The Dallas Mavericks and Minnesota Timberwolves meet for Game 1 of the West finals at the Target Center tonight. The ‘Wolves got here by knocking off the defending champions in a historic Game 7 comeback, while the Mavs put away the No. 1 seed in six games. It was two wholly impressive performances, and it sets up a highly intriguing battle for a trip to the finals.
Game 1 is just about to tip off, at 8:30 p.m. ET, so grab a streaming option from below as quick as you can. The game will be televised on TNT, but if you don’t have cable and you want a way to stream the NBA playoffs, we’ve broken down all the options for watching the Mavs vs Timberwolves live online.
Sling TV is the cheapest way to watch a live stream of the NBA playoffs.
The “Sling Blue” channel package is all you need for tonight’s game and every game of this series (all on TNT). It normally costs $40 per month, but it’s currently on sale for just $15 for your first month.
If you also want to watch the East finals (ESPN and ABC) and the NBA finals (ABC), then you can add in “Sling Orange,” which is an additional $15 for your first month. That’s just $30 total to watch every remaining game of the playoffs, and there’s no single streaming service with these channels that comes close to that price.
Both YouTube TV (“Base Plan”) and DirecTV Stream (“Entertainment” channel package or above) include TNT and come with a five-day free trial.
So, if you time them out correctly, you can use one of the streaming services for Games 1 (tonight), 2 (Friday) and 3 (Sunday), and then the other for Games 4 (Tuesday, May 28), 5 (Thursday, May 30) and 6 (Saturday, June 1), and you would never have to pay anything.
For a potential Game 7 on June 3, you would then want to find the cheapest way to watch it, which is either Sling or the following option.
Every game of the Mavs vs Timberwolves series will stream live on the Max streaming service, which costs just $10 per month. You won’t be able to watch any of the East finals or NBA finals this way, so that’s why we have Sling slightly ahead as a single option, but if you don’t count free trials (Max doesn’t have one), this is the cheapest way to watch NBA games on TNT.
Moreover, if don’t mind signing up for you two streaming services, you can combine Max for the TNT games and Sling TV’s “Sling Orange” for the ESPN and ABC games, that’s a total of $25 for every single playoff game. You won’t find a cheaper way to do that.
All of these options are restricted to US-only, but a virtual private network (VPN) is a good way to circumvent that problem. If you’re outside of the US, you can use a VPN to hide your IP address/location and connect to a digital server, which makes it look like you’re actually in the United States. This, then, allows you to bypass location-restrictions and access any of the aforementioned streaming services.
NordVPN is fast, easy to use and has lots of nice features. That’s our top recommendation, but you can also peruse our rundown of the best VPN services or the best VPN deals for some more options.
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