Lakers are currently listed at just +5000, which is better odds than the Clippers, Cavaliers, Toronto Raptors, and Atlanta Hawks. I don’t think any of those teams has even a 1% chance of taking home the Larry O’Brien this year, but if the Lakers do somehow defy the odds and win the title, I will bear crawl from Minneapolis to Los Angeles with a gold and purple Mark Madsen jersey on.

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