MINNEAPOLIS — In so many ways, the Minnesota Timberwolves are Naz Reid’s team as much as they are anyone else’s.
Anthony Edwards is the face of the franchise, the vocal leader and superstar who draws all the attention. Julius Randle puts the power in power forward, the battering ram who might be playing the best basketball of his career. Rudy Gobert is the defensive fulcrum, the one most responsible for the identity shift that pushed the Wolves to two straight conference finals appearances.
Ask any one of them where this team gets the audacity to believe it is capable of going one step further, and they all look to the one who was here before any of them.
Naz Reid.
“When he comes in, we just have this mental toughness and just this aggressiveness,” Gobert said.
Those qualities were glaringly absent from this team early in the season. They were not playing with the same bite, the same energy, the same swagger. Gobert said he felt like the whole team’s rhythm was off. Perhaps it was no coincidence that Reid was mired in a funk for most of the first three weeks.
Reid did not look like himself at the start of the season, and for good reason. His big sister, Toraya, was shot and killed outside of her apartment in New Jersey in September, a shocking thunderbolt to a close-knit family. It happened about a month before training camp began, but no matter how much comfort Reid gets from the routine of basketball and no matter how much support he gets from his teammates, it is impossible to expect a clear mind in the early days of this season.
He scored 11 points total in his first two games, going 4 for 13 from the field and only grabbing eight rebounds. He scored in single digits in six of Minnesota’s first 13 games, and managed exactly five points per game in losses to the Los Angeles Lakers (twice) and New York Knicks. The rest of the team needed the electricity that comes from a 6-foot-9, 241-pound big man grabbing a rebound, thundering up the court, then hitting a back-pedaling defender with a crossover dribble before stepping back into a high-arching 3-pointer that splashes through.
have yourself a game, Naz Reid. pic.twitter.com/fZZIS3DmnP
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) November 18, 2025
The Wolves know that Reid’s eclectic skill set is one of the things that makes them unique. Opponents just don’t see his combination of size, handle and shooting ability much, particularly from someone coming off the bench. The rarity gives them power.
Little by little, the real Naz Reid is emerging. He put up 22 points and 12 rebounds in 22 minutes in a 120-96 wipeout of the reeling Dallas Mavericks on Monday night, two nights after he had 19 points in a loss to the Denver Nuggets.
“He’s a starter coming off the bench for us. He’s one of the best bigs in the league,” said Donte DiVincenzo, who scored 14 points and was a plus-35 in 26 minutes. “The way he can space the floor, the way he can handle the ball, it gives us such a unique wrinkle to what we can do. We can play him with so many different guys.”
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The Wolves have been respectful and understanding of Reid’s heartbreak, while also trying to bring the old Sixth Man of the Year out of him. Through the early portion of the schedule, the defense has fallen apart when Reid and Randle share the frontcourt with the second unit and Gobert goes to the bench. The Wolves are giving up 129.2 points per 100 possessions in those lineups during non-garbage time minutes, per Cleaning The Glass. The defense has a 108.1 rating when Gobert is on the floor.
Reid’s shot wasn’t falling — he had a shooting split of 42/32/65 through the first 11 games — and coaches and teammates believed those struggles were impacting his performance on the defensive end.
Things seemed to reach a nadir last week in Utah, when the Wolves grinded through a 120-113 win over the Jazz on the second night of a back-to-back. Reid had just seven points on 3-for-10 shooting and missed six of his seven 3s. Even though the Wolves won their third straight game, Reid’s frustration was evident.
“I keep trying to tell him to not let the offense affect his mindset,” Gobert said. “He can get discouraged sometimes when he misses shots or things like that.”
When the Timberwolves returned home from that road trip, coach Chris Finch made it a public priority to get more from the second unit. The starters were playing great, cohesive basketball. But if the Wolves are going to go on a run, and if they’re going to beat a team with a winning record after dropping their first five against plus-.500 teams, Finch said he needed the bench to start playing with some pop.
“I think the pace should go up when they come in a little bit,” Finch said last week. “It doesn’t necessarily do so. Maybe a little too focused on trying to score rather than just ball movement and all that stuff needs to go up a bit more. Defensive activity, resiliency on the defensive end, 50-50 balls, I think we can do better there.”
