Advertisement
Breaking News:

Preakness live blog: Can Mystik Dan win at Pimlico?

‘Fight, fight, fight’: Game 1 proved Naz Reid can get up off the mat for Timberwolves

jace frederick, pioneer press
·5 min read

DENVER — In the early stages of his professional basketball career, you could tell within the first few possessions of his first shift if any given night was going to go good or bad for Naz Reid.

If it started well, it would continue going well. If it started poorly, well, you get it.

Reid would look great one night and horrible the next. The inconsistency made it nearly impossible to gauge what type of player the big man would become. After all, you are what you can repeatedly do.

And if Reid couldn’t overcome a bad play or two early in the game to right the ship on any given night, it was tough to see him gaining traction in any meaningful way in the NBA.

Luckily for Minnesota, the 24-year-old reminded everyone just how far he’s come in the mental and emotional aspects of the game in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinal series against Denver.

After a poor first series to open the postseason and a poor first half Saturday in Denver, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch came into the locker room at halftime to challenge not just Reid, but the entire bench unit. The reserves were supposed to be Minnesota’s strength in this series, and they were badly outplayed through the first two quarters. The head coach wasn’t having it.

“I felt that they all responded, we felt that they responded,” Wolves assistant coach Micah Nori said. “Especially Naz.”

Reid tallied three assists, three rebounds, a steal and all 16 of his points in the second half, including 14 points in the final period to help the Wolves hold off the Nuggets. Sure, there was a little luck along the way — a banked-in three-pointer as the shot clock expired in the middle of the fourth quarter truly seemed to lift the lid off the hoop for the big man.

“I just got it up. I guess I had good touch,” Reid said. “Went in.”

There was no stopping him from that point forward. Whenever the Nuggets tried to land a punch, as they are wont to do in winning time, Reid was there to land a counterstrike. He responded in every possible way Saturday, including to a third-quarter message from teammate Rudy Gobert.

“He was getting frustrated in the first half. I think in the third quarter I came to him and said ‘(Forget) what’s happening, (forget) what happened if you miss a shot, if you get fouled or anything … just free your mind and just be you and just embrace the moment, enjoy the moment, and I promise you you gonna make some plays,’” Gobert said, with a few more profanities laced into the actual message. “And he did.”

Outside of a brief scoring burst in Game 1 of the first-round series against Phoenix, Saturday marked Reid’s first real impact performance of the postseason. He was the first to note, on multiple occasions, that he didn’t do much against the Suns. But that didn’t deter his confidence.

“Every series is different. I think more so that might’ve been a guard series, just how they played. This series could be all-around personnel series,” Reid said. “So just staying with it, just staying solid. I feel like my presence wasn’t felt in that Phoenix series. I feel like I have to do more.”

He did plenty on Saturday. Anthony Edwards noted it may have been Reid’s defensive efforts against Nuggets star center Nikola Jokic that got the Wolves big man going in Game 1. It was as if the physical aggression revived the mental toughness.

“He stayed patient. There’s a lot of growth in Naz, man. He didn’t check out of the game. He wasn’t worried about his makes or misses, he just kept playing,” Edwards said. “He started fronting (Jokic) and we got some steals and he was able to get out, get some put-backs and play off the catch. He played within the flow tonight. He didn’t let nothing bother him as far as the game not going his way, and, eventually, it’ll come to you, man, if you’re patient. And he did that, man. He came up big. He was a big reason we won tonight.”

The Sixth Man of the Year has been one of the Timberwolves’ greatest player development stories in franchise history. Every year, he makes massive leaps in his game as he continues to raise his ceiling and demand a larger work load.

But, as far as playoff basketball goes, there may be no more necessary trait than the ability to push through struggles and continue to compete. Reid wasn’t able to do that two years ago, when he struggled mightily and played sparingly in Minnesota’s first-round-series loss to Memphis.

But, as is the case with most things with Reid, he has experienced a lot of improvement in that area over the past two years. And it showed itself Saturday.

“I just never gave up. I just fight, fight. Kind of how I got in the (situation) where I am now,” Reid said. “Being undrafted kind of got me that edge that I have now. I definitely just say fight, fight, fight.”

And now he’s the type of warrior Minnesota can trust in any battle.

“Naz has been able to be in any kind of situation,” Gobert said. “I think he’s really grown in being that type of player that’s gonna win us a lot of games.”

Related Articles