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Basketball fans around the country are going to be seeing a lot more of Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Coming off their run into the Western Conference Finals last season, the Timberwolves stock is clearly on the rise nationally. In this next season, they’re set to open on the road against the Los Angeles Lakers for NBA Opening Night coverage on TNT on Oct. 22.

They'll have their home opener on Oct. 26th against the Toronto Raptors.

Overall, the team has 25 games on the national television schedule, including a Christmas Day game against the Dallas Mavericks, who beat the Wolves in the Western Conference Finals.

The league released 1,200 of the 1,230 games on the schedule Thursday; the other 30 will be slotted in December, depending on how teams fare during the NBA Cup. The schedule for those tournament games was released Tuesday, with 

 as a member of the Dallas Mavericks among the matchups.

Some regular-season contests were previously announced, such as Miami and Washington playing in Mexico City on Nov. 2 and the San Antonio Spurs and Indiana Pacers playing a home-and-home in Paris — with Spurs star and France native Victor Wembanyama as the main attraction — on Jan. 23 and Jan. 25.

Victor Wembanyama and San Antonio go to New York to start the Christmas Day quintuple-header, followed by Minnesota at Dallas, Philadelphia at Boston, the Lakers at Golden State and Denver at Phoenix.

It’ll be the first Christmas game for the Spurs since 2016 and the first for the Timberwolves since 2017. Milwaukee won’t play a Christmas game for the first time in seven seasons.

There are four nights this season where all 30 teams will be in action, starting with Nov. 4 — when a new game will start every 15 minutes from 7 p.m. through 10:30 p.m. EST.

The other dates when all teams are playing: Feb. 12, April 11 (the second-to-last day of the regular season) and April 13 (the last day of the regular season).

For the third consecutive year, Election Day — Nov. 5 this year — will not have any NBA games, with the league saying it wants to “continue to encourage fans and the broader NBA community to make a plan to vote and participate in the civic process. As part of this initiative, the NBA will share important resources from voting organizations and highlight the civic engagement work of teams in their markets.”

Other off days for the NBA this season: Nov. 28 (Thanksgiving), Dec. 24 (Christmas Eve), Feb. 17-19 (the break following All-Star weekend, which starts Feb. 14) and April 12. There will likely be one other dark day in December, depending on how the schedules are set for those teams that do not make the NBA Cup semifinals.

There are seven games on Jan. 20 as part of the league’s annual celebration of the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: Dallas at Charlotte, Detroit at Houston, Minnesota at Memphis, Atlanta at New York, Phoenix at Cleveland, Boston at Golden State and Utah at New Orleans.

Memphis, where King was assassinated in 1968, will host a game on the holiday for the 22nd time in the last 23 seasons.

Durant going back to college, for one night

Kevin Durant could play at least one more game at his college home.

The Spurs will play two games in Austin, Texas, again this season — Feb. 20 against Durant and Phoenix, then Feb. 21 against Detroit.

Durant played his one college season at Texas. He had 30 points in his home finale as a member of the Longhorns on Feb. 28, 2007.

That schedule means Detroit won’t be going to San Antonio this season. The Pistons are 1-13 in their last 14 trips to the Spurs’ home arena.

This season will be the 22nd in the NBA for LeBron James, tying Vince Carter for the league’s longevity record.

The Los Angeles Lakers don’t play on Dec. 30. They’re at home on Dec. 28 against Sacramento (his first NBA opponent, when he was just 18) and then off until a home game Dec. 31 against Cleveland (his first NBA team).

The first official game inside the Intuit Dome, the new home of the Los Angeles Clippers, is Oct. 23 when they take on the Phoenix Suns.

The Clippers have shared an arena with the Los Angeles Lakers since the 1999-2000 season. It wasn’t terribly uncommon for the Clippers and Lakers to play home games on the same day — one would play in the afternoon, then the other at night after the court was swapped out and the building quickly cleaned.

But there will be at least eight dates this season where the Clippers and Lakers are both playing at home, and all but one of them will feature simultaneous games: Jan. 11, Jan. 13, Jan. 15, Jan. 21, Feb. 6, Feb. 8, March 18 and April 4.

Once again, the NBA will be done for the day long before kickoff of the Super Bowl.

There are three games on Feb. 9, the day of the NFL’s title game: Charlotte at Detroit at 1 p.m., Toronto at Houston at 2 p.m. and Philadelphia at Milwaukee at 2 p.m.

Kickoff time for the Super Bowl is typically around 6:30 p.m.

Boston goes to Dallas on Jan. 25 in the first rematch this season of last season’s NBA Finals. Dallas goes to Boston on Feb. 6.

This is the seventh consecutive season in which there won’t be an NBA Finals rematch on Christmas Day. There had been a Christmas rematch of the previous season’s finals in five of the seven seasons before that.

The two games between the teams with the most recent No. 1 draft picks — Victor Wembanyama from San Antonio and Zaccharie Risacher from Atlanta — will be nationally televised. The games will be Dec. 19 in San Antonio on TNT, then Feb. 5 in Atlanta on ESPN.

It’s been an unofficial tradition that the day of the NCAA men’s basketball championship game is an off day in the NBA. That won’t be the case this year, with Sacramento playing at Detroit and Philadelphia at Miami on April 7.

The men’s Final Four this year is in San Antonio; the Spurs won’t be going. They’ll play host to Cleveland on April 4, the day before the national semifinals, then head out on a road trip.

All 30 teams will play on the final day of the season, April 13 — with every game set to start at either 1 p.m. or 3:30 p.m. EDT.

Every team will take on an opponent from its own conference, except Toronto and San Antonio. The Raptors will visit the Spurs.

That means — if the schedule is shaped as it has been in recent years — Game 2 is likely on June 8, Game 3 would be June 11, Game 4 on June 13, Game 5 on June 16, Game 6 on June 19 and Game 7, if necessary, on June 22.

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Peter Cox

Author

The Associated Press

Boston will get its championship rings on Oct. 22, and the rival New York Knicks will be there for the celebration. The NBA schedule was released Thursday for the coming season, and Game 1 on the slate is the Celtics hosting the Knicks on opening night.

NBA schedule released, Timberwolves will be featured on 25 nationally televised games

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