Naz Reid has come on for the Timberwolves of late, including a 22-point, 12-rebound performance vs. the Mavericks on Monday night. (Jesse Johnson / Imagn Images)
Everyone knows it starts with Reid. He is in his seventh season and is fresh off signing a five-year, $125 million contract this summer despite not having a clear path to the starting lineup. His name might not be announced in the pregame introductions, but no player receives a louder ovation in Target Center than when Reid enters the game midway through the first quarter.
He looked at the bench’s soft performance in the first 10 games as a personal indictment. He is proud of what he has done here, proud of the folk hero status he has earned in the fan base. Now 26 years old, he has taken it upon himself to mentor the younger players in the second unit, such as Rob Dillingham, Jaylen Clark, and Terrence Shannon Jr.
“This is my group, and this is what we have to do,” Reid said. “I know what I have to do to get us going, whether it’s keeping the score going up towards the positive side, or getting the lead back. It’s how I became who I am, and how I became Sixth Man, and put myself in those (positions). So I know what it takes, and I’ve got to lead.”
Nights like Monday are perfect for Reid. The Mavericks came in on the second night of a back-to-back, losers of seven of their previous nine games and missing a host of regular players, including Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II. They were starting two-way rookie Moussa Cisse at center and just trying to survive.
So imagine how they felt when they hung with the Timberwolves starters for the first seven minutes, trailing only 17-13 while holding Edwards without a field goal attempt, only to see Reid walk to the scorer’s table to get ready to go to work.
He entered the game and immediately changed the energy. Reid hit 4 of 5 shots in the quarter, scoring 10 points and grabbing three rebounds to put the Timberwolves up by 13 points at the end of the period.
that’s Naz Reid. 🫵 pic.twitter.com/rfneK8FbIp
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) November 18, 2025
Reid scored 19 points in the first half, hitting 8 of his 11 shots, to send the message that there was going to be no upset on this night. He was aggressive on both ends of the court, overpowering the short-handed Mavericks with his size and his skill. On a night when both Edwards (13 points on 5-for-14 shooting) and Randle (12 points on 4-for-16) were quiet, Reid’s eruption off the bench was welcome and needed.
Reid also had his third double-digit rebounding game of the season, and second in the last three. That is a sign to Finch that he is not getting lost in the search for buckets, that he understands there are more ways to help the Timberwolves win.
“This is normal for all players. When they’re struggling a little bit, they kind of chase it, especially scorers, and they end up taking harder shots than they need to,” Finch said. “Take good shots, play within the flow, and then keep doing a lot of the little things.”
The shots falling are great for Reid, but he is really focused on finding some defensive chemistry with Randle and the rest of the blended units with which he plays. He has said the onus is on him to be more impactful on defense, starting with rebounding but also with being a deterrent at the rim. Over the last 10 days, Finch has started playing perimeter pit bulls Jaden McDaniels and Clark with Randle and Reid more often in an effort to get more defense on the floor, and it has been showing some signs of clicking.
And while the defense is still a work in progress, the Reid-Randle pairing has a sky-high 134.0 offensive rating, which is a nice counter.
Everyone is rooting for him. They know he has been through hell and back with the loss of his sister. He debuted a wristband with her name on it on Monday.
💜💜💜 pic.twitter.com/Q1qUZ0wAvo
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) November 17, 2025
They know how much pride he takes in being one of the players who can truly make this team a nightmare to handle.
“Rebounding, his passing, running the floor, on defense, in a lot of ways he can really impact the game,” Gobert said. “His mindset really impacts our team and sets the tone of our team, especially in the second unit, too. I’ve been really proud of him.”
Reid understands his importance to this group. There are not many bench players in the league with $125 million contracts. There are not many sixth men who inspire fans to tattoo their name on their bodies. He doesn’t make the most money on the team. He doesn’t have an All-Star appearance on his resume. But the bench unit in Minnesota is his, and he relishes that responsibility.
“There’s a lot of younger guys, so I’m probably the head of the bench energy, just understanding and letting them know that as well,” Reid said. “That’s the philosophy on our end and that’s what we have to do and that’s our job.”
This is the Naz Reid the Timberwolves, and their fans, know and love. This is the guy who can take them from a good team to a great one. He wasn’t the same player he has been and needs to be for this team to contend. As he got dressed after the win over Dallas, the frustration of earlier in the season faded.
“It’s about time,” he said.