It’s all hands on deck for the Minnesota Timberwolves as they are playing the Denver Nuggets for the third time during the postseason in four years. It should be a hard-fought series between two teams that are now seen as being more and more of a rivalry. There’s a reason they were scheduled against each other on Christmas Day this season.
The Nuggets finished with the best offensive rating in the NBA during the regular season at 122.5. While the Timberwolves pride themselves on their work on the defensive end, they will have to keep up on the scoreboard as well. Naz Reid, who has been dealing with a shoulder issue for a while now, is one of the more important figures for Minnesota as they look to pull the first-round upset.
Reid’s shoulder has seemingly been an issue for monthsÂ
It was back on January 17 that Reid left a game early against the San Antonio Spurs with a shoulder injury. It’s now been three months, and shoulder issues have continued to pop up since then.
The shoulder seemed to be something that Naz had constantly favored since first hurting it. Reid seemed to injure it further in a mid-March outing against the Oklahoma City Thunder when landing hard by the stanchion as Isaiah Hartenstein landed on him.
All players go through slumps at times, but Reid’s seemed too prolonged for someone who has been rather consistent in recent years. While the 26-year-old didn’t miss many games because of his shoulder, his shooting accuracy was noticeably different.Â
After that San Antonio game, Reid appeared in 34 games. In those, his shooting splits were .433/.320/.667. It was even worse in March, a month that the 2023-24 Sixth Man of the Year made just 21.8 percent of his 3-point tries.
In his 42 games before that Spurs contest, Naz shot much better across the board with .475/.390/.783 splits.
With the Timberwolves aware that they would finish as the sixth seed, Reid sat out the final two games. In his last two appearances, though, Naz shot over 50 percent from the field. He shot under that in his previous seven contests.
Odds are that the shoulder still isn’t fully healed. At least Naz had a long rest from his last game to Game 1 of the opening round. His scoring off the bench will be needed to keep pace against a team rostering Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray.
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