{"id":308788,"date":"2025-11-26T20:14:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T20:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/308788\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T20:14:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T20:14:12","slug":"thunder-on-brink-of-history-with-enticing-nba-cup-matchup-against-timberwolves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/308788\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder on brink of history with enticing NBA Cup matchup against Timberwolves"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There have only been four teams in NBA history to start a season with a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/nbapr\/status\/1993741296541094318?s=46\" rel=\"nofollow\">record of 18-1 or better<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>During the 1969-70 season, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/nba\/new-york-knicks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Knicks<\/a> became the first team to accomplish the feat, winning 18 of their first 19 games. Twenty years later, the Portland Trailblazers joined the club, and the 1993-94 NBA champions, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/nba\/houston-rockets\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Houston Rockets<\/a>, became the third team to do so.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward to the 2015-16 season, when the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/nba\/golden-state-warriors\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Golden State Warriors<\/a> did not lose one game in their first 19 contests.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/nba\/oklahoma-city-thunder\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> have an opportunity to join that short list of teams tonight, as they host the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/nba\/minnesota-timberwolves\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Western Conference Finals rematch\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday night&#8217;s NBA Cup game between the Thunder and Timberwolves is a rematch of the 2025 Western Conference Finals, a series that Oklahoma City won in five games.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To this point in the season, the Thunder are clear favorites to repeat as champions of the NBA. They&#8217;ve defeated their opponents by 13 points or more in every contest of their current nine-game win streak.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Timberwolves&#8217; Anthony Edwards and company would love to spoil Oklahoma City&#8217;s fun, but Minnesota is just 1-5 against opponents with a .500 or better record.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Gilgeous-Alexander eclipsed the 37-point mark in four of his last five games against the Timberwolves, but that seems to be a regular occurrence for the reigning MVP against any opposing team.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More NBA news:<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There have only been four teams in NBA history to start a season with a record of 18-1&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-308788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}