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.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.